The Organ in Manitoba: A History of the Instruments the Builders and the Players

305 Pages·1997·6.279 MB·English

by  James Hartman

The Organ in Manitoba
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The Organ in Manitoba
A History of the Instruments,
the Builders, and the Players
James B. Hartman
THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA PRESS
©James B. Hartman 1997
The University of Manitoba Press
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 5V6
Printed in Canada on recycled, acid-free paper
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, or stored in a database and retrieval system, without the
prior written permission of the University of Manitoba Press, or, in the case of pho-
tocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from CANCOPY (Canadian
Copyright Licensing Agency), 6 Adelaide Street East, Suite 900, Toronto, Ontario
M5C 1H6.
Design: Karen Armstrong
Cover illustration: St. Mary's Academy, Winnipeg, Casavant Freres organ, 1909.
All photographs, except as noted, courtesy of the author.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hartman, James B. (James Barclay), 1925
The organ in Manitoba : a history of the
instruments, the builders, and the players
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-88755-644-2
1. Organs - Manitoba - History. 2. Organists -
Manitoba - History. 3. Organ builders - History.
I. Title
ML563.7.M3H37 1997 786.5'197127 C97-920152-7
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing program
provided by the Manitoba Arts Council.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Fed-
eration for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction ix
Manitoba: The Formative Years 3
Reed Organs 1 5
Manitoba Pipe Organs and Their Builders 25
The Golden Age of the Organ: 1875-1919 49
The Middle Years: 1920-1939 119
A Period of Recession: 1940-1949 157
A Time for Renewal: 1950-1959 169
Recent Times: 1960-1997 183
The Future of the Organ 207
Appendix I: Organ Installations 217
Appendix 2: Specifications of Organs 223
Glossary 279
Bibliography 287
Index 290
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Acknowledgements
THE MAJOR INVESTIGATIONS for this book were largely completed dur-
ing a six-month research leave from the University of Manitoba in late 1992
and early 1993, and subsequent refinements of the text continued up to the
date of publication in 1997.
A number of people assisted my research by making available important in-
formation of historical significance. Stanley R. Scheer, vice-president, Casavant
Freres, Ltee., provided copies of organ specifications, contracts, correspond-
ence, and several photographs relating to installations of Casavant pipe organs
in Manitoba. Richard Greig, chair of the Winnipeg Centre, Royal Canadian
College of Organists, allowed access to the records of that association, estab-
lished in the 1923 as the Canadian College of Organists. My appreciation
also extends to those organists, members of the clergy, church secretaries,
and parishioners who facilitated access to the organs and to church records.
Maureen Dolyniuk, volunteer archivist, St. John's Anglican Cathedral, Win-
nipeg, was particularly helpful in the latter endeavour. Correspondents in sev-
eral urban and rural centres supplied useful information in response to survey
questionnaires distributed to churches throughout the province. Librarians and
archivists everywhere were most cooperative: Alfred Fortier, La Societe
Historique de Saint-Boniface; staff of the Elizabeth Dafoe Library, The Uni-
versity of Manitoba; and staff of the Provincial Archives of Manitoba and the
Manitoba Legislative Library. The interest in and enthusiasm for this project
on the part of all these people is gratefully acknowledged.
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Introduction
THE HISTORY OF ORGANS IN MANITOBA is a neglected aspect of the
musical, cultural, and church history of the province. This book portrays the
panorama of the organ—the instruments, the builders, and the players—from
the mid-1800s to the present.
The earliest organs in Manitoba were reed organs, or harmoniums, and these
relatively inexpensive instruments served church congregations and provided
entertainment in family parlours for several generations. With the construc-
tion of larger churches, pipe organs became the instruments of choice: the first
installation occurred in 1875. Instruments representative of 28 pipe organ
builders in Canada, the United States, England, and Europe are to be found in
Manitoba; a few of the imports from the United States are now over a century
old, and a number of Canadian-made organs are approaching the centennial
mark in age. The documentation of the specifications of these instruments
reveals changing concepts of tonal design, which in turn can be related to the
type of organ music played and heard by early generations. Because theatre
organs were part of the popular musical culture, some reports of these instru-
ments and their players have been included. At least a dozen Winnipeg movie
theatres, and a few in Manitoba towns, acquired pipe organs in the early dec-
ades of the century, but much of the relevant information concerning them
has been lost. The few organs in funeral chapels and educational institutions
have been documented in the inventory of installations.
The information concerning the instruments, the builders, the players,
and their public reception, assembled from survey questionnaires, newspaper