All the Stops: The Glorious Pipe Organ and Its American Masters - Book Review

American Music Teacher, Oct-Nov, 2003 by Benjamin Gryk

by Craig R. Whitney. Public Affairs Books (250 W. 57th St., Ste. 1321, New York, NY 10107), 2003. 352 pp., $30.

When organists want to make a massive sound, the full organ, they pull out "all the stops," allowing virtually every pipe to speak. Craig R. Whitney's engaging and informative book is actually an ensemble of relatively few stops, focused on a quartet of men whose personalities, musicianship and creativity affected the course of organ building and playing during the first three-quarters of the twentieth century. He has set up his narrative as a pair of dueling duets. The first is between the orchestral organ designer E. M. Skinner and his younger colleague, the English-influenced G. Donald Harrison. The second concerns the extraordinary organists E. Power Biggs, searching for a more authentic baroque performance, and the flamboyant Virgil Fox, who slipped so far into heresy as to embark on "Heavy Organ" tours with electronic organs and light effects. Many other "stops" are pulled and pushed throughout the chapters, as scores of other builders, musicians, philanthropists, composers, critics, family and friends are introduced, occasionally in some depth, but Whitney devotes the main part of the book to these four men.

Whitney sets his drama as a struggle for the "soul" of the organ. Nowadays, many might shrug and say, "Who cares?", but Whitney reminds us in the second chapter that during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries the pipe organ was immensely popular. Famous organists drew crowds in the thousands, sometimes more than ten thousand, to the churches, concert halls, pavilions and even department stores with grand organs. Talented musicians accompanied the silent films on the colorfully voiced theater organs installed in many movie houses. So while these pairs of conflicts in outlook do not rise to the level of Brahms/Wagner or Stravinsky/ Schonberg, they certainly did influence a significant substream of American music.

While All the Stops is aimed primarily at organ enthusiasts, the book has appeal to a broader audience. Whitney avoids technical jargon concerning the instrument. When the occasion requires a musical term not likely to be Familiar to the nonorganist, he explains it straightforwardly. The situations and actions of the main players have all the drama, passion and ridiculousness of real life, and Whitney presents them in a conversational and sometimes humorous tone. If some of his conclusions are debatable, for instance that the decline of the organ's appeal is a result of an internecine conflict between the purists and romanticists, or that there is now a resurgence in interest in the instrument, the book is nevertheless a good read for those of us who enjoy the organ and organ music. Reviewed by Benjamin Gryk, New Britain, Connecticut.