Sound choices: Designing a pipe organ to suit its acoustical environment

Abstract

A key to the effectiveness of any pipe organ is to design it to be acoustically compatible with its environment. Churches and concert halls all vary in size, plan, seating arrangement, resonance, reflectivity, and reverberation. A successful instrument should have a balanced sound in the room throughout its frequency range, be capable of both warmth and brilliance, and have a variety of tonal resources suitable for both solo performance and accompaniment. The choices an organbuilder makes regarding placement, physical size and layout, tonal specification (choice of stops), pipe materials and dimensions, wind pressures, and voicing style, all contribute to an instrument's tonal signature and acoustical effectiveness. These decisions are usually based on historical precedents, traditional knowledge, personal taste, and experience. The four-manual Casavant organ, Opus 3145, in the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Providence, Rhode Island, illustrates Lawrence Phelps' tonal design for a heroically sized mechanical action instrument intended for a large, acoustically live space. This organ, built in 1972 at the height of the Baroque Revival period in American organbuilding, was intended to be a legacy instrument for the designer, the builder, and the client.