It was brought back to its original old ivory and gold leaf ornamentation, from its previously battered condition where its greenish, Gulden’s mustard color had to be disguised with floodlighting, all stemming from a century of dirt, stains and pollution. The case was designed by store architect Daniel Hudson Burnham and built in 1910 by the Meader Furniture Company, a firm specializing in building fittings. The Wanamaker Organ Case is the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ’s most recent complete restoration, and it was accomplished with generous gifts from Macy’s, from the Wyncote Foundation, from the Michael Stairs Memorial Fund and from friends of Alan Grubb, an Angola, IN, police dispatcher who made a pilgrimage to hear the Organ during what became his final illness. Charles Bower and by the Wyncote Foundation. Seven sets of reeds have been restored and are awaiting funding for their re-installation.įunding for the Solo restoration has generously given in honor of John Binsfeld by the Seifert family under the Barbara V. The chamber ceiling has been coated with many layers of polyurethane varnish, and the MDF boardings are being applied over old sound-absorbing fiber panels to enhance projection of the tone in this very deep chamber. At present, two substantial mixtures at the top of the chest are being restored. Also, problems from sound-absorbing chamber surfaces are being rectified here and elsewhere with medium density fiberboard (MDF), known for its sound reflectivity. As its name suggests, the Solo is primarily designed for melody playing, but batteries of diapasons, reeds and strings also lend themselves to rich, powerful chords useful for accents, fanfares, and bold statements.īecause we plan to restore divisions from the top of the Main Chamber down (to keep dirt from restoration activities falling into cleaned reeds), a total chamber restoration is high on the priority list. By way of comparison, the substantial organ in the Philadelphia Cathedral Basilica uses has only 14 more sets of pipes. The Solo division by itself has 51 ranks and is the size of a well-equipped church organ. This results in both a sluggish playing action and random notes coming from stops that are turned off. If enough pneumatics are torn, it weakens the playing signal for each note and pressurizing chambers of stops that are turned off. Aged pneumatics (mechanical bellows working on air pressure differences) can tear and leak wind. The Solo is prone to high-pressure ventil-chest problems. The enclosure of upper floors of the Grand Court in glass has given the room a wonderful reverberance it never before possessed. Now their tone can sing into the room unimpeded.Ĭurt also redesigned the Christmas Light Show with figures that allow sound through the panels, and replaced the heavy draperies with a sound-friendly scrim backdrop. Matt Taft advanced to Head Curator in 2020.ĭuring the ongoing century, the prime mover and architect of our restoration has been our brilliant curator Curt Mangel, who has designed an ingenious blower humidification system, created a versatile relay system, brilliantly restored chests, divisions and percussion stops, and has liberated portions of the organ that were formerly buried behind pipes or architecture. Please consider joining the Friends to advance our work. Increased public giving also entitles us to increased grant amounts., and encourages Macy’s to continue its generous involvement. Our restoration program is based on private giving, and the more the Friends receives the more it is able to accomplish. The more of the organ that is restored, the more our crew can focus on pure wholesale restoration.īecause disturbed dirt and dust travels downward, and because reed pipes are sensitive to any particles that land on their moving tongues, restoration in the Main Chamber is being done from the top down so that expensive reed cleaning does not need to be re-done because of activity going on above. That cuts down on costly expeditions to the far corners of the instrument to to make small but time-consuming repairs to randomly failing parts. Since the Friends was founded 29 years ago, our goal has been to completely restore a whole section of the Organ at a time, so that each restored unit is completely renewed and entirely dependable. R estoration is a continuous artistic obligation for an instrument of the exceptional magnitude and beauty possessed by the Wanamaker Organ. , Restoring a Priceless Masterpiece Section by Section:
0 kommentar(er)
