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Where before the Great division of the organ had seven ranks, it had now eleven. To provide for this expanded division adequately, we built a new, larger reservoir. The rest of the organ’s wind system was rebuilt and reengineered as the new design required.
In the dealing with the Swell division, again certain decisions seemed obvious. The only marginally useful 4’ Rohr Shalmei was replaced with an 8’ Oboe, expertly voiced by Sam Hughes. Proceeding as she did in the Great, Holly revoiced all of the existing Swell flues and the voiced the new pipework for the Swell flute chorus, which was completed to 1 3/5’ pitch. The existing Trompette was kept, though carefully cleaned up and regulated in a ooperative effort between Sam and Holly.
In our recently expanded East Hampton shop I concentrated on the construction of the console, while our shop foreman John Williams constructed new windchests whose design was first developed for our organ at St. Ann’s in Bridgehampton. The unusually short feet of the 8’ flute basses made for some interesting pipesetting. New offset chests were provided for everything save the original Pedal Subbass, a mammoth mahogany affair that only needed rebuilding.
The new console was based on our current terrace-jamb design with several embellishments. Improvements on the existing design include a slightly deeper cabinet with an added horizontal stile, raised panel work, additional applied moldings, hand- carved brackets, a two-piece knee panel and solid walnut music desk, the latter being picture framed with the same quarter-sawn white oak used for the carcass and façade.
The console features an integrated solid-state capture and control system with fully programmable features, MIDI interface and our standard complement of rear-fulcrum keyboards with basswood levers. The oblique drawknob heads are a reproduction of our 19th Century design. Respected organists who have played it have described our console at Westport as “elegant and comfortable.”
Our design of the façade was in part born of necessity. Since both the manual and pedal principal stops were being rescaled, new bass pipes would be required. We naturally needed to make the most of the existing chamber space, and one of the simplest ways to do that was by moving the basses of these stops out into a façade.
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