Trinity's Organ

The history of Trinity's current organ really goes back to the beginning of the Trinity Parish. Within a year of the church's founding, the ladies of the church held parish dinners to raise funds for an organ, and purchased a fine, if smallish, Johnson pipe organ. The Organ Historical Society database describes the organ as built by Johnson & son in 1874, opus 429 (according to the nameplate, although, according to the OHS database, Ellsworth's The Johnson Organs (1984) lists it as opus 432).

The organ itself had two manuals, 13 stops, and 13 ranks of pipes. The OHS database describes it as having mechanical key action --known as a "slider" console.

The years passed, and as far as we have been able to determine the little organ was well cared for and served the parish well. The fact that Charles W. Barnum, son of Trinity founder Senator W. H. Barnum constituted a music committee of one, and had the personal and corporate resources to maintain it no doubt contributed to this. It is noteworthy that when the church was substantially renovated in 1900 no mention of any improvements or repairs to the organ is mentioned in surviving records while major changes were made elsewhere in the building.

However, the economics of the parish weakened significantly with the bankruptcy of Barnum and Richardson Company in 1917 and subsequent collapse of the iron industry in Lime Rock, and the parish came to realize that they were not financially able to afford to maintain the organ. Thus, again according to the OHS database, in 1958 it was sold to Robert A. Lehmann, for his residence in New Marlborough, MA. In the course of the reinstallation at his home, the organ was electrified. Further research is needed to determine if the sale was during the Rectorate of Fr. Lockhart or Fr. Macintosh, since both served Trinity during that year.

Here the history becomes murky. A recent (9/7/2011) e-mail from Jack Drake, who was the Trinity organist during the earlier years of the Rectorate of the Rev. Bruce E. LeBarron (1964 - 1969) provides much additional information, adding both a new chapter to the history of organs at Trinity and something of a mystery that remains to be resolved.

Mr. Drake reveals that when he arrived at Trinity there was a pipe organ in place with the builder's plate reading "Clark & Fenton, Nyack, New York". The organ was electric (not tracker), and he notes that there was an organ screen erected in front of the alcove where both the Clark & Fenton organ and the recently departed Johnson resided. The Clark & Fenton organ was news to us! We hope to learn more about its acquisition by Trinity, happening as it must have between 1958 and 1964. This is our current mystery.

Mr. Drake was also managing the Hammond Organ studios in Waterbury when he was at Trinity, and sold a concert model Hammond to Trinity in 1965. He notes that he used the "celeste setting of Leslie speaker cabinet to diffuse the sound in the chancel." In our photographic archives the Hammond organ can be seen in as it appeared in1972. He purchased the Clark & Fenton organ from Trinity for installation in his own home, and subsequently (1972) in his office in Bar Harbor, Maine, where it still is.

The Hammond appears to have been successful for several years. However, at some point during the Rectorate of the Rev. Newton Howden (1969 - 1985) it appears to have failed. There is anecdotal evidence that at this point Fr. Howden resorted to a reel to reel tape recorder of organ music, with the speakers and recorder deck located in back of the organ screen that had not quite hidden the pipes of the Clark & Fenton organ, and that operating the tape recorder remotely from the altar may have not been as successful as hoped.

Mr. Lehmann, the purchaser of the Johnson organ back in 1958, then came back into the picture posthumously. He had willed the Johnson to Trinity (perhaps aware that Trinity had experienced some failures in the organ department) and in 1982, Fr. Howden's tape recorder was retired and the Johnson reinstalled. According to the OHS database, the Johnson was rededicated in March 1983, with the late Roger Claiborne, music director of the Hotchkiss School, as the organist. According to the OHS database, Gordon Auchincloss was the re-installer of the Johnson at Trinity.

The old Johnson organ had been reinstalled in its familiar place, including the new console that Mr. Lehmann had installed, which was near the East wall of the chancel, and the old tracker console was stored above the rafters in the parish garage. The organ screen that had hidden the Clark & Fenton, no longer needed to hide the organ (the Johnson had a rank of decorated -- and operational -- blue pipes that fulfilled that function) was redeployed to hide the pipes and sound chest from the north side, where the passage to the Walker Hall complex made it a more public area than it had been before the organ's departure in 1958.

Whether due to lack of financial resources or lack of will, the congregation was still unable to afford to maintain the Johnson organ properly, and the passing years took their toll on the instrument, making it increasingly unreliable. At the same time, new fire codes were enacted that made it impossible to keep the organ pipes as configured in the location where it had been constructed and to which it had been returned, as it partially blocked what was now an important exit route from the church. The unreliability brought on by years of deferred maintenance was exacerbated by the public location of the blower motor in the undercroft -- one Sunday morning, curious Sunday School students in a class in the same room in the undercroft unplugged the device during the service to the consternation of the organist and the congregation.

Organ committees were periodically constituted and reconstituted over the years to deal with these problems. Generally they completed their work by recommending that the parish replace the old Johnson with a new pipe organ costing in the neighborhood of $350,000 -- and escalating from there as the years passed. While the fiscal health of the parish had improved over the years, it had not improved that much! Proposals for a new organ were received and duly filed under "dreams".

Finally the fire code violation became a matter that would require prompt resolution, the Sunday School students unplugged the blower, and at around the same time the old organ partially failed during several services, requiring heroic measures by the organist even to get through the service -- and at Trinity we do love our music!

Clearly it was fnally time to act. A new committee was formed to study the situation.

At first the alternatives that seemed to be available were having a new pipe organ built, buying a used pipe organ from another congregation, or having the present organ reconstructed somewhere else in the sanctuary. At the suggestion of Trinity's organist at that time, the late Br. Randall Horton, a fourth alternative was added -- but with serious misgivings: purchasing a digital organ.

For most committee members, "digital organ" meant something associated with country funeral homes, heard playing lachrymose hymns in the background, and sounding like everyone's concept of truly tacky and even downright appalling taste in music. Turnover in the parish and community had erased the memory of the successful years of the Hammond organ a few decades before, and despite the organist's insistence that modern digital instruments were NOT necessarily like everyone's experience of non-pipe organs, it was a hard sell to convince the committee even to consider the digital alternative.

The committee dutifully pressed onward and carefully reviewed the previous pipe organ proposals and even had the vendors update them. The prices had continued to climb with the passing years, with one bid for an organ comparable in size and capabilities to the Johnson coming in at over a million dollars. This bid may have been the incentive that encouraged the committee to finally take an important additional step: to actually go and listen to modern digital organs!!

Augmented by members of the technology committee, they visited several installations of modern digital organs from two manufacturers, played them and heard them played, and investigated their benefits and disadvantages. When the committee submitted their recommendations, a modern digital organ had made its way into second place, immediately after a new (and unaffordable) pipe organ, and furthermore a preferred vendor for a digital organ had been identified.

At the same time that this process was taking place, a major capital campaign was underway in the parish to add space for the Sunday School and to free up some of the public space in Walker Hall for parish and community activities. Sadly, a new organ was not even on the capital campaign's priority list, and thus one more organ proposal was consigned to the "dreams" file.

This time the outcome was different, however. This time the proposal was rescued from the "dreams" file by an unexpected opportunity to buy a Rodgers model 960 concert-quality digital organ for a particularly attractive price. With some adjustment of Capital Campaign priorities and an overwhelming, almost unexpected, immediate outpouring of donations for the new organ from the parish, we were able to take advantage of the opportunity.

Our new organist and our new organ arrived nearly simultaneously!!

The organ was "voiced" on Friday, October 5, 2001, and was first used in a Sunday service on October 7, 2001 -- when the Parish had the annual Blessing of the Animals for St. Francis. Under the circumstances, the organ was cast in a supporting role to myriad dogs, cats, gerbils, ponies, parrots, and other living things that Sunday!

to visit the History section of our website, where you will find more information about our old organ and its history as well as material about the history of our church and our community.

Christine Gevert, Organist and Choirmaster of Trinity Church

Above, Christine Gevert begins to explore our new organ's capabilities. (Click on either of the photos below to see our new organ in more detail)

Christine and Les Inegales offered the first of a series of organ concerts for the community November 18, 2001.

Since our digital organ has been in place we have discovered that our organ has unique advantages that would not have been available in a pipe organ of virtually any price!!

to read a short essay from one concert program about the use of digital organs in Baroque music, for example!

to go to our main music page, where you can see pictures and read about our other musical activities.

Are we happy we made the choice we did?

In two words, VERY happy!

Our Treasurer is delighted to have eliminated the ever-growing expense line called "Organ maintenance" from the annual budget
Our Organist and Choir Director is pleased to have the flexibility and dependability our new instrument offers
Our Sunday School is happy that the funds that would have been spent on a new pipe organ were available to expand their facilities
Our choir and congregation (and visiting choirs and congregations and concert audiences) enjoy the great music the organ makes possible.

We have discovered that our new organ draws people to our church -- especially musicians and those who know a lot about music -- those who appreciate really good organ music. In fact, the more musically sophisticated people are, the better they seem to like it!

On several occasions, professional musicians who have heard it played (who were not already in on the secret that it is a digital instrument), have asked where we managed to hide all the pipes! When we tell them that there are no pipes at all, their reaction is invariably "I never thought that a digital organ could sound so absolutely real -- so much like a huge, multi-million dollar pipe organ!"

We have to admit that before we installed the new organ we had concerns about what it would look like: would there be a wall of speakers, as at a rock concert? The answer is "No" of course, but if this is a concern of yours, to see our page called "Where did you hide the pipes?"

Perhaps the clearest vote of confidence for this instrument comes from Trinity Church, Wall Street. When their magnificent pipe organs (four of them) were destroyed by dust and debris from 9/11, they were faced with the task of replacing them. And, as noted elsewhere on the site, the choir of "Big Trinity" visits "Little Trinity" annually when they are in the area for a retreat, and has done so since 2002. That choir, and their director, Dr. Owen Burdick, first heard our digital organ on their initial (2002) visit.

We at "Little Trinity" were flattered to find that Trinity Wall Street, too, chose to install a digital organ from Marshall Ogletree. to see the article on Trinity Wall Street's website about THEIR new digital organ! Or, to read an article from the New York Times of September 10, 2003, about their new instrument.

The New Yorker of September 11, 2006 provides additional information about the status of Trinity Wall Street's digital organ. The article notes that when "Big Trinity" installed their digital in late 2003 it was viewed as an interim solution. However, the solution is no longer an interim one! Dr. Burdick demonstrated their digital to the American Guild of Organists (AGO) convention in Chicago, where it received a standing ovation from what is unquestionably the hardest audience in America to convince of the quality of an organ. Burdick also noted "It can do a lot of things a pipe organ can't."

Now, in 2007, we have learned that Trinity Wall Street has made their Marshall Ogletree organ their permanent instrument!

We don't really know just how much Trinity Wall Street's experience here at Trinity Lime Rock in 2002 had to do with their decision to take the highly visible step of "going digital." We hope that our experience did provide them with encouragement in what for them was a far more difficult and risky decision than it was for us. And we are grateful that Trinity Wall Street's choir has returned to us every year since their first hearing of our digital organ.

Below are the specifications of our Rodgers Organ from Marshall Ogletree. We remain excited about it, and we hope that you, too, will come and hear our new organ!!

Trinity's current organ is the latest of five!

Offering Companionship Along The Way

Trinity Episcopal Church, 484 Lime Rock Road, Lakeville, Connecticut!