New Life for A Landmark Department Store Organ in Philadelphia (NY Times)
From The New York Times:
There is a famous organ pipe in a Macy's in Philadelphia, a store once and most famously known as Wanamaker's.
The instrument itself started life at the St. Louis International Exposition of 1904, when the Los Angeles Art Organ Company built it along orchestral lines, rather than according to the baroque organ ideal, as Bach and Buxtehude knew it.
It was a smash hit at the fair, but bankrupted the company. Then it languished in storage until 1909, when John Wanamaker bought it for the Philadelphia store that he was planning to open two years later.
His son, Lewis Rodman Wanamaker, saw the vast, 149-foot-high Grand Court center space in the building Daniel Hudson Burnham had designed for them as the ideal place for “the finest organ in the world,” and 40,000 people and President William Howard Taft came to the dedication ceremonies on Dec. 30, 1911.
Until his death in 1928, Lewis Rodman Wanamaker oversaw successive expansions of the organ in the store’s own organ shop on the building’s roof. The changes were so extensive that the instrument’s “string” section finally had more pipes than most large organs do altogether.
Craig Whitney writes not only about the past of this organ, but also of exciting plans for the future as store, cultural and civic interests have partnered to nurture, maintain and preserve this great legacy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/arts/music/09orga.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
There is a famous organ pipe in a Macy's in Philadelphia, a store once and most famously known as Wanamaker's.
The instrument itself started life at the St. Louis International Exposition of 1904, when the Los Angeles Art Organ Company built it along orchestral lines, rather than according to the baroque organ ideal, as Bach and Buxtehude knew it.
It was a smash hit at the fair, but bankrupted the company. Then it languished in storage until 1909, when John Wanamaker bought it for the Philadelphia store that he was planning to open two years later.
His son, Lewis Rodman Wanamaker, saw the vast, 149-foot-high Grand Court center space in the building Daniel Hudson Burnham had designed for them as the ideal place for “the finest organ in the world,” and 40,000 people and President William Howard Taft came to the dedication ceremonies on Dec. 30, 1911.
Until his death in 1928, Lewis Rodman Wanamaker oversaw successive expansions of the organ in the store’s own organ shop on the building’s roof. The changes were so extensive that the instrument’s “string” section finally had more pipes than most large organs do altogether.
Craig Whitney writes not only about the past of this organ, but also of exciting plans for the future as store, cultural and civic interests have partnered to nurture, maintain and preserve this great legacy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/arts/music/09orga.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
posted by eric model | 6:10 AM
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