My Miss Cassie ...
... is a 1957 instrument, tonal design and finishing by Stephen Stoot and one of his very last instruments before he was replaced by newcomer and Baroque "nut" Lawrence Phelps. And Thank God for that. Even when the Baroque "revival" was in its heyday I did not like those squeaky, clattery, pooting, shivering instruments! I must say, Bach would be hard pressed to find any stops he was familiar with on most "period authentic" German Baroque organs!
This discussion is probably borrrrrring to everyone but organists, but if I may explain in a nutshell:
Organs of Bach's time were characterized by clarity of sound, with the pipework contained in visible wooden casework that focused and directed the sound. The keys and stop controls were directly connected to the wind chests that contained the pipes - when you pressed a key you were physically moving a valve that would let air into a hole under the corresponding pipe(s). This type of action is called "mechanical" or "tracker" action.
There was obviously a practical limit to the size that a pipe organ could be due to the sheer physics involved -- the more stops that are engaged, the more valves you are moving with your fingers until it becomes a physical impossibility.
Enter the discovery of electricity and then the Industrial Revolution. At the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century, it was discovered that the valves under the pipes could be controlled electrically with magnetic switching devices similar to the old phone company switching systems (and in fact the two greatly resembled one another).
Now, with the engaging of pipes requiring no more pressure to play one pipe than to play a thousand, and with the keyboards no longer having to be connected directly to the windchests, organs could have more and more ranks of pipes, and the pipes could be placed further and further away from the console! This type of action is called, depending on the specific type, "electro-pneumatic," "electro-magnetic," or "direct-electric" action.
This license was of course carried to extremes and abused in many situations, to the extent that there were so many pipes, and were so far way, and often buried in deep concrete chambers instead of within focusing-casework, the sound became more and more distant and muddy.
Thus, beginning in the early 1930s, there was a reaction against the "muddy" and buried organ sound and the issue of "disappearing pipes." Organ builders, led primarily by Englishman G. Donald Harrison and German musicologist Albert Schweitzer began a renaissance into the pipe organs of the mid-18th century. They began studying the Baroque organs built by the great masters of Bach's time, and began to emulate them. Back came mechanical action, pipes within focusing casework and so on.
The problem was that the pendulum swung too far in the other extreme and new organs being built in the late 1950s until the early 1980s were often ridiculously exaggerated and deliberately had built into them the flaws and defects of earlier instruments -- in the name of "historically informed" aesthetics.
Well, it just got more and more ridiculous and more and more extreme to the extent that many "Baroque" organs were horribly shrieky and quacky sounding, and with uneven and unsteady wind that made the tones shimmer and wobble instead of sounding noble, full and steady.
Larry Phelps was one of the leaders of this Baroque aesthetic and many of the instruments he designed and tonally finished -were- screechy, hooty, trembly and quacky! THAT is why I say "Thank God" our Casavant is a Stoot and not a Phelps! Had the contract been signed three months later it would have been a different matter.
Beginning in the mid 1980s, a return to more "romantic" voicing and building ideals began. At this writing, we are generally at a very good and balanced point in history: Most new organs, at least those from major builders, contain the best of both worlds -- and I'd say that particularly in the U.S., some of the finest instruments ever to be built, all things considered, have come to us in this latest "Golden Era" of the organ.
Some new instruments have mechanical action and some have electro-pneumatic, electro-magnetic, or direct-electric action, depending on the situation and the wishes (or whims) or the organists in charge. But overall, we have seen a return to more solid-sounding, noble, sturdy, even-winded organs that contain more foundation and bass tone, giving them the regal and noble sound that makes them worthy of the title of "The King Of Instruments."
More than anyone probably wanted to know, but ... I did want to explain briefly (and believe me this is a very brief summation --- I did not go into any real depth at all!) why I am happy to have a Stoot Casavant and not a Phelps Casavant!
