Performer pipe dreams come true with a new Baroque chamber organ

By Linda Myers

If it's possible to fall in love with a musical instrument, the new chamber organ in Barnes Hall will sweep you off your feet.

Organ maker Munetaka Yokota and Annette Richards, Cornell associate professor and organist, show off the university's new Baroque chamber organ replica in Barnes Hall. Robert Barker/University Photography

The 18th century Baroque organ replica that now sits center stage in Barnes recital hall is a visually sumptuous creation of polished wood and shining metal pipes showcased in a cabinet painted in celestial tones of blue, gold and white. Crowning the tallest pipes, a hand-painted image of King David playing his harp evokes earlier musical eras.

The chamber organ was commissioned by Cornell's music department and hand-built to its specifications in the Göteborg Organ Arts Center at Göteborg University in Sweden. "We chose to have an instrument made that was lovely to look at as well as listen to," said Annette Richards, who along with her husband, David Yearsley, is an associate professor and organist specializing in music from the era of Bach, Mozart and Haydn.

The organ, which is as different from a modern organ as a harpsichord is to a piano, has been described by knowledgeable listeners as beautifully voiced and sweet, with sounds as seductive as Pan's legendary pipes. It will enable the Cornell community to hear what organ music written before the 1800s really sounded like, said Richards. "There's an enormous repertoire."

Until the arrival of the new chamber organ, Richards and Yearsley had no comparable instrument on which to perform, teach students or practice for concerts at Cornell and around the world. "To teach Bach you need an organ up to the right standards," said Richards. While the Sage chapel organ is adequate for 19th and 20th century music, like the organ in Anabel Taylor chapel it lacks the delicacy and finesse for earlier pieces.

The chamber organ was purchased with a gift honoring Dallas Morse Coors, Cornell class of '40, by the foundation that bears his name. A lover of music, Coors had family ties to Cornell that went back to the university's founding. The organ's purchase lays the groundwork for a much bigger project to commission, build and install a magnificent baroque organ in Anabel Taylor. That project, which will likely take several years, is essential to the study and performance of music at Cornell, said Richards. The organ will be modeled on a historically important instrument by Arp Schnitger, one of the great 18th century designers, and will be built by world-renowned organ-maker Munetaka Yokota, who also made the chamber organ.

"Munetaka is a meticulous craftsman and a brilliant organ builder who has done groundbreaking research on how old instruments were built," Richards said. He discovered a lost technique of casting sheets of lead on sand before rolling them up to make organ pipes. Because metal cools faster that way, the pipes have a different crystal structure and sound, she reported.

After visiting Barnes Hall in 2002, Yokota built the chamber organ with his team from June to December of that year, then perfected its sound and took it apart for shipping via air and truck to Cornell. All the pipes were wrapped individually and packed in three huge cartons. Too large for the Barnes Hall stairway, they were unpacked at the loading dock and carried up piece by piece. Yokota flew in from Sweden to direct the reassembling and do the "voicing," which took an intense week, said Richards. "He worked until 3 in the morning adjusting every single pipe, tweaking it just so to make it sound right in the new space. He would say things like, 'The 8-foot flute sounds to me a little too shy' or 'I want it to have an extravagant character,' and eventually, 'It's wonderful.'"

The cost of the new Barnes Hall chamber organ is equivalent to that of a good quality concert piano, Richards noted. The price, about $100,000, is a bargain. "It's remarkably inexpensive for something made with such care," she said, and would probably cost double if made by a commercial organ-maker.

The organ resembles ones used in small churches and the homes of wealthy families for concerts in the 18th century. Up close, the wooden keys of soft boxwood on hard oak have a golden glow and a warm touch. The keyboard follows historic dimensions, four octaves plus a few notes, enabling earlier fingering patterns. "It looks small but you can play all the great works of Bach on it," Richards said. "The dimensions force you to be delicate and intricate."

The organ has four and a half stops and 218 pipes in all, both wood and metal, with a pull-down pedal and a tremulant. "It's very much a wind instrument as well as a keyboard instrument," noted Richards. "Your finger is really letting in air. You have to have a tremendously controlled touch."

Her first time on the instrument was an emotional moment for Richards. "I played a Bach arrangement of a sarabande by Lully, just to try the organ out from top to bottom and get a sense of its character and quality. I put away the music and just played. It was tear-making, very moving and thrilling to finally get to be able to do that."