The Colorful History of the Chapel's Aeolian Organ

TRANSCRIPT

James Todd:

Welcome to Sounds of Faith, a podcast exploring traditions of faith, sacred music, and spoken word here at Duke University Chapel. Music from Duke Chapel's Aeolian organ has lifted countless hearts and voices since it was first installed in 1932 as part of the original construction of the building. Here, chapel organist Mildred Hendrix accompanies the choir and congregation in their opening hymn during a Sunday morning service in 1957.

MUSIC:

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.

The King of creation!

O my soul, praise him.

For he is your health and salvation.

Come, all who hear, now to his temple draw near.

Join me in glad adoration.

Praise to the Lord, above.

All things so wondrously reigning.

James Todd:

The history of the instrument, nicknamed Bertha and later dedicated as the Kathleen Upton Byrns McClendon Organ, intersects with American music trends, colorful personalities, and engineering challenges. That is what intrigued Bradley Bowen, a Duke junior and statistics major. Also a member of the Duke Chapel Choir, Bowen undertook a research project on the Aeolian, advised by university organist Robert Parkins, which led him to visit 40 organs in seven states, and uncover 33 sources for his 50-page report. I'm James Todd, communications manager at Duke Chapel, and I'm here with Bradley Bowen.

Bradley, it's a beautiful organ, it's renowned, but what, as an undergraduate, drew you to this as a research project?

Bradley Bowen:

Certainly something that caught my eye immediately, when walking into Duke Chapel for the first time as an undergraduate student, were the pipe organs. You first walk down the nave and you see these grand pipes of the Aeolian on either side of the chancel, and then you turn around and see this magnificent Flentrop and the golden shiny pipes. It's just something so, so beautiful. And it's so intriguing as well, because for me as a student, it's something that certainly had research opportunity, but as someone who loves music as well, getting the opportunity to play, and certainly enjoy these instruments, was just so unbelievable.

James Todd:

So, they're visually imposing as well as the grand sound. Now, we were just listening to the Aeolian being played by the then chapel and university organist, Mildred Hendrix. Ms. Hendrix is quite a character in this story. Can you introduce us to her? And then we want to actually hear from her from an archival recording.

Bradley Bowen:

So, Mildred Hendrix was from Greensboro, North Carolina, she grew up in the area. And really from a young age, from age seven, she began playing piano and organ. And she studied at UNCG, and then went and took graduate classes in New York and Philadelphia. And then she came back home following her classes, and was back in Greensboro working as an organist and choir director. In 1944, following the departure of Edward Broadhead, who was the organist at that point, Duke was looking for someone else to fill the position, and Mildred Hendrix stepped right into the role. Her character is just so fantastic, and she served not only as the university organist, the chapel organist, but also was a professor of music all at the same time. And she did that from 1944 to 1967.

James Todd:

That's quite a tenure. So, let's listen to Ms. Hendrix here, talking about the Aeolian organ.

Mildred Hendrix:

This organ has real personality. Suitable for the chapel, suitable for playing Romantic music, Baroque music. We have a French trumpet that even Harrison, sitting at the organ, said, "I don't know how the Aeolian Company ever got this French trumpet." He said it was a matter of luck. He said, "This is the best French trumpet in America."

Interviewer:

And who said that, Ms. Hendrix?

Mildred Hendrix:

G. Donald Harrison, president of the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company.

James Todd:

That was Mildred Hendrix, talking about Duke Chapel's Aeolian organ. Bradley, what was her relationship to the organ? She wasn't there when it was originally installed, but she obviously is quite astute at playing it. But she had challenges to face with the organ. So, how did she both appreciate and wrestle with the Aeolian during her time in the '40s, '50s and '60s?

Bradley Bowen:

Certainly. So, when she arrived at Duke, she quickly named the instrument Bertha. And she loved the Aeolian for its size, its grandness, it fit the space perfectly. However, with it being such a large instrument, and one of the largest in the Southeast at the time, the organ did encounter some problems. And so Mildred had to learn to work around that very quickly. Early on, when she began, she had to have choir members manually help pull the stops for her because some of the electrical systems had some issues. And so she learned how to navigate and use the instrument.

But as she discusses in her interview, she loved the tonal qualities of the organ. It has so many things, not only from the traditional churchy sounds that you might hear in an organ, but also to string sounds, and flutes, and tubas, trumpets. Everything that you would think of in a symphony orchestra, it has. And for Mildred, she used the entire organ, and she was known for doing that, pulling out all the stops and making the chapel stones rattle.

James Todd:

You're listening to Widor's Toccata, performed by chapel and university organist, Mildred Hendrix, at her final recital in 1969. Bradley, there's quite a story about how the Aeolian came to Duke in the first place. So, could you introduce us to some of the folks that brought it here, and how the Aeolian Company landed this deal with Duke?

Bradley Bowen:

So originally, the Duke Construction Company and the Duke Endowment were tasked to find an instrument for the space. And right away, they wanted something large and grand for the space, that would fill the room with music that they were expecting to have in the chapel. So, the original committee reached out to several organ companies; of them included the E. M. Skinner Organ Company, who was well known for building large church instruments. They'd just finished a great one for Princeton that was really famous. And then the Aeolian Organ Company, who really, they weren't known for creating large church instruments. They were mainly focused on creating residence organs for the wealthy at that time, including the Vanderbilts, Charles Schwab, so many others.

And so there was initial negotiations with the E. M. Skinner Company, because they wanted to have something very similar to the Princeton organ. The chapel was similar, in some regards, to Princeton's chapel, and they thought that would be a wonderful instrument for the space, because it was so revolutionary. And so negotiations began with E. M. Skinner. Now, it is believed that the Duke family was on a boat, and the Aeolian Company, knowing that the Great Depression was happening, and they were really having some financial struggles.

James Todd:

And they were the underdogs in this sort of bidding competition.

Bradley Bowen:

Absolutely. They were not really in the discussions until an event that happened, where they aligned a company representative, Frank Taft, on a boat that the Duke family was on, and managed to get the contract for the Aeolian organ. Now, there's a lot of speculation on whether that actually occurred, but Mike Foley, who restored the Aeolian, believes that's probably the most likely story.

James Todd:

It's a great story anyway, of really wanting to land the deal, [inaudible 00:08:20]-

Bradley Bowen:

Yes.

James Todd:

Okay, good. And so then installing this organ in Duke Chapel, how did that go? Where did it fit in the kind of organ landscape of the time?

Bradley Bowen:

So, the Aeolian Company began building the organ right after the contract was signed in October of 1930. And it was complete, we believe, around the spring of 1932. And the organ was transported from a storage site in New Jersey to Durham via rail, and it weighed over 58 tons, took five freight cars, and in total, had 7,791 pipes. It was massive. It was huge for the era, so much groundbreaking technology at the time, because the organ had six sections, it had some in the front and some in the back, and they all had to work together to create this unifying sound in Duke Chapel.

But it's also important to note at this time, the Aeolian Company was actually bought out by the Skinner Company before the organ was installed. So, it was sitting in the factory, complete, when the Skinner Company actually bought the Aeolian Company. So unfortunately, the Skinner Company let go most of the Aeolian employees. So, we believe it was a lot of Skinner staff who installed the organ. Now, they had the choice of putting Aeolian-Skinner, the new merged company on the nameplate, or leaving it Aeolian, and they chose to leave it Aeolian. So, it's a very rare instrument, because not only do we have an Aeolian organ that's not a resonance organ, it's a large instrument, but installed by Aeolian-Skinner, the company who we were in prior negotiations with for potentially building an organ. So, it's a really complex and interesting backstory of how the organ got into Duke Chapel.

James Todd:

So, we have the installation of the organ, but then over the decades, there's these maintenance and repair issues that crop up. Let's listen to chapel and university organist, Mildred Hendrix, talk about those in a 1968 interview.

Mildred Hendrix:

The console is completely worn out, and this has to be replaced on every large organ, at least every 30 years, or 35. But the rewiring would not have to be placed. In other words, I can stub my toe on the pedals up there where the holes are in the pedals. But the rewiring right now is in a dangerous condition. Some of the pipes speak and some do not, because of the poor wiring, the leaks in the chest, all the leathers have to be releathered, and some chests replaced, and that kind of thing.

James Todd:

So Bradley, there Ms. Hendrix is describing some extensive issues that accrued over time. How are they addressed?

Bradley Bowen:

The first time that the Aeolian received maintenance was in 1947 to 1949. So, really early on in Mildred's career. Now, Aeolian-Skinner, at the time, who had just installed the organ, they were still a little bit upset that they didn't get to build the instrument, because Skinner employees were mostly still running the company. But Mildred Hendrix knew G. Donald Harrison, who was the president of the Aeolian-Skinner Company, and asked him to come and look at the organ, and make some necessary changes. And so he did.

And those changes lasted for a fair number of years. The console was refurbished, and some of the pipes were replaced as well. But really, just maintenance issues that really needed to be fixed for the continuation of the organ. And then, of course, in the '60s and '70s and '80s, the Aeolian really needed some maintenance. There are leathers in the organ that allow the pipes to speak, and usually there's one for every pipe. So, when the leathers do not operate as they should, the pipes either struggle speaking or they can't speak at all.

James Todd:

When we talk about an organ pipe speaking, it's a pitch, it's sounding a tone.

Bradley Bowen:

Correct.

James Todd:

That's its voice.

Bradley Bowen:

That's correct. So, when the organ loses its voice, it's difficult for the organist to really put together and use all the tonal qualities that the instrument has to offer.

James Todd:

And so, okay, there's the leak problems and the responsiveness problems. So, what are the options, and what do the leaders decide on?

Bradley Bowen:

So, there are numerous options. Mildred Hendrix was leading the charge in having Aeolian-Skinner come back in and really change most of the organ; take out some of the large pipes, and make space for smaller pipes, and also bring the organ out a little bit, because, of course, the organ is really jammed into the chambers. And so they wanted to bring the organ outside of the chambers, and bring pipes onto what we might call flower boxes, in a sense. And that would improve the clarity of the organ, as well as bring new sounds to the instrument.

Unfortunately, that did not happen, because at the same time, there was discussions for a new back organ to model a different style of instrument. So, the Aeolian is more symphonic, and they wanted a new instrument that could play more the Baroque style, German, Spanish repertoire. And so we ended up getting a new Flentrop organ, which complemented the Aeolian very well, because you have different styles of instruments. But unfortunately, because it was a very big project, and again, another monumental organ placed in the chapel, there was not funding available for assistance for the Aeolian.

James Todd:

So, the Aeolian gets a sister organ in the Flentrop, the Benjamin N. Duke Flentrop Organ. And then we're coming up to, really, the refurbishment of the Aeolian, and the instrument we know today, dedicated in 2009. So, let's listen to that dedicatory recital. And what should we listen for here, Bradley, in this newly refurbished Aeolian organ, newly renamed Kathleen Upton Byrns McClendon Organ?

Bradley Bowen:

The Aeolian now has such a greater presence in the room. All the pipes are now working, and they're speaking how they're designed to be. The company decided to take it back to how it would've sounded in 1932. So, it should have that 1932 sound that you would've heard if you were sitting in Duke Chapel on those opening days.

James Todd:

You're listening to Toccata by Eugene Gigout, performed by Duke University organist Robert Parkins at the dedicatory recital for the refurbished Kathleen Upton Byrns McClendon Organ in 2009.

So, let's talk about the Aeolian today in its life at Duke Chapel. It's played almost every day between weddings, and services, and concerts, and demonstrations, and recitals. What is its contribution today at Duke Chapel and in the wider organ world?

Bradley Bowen:

The Aeolian represents something that is very rare among organs today, as you have an intact representation of 1930s organ building, where the symphonic, the theater style organs, were really in style. And you have so many different colors and sounds that you can draw off of on the instrument, and it's not found today in large scale. You can think of Yale, Princeton; there's just only a handful that still remain in original condition. And the Aeolian has this, it has everything that you would want as an organist and some. But it also is so versatile. It can accompany silent films, which the chapel recently did, as well as accompanying the choir on Sunday mornings, the congregation, and of course, playing transcription. So, pieces that may not have been designed for the organ originally, but they can be played on the Aeolian, because it just has such a wide variety of sounds.

James Todd:

And we're kind of holding this back, but not only have you been researching the organ that you also play, and I'm wondering, to wrap up here, we have a recording of you playing. Can you introduce us to this piece that you have played on the Aeolian organ?

Bradley Bowen:

Yes, so this is César Franck's Sortie in D Major.

James Todd:

Bradley Bowen, thank you for sharing your insight and knowledge about Duke Chapel's Aeolian organ, the Kathleen Upton Byrns McClendon Organ, here at Duke Chapel.

Bradley Bowen:

Thank you so much, this has been wonderful.

James Todd:

This has been Sounds of Faith from Duke University Chapel. Learn more about the chapel's mission, ministry, events, and programs at chapel.duke.edu.