All the Stops: The Glorious Pipe Organ and Its American Masters FROM THE PUBLISHER
"In All the Stops, New York Times journalist and editor Craig Whitney journeys through the history of the American pipe organ and brings to life some of the colorful characters who devoted their lives to its music." "From the mid-19th to the early 20th century, organ music was wildly popular in America. Organbuilders could hardly fill the huge demand for both concert hall and home organs. Master builders such as Ernest M. Skinner developed elaborate organs with ingenious systems of pipes, stops, swells, pedals, valves, and keyboards, capable of replicating the sound and dynamic range of entire orchestras." With the evolution of the organ came celebrity organists. Artists such as the classical E. Power Biggs and the flamboyant Virgil Fox developed cult followings and bitter rivalries. Biggs - at first with builders such as G. Donald Harrison and later with others such as Charles B. Fisk - started a movement to restore to American organs some of the tonal clarity and precision that instruments of the baroque period had. Fox and his followers rejected that approach. Instead, Fox started playing electronic organs in rock concert halls to try to interest younger audiences in classical music.
SYNOPSIS
A journalist and amateur organist offers an engaging and humorous look at the personalities and music behind the intricate instruments that once represented the pinnacle of musical and technological achievement. Whitney recounts the innovations of master organ builders, the wild popularity of the instrument in America, and the sometimes-bitter rivalries between flamboyant performers who developed their own cult followings. The study concludes with reflection on renewed interest in pipe organ preservation and performance. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
New Yorker - June 30, 2003
deftly chronicles the twentieth-century battle for the "soul" of this most complex of musical beasts... extols the organ's eclectic heritage.
Christian Science Monitor
Whitney's finely honed reporting skills allow him to give us the
facts without seeming dry or pedantic.
The New York Times
Craig R. Whitney, as one of a thriving species of organ enthusiast whose profession lies elsewhere (as, successively, correspondent, foreign editor and assistant managing editor at The Times), offers All the Stops ''as a peace offering in the organ wars,'' and writes with such unabashed, contention-free warmth that none of the factions could take offense. There is enough autobiography to strike a chord with many an organ fan as he relates his personal knowledge of organs and their music, much of it touching. His acquaintance with instruments abroad is so wide as to give new meaning to the phrase ''foreign correspondent for The New York Times.'' There is, however, an emphasis on New York, its people and places, even some of the contentious moments in its history (why there is no symphonic pipe organ in Carnegie Hall, for instance), though not all the city's notable instruments are featured. — Peter Williams
The New Yorker
In the nineteen-twenties, the pipe organ proliferated in churches, concert halls, theatres, and department stores, and no mansion was complete without one. But today the King of Instruments is a monarch that few people ever see or hear and even most musicians know little about. Whitney, a Times editor and amateur organist, deftly chronicles the twentieth-century battle for the "soul" of this most complex of musical beasts, fought among great American manufacturers like Ernest M. Skinner, a scrappy New Englander who perfected the big "orchestral" organ of the late Romantics, and G. Donald Harrison, whose American Classic model became a force in the back-to-the-Baroque movement. These divergent styles were reflected in the playing of virtuosos such as Virgil Fox, whose flamboyant "Heavy Organ" tours in the seventies were sold-out, marijuana-filled follies, and the dapper, straitlaced E. Power Biggs. Whitney extols the organ's eclectic heritage at a time when the instrument seems poised for a return to the mainstream, and his glossary of its colorful terminology will help novices tell a windchest from a bombarde.
Publishers Weekly
In this lively history of the pipe organ in America, Whitney, assistant managing editor of the New York Times and an amateur organist, weaves a tale of opposing ideas and colorful personalities. Pipe organs in this country were built much as they had been for centuries in Europe until the early 20th century, when Ernest Skinner electrified their mechanical parts, thus enabling them to produce massive sound that could fill theaters and concert halls. In the 1930s, Skinner's ideas were challenged by one of his associates, G. Donald Harrison, who advocated a return to organs built with mechanical action. Harrison prevailed, and eventually Skinner was driven out of the company he had founded. Mirroring the story of the contest between Skinner and Harrison is Whitney's account of the rivalry between two of the best-known organists of the mid- 20th century Virgil Fox, the flamboyant showman who developed a cult following with performances on electronic organs (without pipes) in rock concert halls, and the more reserved but equally popular E. Power Biggs, who agreed with Harrison's philosophy. In the 1960s and '70s, Charles B. Fisk devised a way to build mechanical-action organs that could produce rich, full-bodied sounds as well as the bright, crisp sounds appropriate for German baroque music. Whitney (Spy Trader) admits that many important American organ builders and performers are left out of his history. But by concentrating on a few outstanding personalities and the organs they built or played on, he presents an engrossing story that should help fuel the resurgence of interest in the organ in this country. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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