Blog

SS. Simon and Jude Cathedral
Phoenix, Arizona
Peragallo Organ Company
Paterson, New Jersey

by John Peragallo IV

View an enlarged cover
View the Stop List 

“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.”
–Daniel Burnham

As organbuilders, we are uniquely privileged to experience many rewarding moments in the process of seeing a new pipe organ come to life. Those moments are all the more amplified when this process includes a vibrant ministry that will realize the full potential of the new instrument. From our first interactions with the staff and organ committee at the Cathedral of SS. Simon and Jude, we sensed that the pipe organ was going to serve as the cornerstone of sacred music within the Diocese of Phoenix. The pipe organ would need to musically support and visually complement a refreshingly unapologetic traditional ministry of sacred music. The organ’s timbres would need to function in both humble and glorifying ways to illuminate to the congregant the power through which chant, hymnody, and improvisation can reveal the sacred mystery.

We were immediately in awe of the unwavering faith of this congregation. People of all ages line around the church waiting to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation; parishioners crawl on hands and knees down the middle aisle to beg forgiveness; there is a perpetual procession of groups gathering to recite the rosary—all attest to the tremendous faith of the people of this special place. The large cross that adorned the altar of Sun Devil Stadium during the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1987 is now a familiar beacon as you approach the cathedral. With this steadfast faith and this prominent cross as a starting point, we set out to design an organ to enrich this parish.

The organ’s tonal design is the collaborative effort of John Peragallo III, Mark Husey, consultant for the project, and Matthew Meloche, the director of sacred music at SS. Simon and Jude. The specification is in keeping with the tonal concepts and philosophies you can expect of a Peragallo instrument. Each division is tonally complete and features a wealth of foundation stops. The gallery casework showcases an unenclosed Grand-Orgue, expressive Positif and Récit divisions, and a substantial Pédale. An Antiphonal division provides pitch and accompaniment for the song leader and serves as a counterpoint to the Grand-Orgue. The Solo provides easy keyboard access to the chamades and a plethora of solo color.

Each division possesses not only the requisite tools one would expect to see but also several noteworthy perks.

At the urging of the consultant, we have included a manual Flûte Conique 32′ digital voice. The overall effect of adding this subtle flue to the chorus is most favorable in executing French music from both the Classical and Romantic schools. The Grand-Orgue is also equipped with softer accompanimental stops from the expressive divisions to offer a seamless crescendo and versatility in registration.

The Positif expressif houses the powerful Tromba Magna. This high-pressure reed, fitted with German tapered shallots that are modified with a straight bore, benefits from the extremely effective expression of the Positif chamber. When adding the Tromba to the chorus with the box closed, it can serve as bigger chorus reed. At full open, the Tromba broadens the Grand Jeu while not overpowering the balance of the ensemble.

Another notable inclusion is the large-scale 8′ Corno di Bassetto in the Récit division. Sitting alongside the traditional Hautbois and Trompette, this throaty color is available at 16 pitch on the Solo. The Récit also includes a Sept/Neuf (1 1 ∕ 7′ and 8 ⁄ 9′) that imparts a reedy shimmer to the full chorus and also serves as part of the collective Cornet à la neuvième VIII.

The versatile nature of the organ’s mechanism afforded the ability to create composite stops for the Solo division, such as the Grande Montre III, which is drawn from the three largest-scale Montre stops. Likewise, the Flûte majeure II, Flauto veneziano Celeste II, and Cor de Violes VII go one step in depth and volume beyond their divisional counterparts. The Solo provides access to two collective Cornets, as well as the Tromba Magna, at a variety of pitches.

Finally, the Solo offers access to several colorful reeds at pitches other than those found in their respective divisions. For example, the Chalumeau à cheminée sits well in the Positif chorus at 4′ pitch along with the Cromorne 8′ and the Cor anglais 16′. The Chalumeau and the Cor anglais are both available at 8′ pitch on the Solo.

The Pédale division holds four independent 32′ pitches of varying color and power, and the facade pipework includes both the Violone 16′ and Montre 16′. The Bombarde 16′ reeds are fitted with special bored German shallots.

The Trompette en chamade features English shallots with flared resonators in polished zinc splayed in a spectacular arrangement high in the casework.

The digital makeup of the floating Antiphonal insures that it will always be in tune with the gallery organ when called upon.

The design and fabrication of the organ’s casework was under the direction of Frank Peragallo. The design follows cues from the cathedral’s unique arches reflected in the doubly curving towers. The sightlines and hierarchies seek to elevate the eye upward.

The organ also features chamber wall designs borrowing from concepts developed for structurally insulated panels that are used in green building systems. These walls perform a double function of keeping the chamber temperatures even in the Arizona heat and creating a stark pianissimo effect when the expressions shades are closed. New techniques for racking were developed for the double curves within the towers and the Trompette en chamade.

The organ’s console design features curving detail gleaned from the organ casework and cathedral ecclesiastical appointments. The music desk incorporates a Southwest motif with inlay of three wood species—maple, oak, and cherry.

At the pinnacle of the casework, a hand-carved cherry Étoile Sonora (spinning star cymbelstern) adorns the case and rotates when activated. The star’s design represents the five charisms of Mary Ward, the five Loreto Sisters who founded the school, and the founding pastor, Father Paul Smith. The Loreto Sisters have faithfully served the Diocese of Phoenix since 1954.

After four months of engineering and planning and six months of fabrication, the organ was fully assembled at the factory in Paterson, New Jersey. An open house was held for the community before it was disassembled and loaded onto the truck for the four-day journey to Arizona.

Ten Peragallo employees flew to Phoenix for six weeks for the installation of the new organ. Each morning the crew drove from their outpost in Northern Phoenix to the cathedral, passing dozens of hot air balloons and witnessing the priceless morning sunrises of the greater Phoenix valley. It took only one week to rebuild the massive organ casework and chambers in the balcony. The console was placed on display on the main floor of the cathedral so parishioners could have a chance to view it before it was raised up to the balcony.

One week later, the initial sounds were heard and the four-week voicing process began. This culminated with the Blessing of the Organ by the Most Reverend Thomas James Olmsted, Bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix, on November 21, 2016. Four dedicatory recitals have been played since, featuring Paul Weber, organist, Trinity Episcopal Church, New Orleans; Mark Husey, organist, Blessed Sacrament Church in Hollywood, California; Jonathan Ryan, organist, Christ Church, Greenwich, Connecticut; and Skye Hart, director of music at St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church, Phoenix.

This installation in Phoenix is our family’s first instrument west of the Mississippi since John Peragallo Sr. took the American Master Organ Company Opus 3 by rail to the Rialto Theatre in Butte, Montana, in 1917. One hundred years and 746 organs later, four members of the Peragallo family and ten craftsmen on our dedicated staff headed out across the country once more. We are proud to extend our tradition and look forward to building more instruments and reaching more parishes across the country in the years to come.

We are grateful for the support of Bishop Olmsted; the Very Reverend Father John Lankeit, cathedral rector; Matthew J. Meloche, director of sacred music; Mark Husey, consultant; Pam Lambros, parish stewardship and communications coordinator; the cathedral organ committee; and all those that supported the cathedral music initiatives and this project.

John Peragallo IV is architectural designer for Peragallo Organ Company.

First Parish Unitarian
Universalist Church
Duxbury, Massachusetts
Andover Organ Company • Lawrence, Massachusetts

By Matthew M. Bellocchio

View an enlarged cover
View the Stop List 

Duxbury, on the Atlantic coast 35 miles southeast of Boston, was settled by some of the original Mayflower Pilgrims. By 1632, a group including John Alden and Myles Standish left their small Plymouth farms and went north to work larger lots along Massachusetts Bay. In 1637, their settlement, having met the legal requirements to be set off as a separate community with its own church, was incorporated as Duxborough (original spelling), the second town in the Plymouth Colony. Elder William Brewster was the church’s first leader. The church embraced the Unitarian doctrine in 1828. The present 1840 Greek Revival meetinghouse, the fourth in the church’s history, retains most of its original furnishings. In 1851, the ladies of the church held their first fair to raise money for an organ and a fence around the cemetery. A Simmons organ was installed in 1853.

The builder, William Benjamin Dearborn Simmons (1823–1876), apprenticed with E. & G.G. Hook and then worked for Thomas Appleton. In 1846, he started his own company and soon won contracts for large and important instruments. By 1852, he had shipped an organ to San Francisco. By 1859, he had sent one to Honolulu and built a three-manual instrument for Harvard University. In 1862, he provided most of the interior parts for the first organ in the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. Simmons was mid-19th-century Boston’s most innovative builder. He was the first to adopt steam-powered factory machinery, C-compass manuals, 27-note pedalboards, independent higher-pitched mutation stops, Pedal reeds, and equal temperament tuning. He also experimented with double-pressure wind systems, ventil windchests, and pneumatic combination actions.

In contrast, Simmons’s small, early organs were quite conservative. His 1853 Duxbury instrument, with two manuals and 15 stops, had a short-compass Swell, an even shorter-compass Pedal (1 stop, 13 pipes, 17 pedal keys), and refined voicing. Except for the 1930 addition of an electric blower, the organ served for 114 years without major repairs until it was rebuilt in 1967 by Andover.

In the 1960s, the Organ Reform Movement was in full swing in the United States. Originating in Germany in the 1930s, it arose in reaction to the excesses of symphonic-style organs. New and existing instruments were judged by their ability to authentically render Baroque music, especially that of Bach. Nineteenth-century American organs, with their sweet flutes and strings, were considered decadent and inadequate. Early on, few American companies were repairing old tracker organs; most just electrified or replaced them. Andover, founded in 1948, was the first to deliberately retain and renovate 19th-century trackers. But, adhering to the Organ Reform philosophy, it occasionally “improved” those organs tonally.

Andover’s 1967 rebuild of the Duxbury organ left the Great essentially intact, with bass pipes added to the tenor F Trumpet and only one stop change: a three-rank Mixture replaced the 8′ Clarabella. The short-compass Swell chest gave way to a used full-compass one. All the Swell flue stops, except the 8′ Stopped Diapason, were replaced with new ranks voiced in the neo-Baroque style of the day, and a late 19th-century Oboe supplanted the short-compass Swell Hautboy. The 17-note pedalboard was replaced with a 30-note concave-radiating one, along with new couplers. Simmons’s 13-note Sub Bass was extended, and an 8′ Pommer and 4′ Choral Bass were added to the Pedal.

Tonally, the 1967 Duxbury rebuild created a mixed marriage of Simmons and neo-Baroque. Today, in Andover’s 70th anniversary year, we would never repeat what our predecessors did there. We are more respectful of old organs and have since done many historically sympathetic restorations and rebuilds. Recent examples include our 2016 mechanical restoration of the 1892 Woodberry & Harris (Opus 100, III/41) at St. Mary Church in Charlestown, Mass., and our 2015 rebuilding and expansion of the 1902 Hook & Hastings (Opus 1883) at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, Mass. (featured in the October 2015 TAO).

Though the Duxbury organ was still in good working order, First Parish’s music director Edwin Swanborn and Andover’s Robert C. Newton, who maintained the organ until his 2016 retirement, had been planning a tonal restoration for some years. In 2017, 50 years after the 1967 rebuild, their plans have come to fruition.

Our recent work has returned the organ to Simmons’s original style and voicing, while slightly increasing its resources. The Simmons 8′ Clarabella pipes, stored for 50 years, were returned to the Great. To make room for them, we moved the 8′ Dulciana to the Swell. We kept the 1967 Mixture III, but revoiced it to blend with the Simmons chorus. We replaced the 1967 Swell windchest with a larger, full-compass 1852 Simmons chest, salvaged from the Center Methodist Church in Provincetown, Mass. Aside from the 8′ Dulciana and 8′ Stopped Diapason, which are original to the organ, all the Swell 16′, 8′, and 4′ flues are from an 1852 Simmons organ removed from the former Unitarian Church in Gloucester, Mass. We revoiced the 1967 Swell 2 ⅔’, 2′, and 1 3∕5′ stops, as well as the Oboe, and added a new three-rank Mixture in Simmons’s style.

We enlarged the Pedal from three stops to five, planting all the pipes on new C and C# slider chests. The 8′ Pommer was converted to a 5 ⅓’ Quint, a surprisingly useful fundamental-reinforcing stop found in Simmons’s larger Pedal divisions. The six low notes of the new principal-toned 8′ Violoncello provide the facade pipes of the outer towers. A new metal 16′ Posaune underpins, but does not overpower, the Great chorus. Tonally, the Duxbury organ now bears a striking resemblance to the two-manual 1857 Simmons at Most Holy Redeemer Church in East Boston, heard in Thomas Murray’s 1973 Sheffield LP recording of Mendelssohn Organ Sonatas 2, 5, and 6 (available on CD from Raven Recordings, OAR-390).

A first-time visitor, unaware of the Duxbury organ’s history, might assume that it has always looked and sounded this way. This was intentional! At Andover, we take great care to design each new organ to complement its architectural surroundings and to look as if it has always been there. We did the same in this rebuild. To accommodate the added Pedal stops we judiciously expanded Simmons’s modest Greek Revival case from three sections to five. The only new case pieces are the fronts of the outer towers. The sides are original, with sections added to increase their height. Justin Gordon of Groveland, Mass., carved the new pipe shades and top ornaments for the outer towers. Our longtime friend and collaborator, painted decoration conservator Marylou Davis, and her associate Bridget Byrne repainted the pine case using “faux grain” techniques to make it look like rosewood. The painted-over facade pipes were stripped and gilded, restoring their original finish.

The organ’s interior is a blend of old and new. The windchest, key, and stop actions of the Great are original, as are the manual keyboards. To withstand winter heating, the Simmons Great and Swell windchests received new marine-grade plywood tables, crosshatched and graphited like the originals, and their sliders were re-shimmed for proper movement. We replaced the 1967 aluminum Swell trackers, squares, and couplers with traditional wooden components. The new Pedal windchests have wooden key and stop actions. Simmons’s large reservoir, whose second set of ribs had been removed, was restored to its original double-fold configuration. Flexible wind ducts were replaced with rectangular sectioned wooden wind trunks. A new high-speed blower, in a silencing box outside the organ, replaces the old blower in the cellar.

Andover’s Don Glover and Michael Eaton oversaw the project’s tonal and mechanical aspects, respectively. Others who worked on this project were: Ryan Bartosiewicz, Matthew Bellocchio, Anne Doré, Andrew Hagberg, Lisa Lucius, Benjamin Mague, Kevin Mathieu, John Morlock, Fay Morlock, Carl Morlock, Jon Ross, Craig Seaman, and David Zarges. The rebuilt organ was premiered at an open house at our shop on August 19, 2017, and resumed its church duties in early November 2017. Edwin Swanborn will play the rededicatory concert on November 4, at 7:00 p.m., joined by instrumentalists, the Zamir Chorale of Boston, and Brian Jones, emeritus director of music and organist at Trinity Church, Boston, who grew up in the church and played the 1967 rededicatory recital.

Matthew M. Bellocchio, a project manager and designer at Andover Organ, is a fellow and past president of the American Institute of Organbuilders. He co-chaired the Organ Historical Society’s 2005 Southeastern Massachusetts Convention.