St. Paul's Austin organ, Opus 1862, built and installed in 1934, was designed by James B. Jamison, one of the premier organ designers of this age, and is one of the West Coast's best examples of American classic organ design.
Donate to the restoration of our historic organ HERE (scroll down and choose "Organ Fund"). Click HERE to read the Allen Memorial Organ specifications A History of Organs at St. Paul'sby Michael Page, Associate Organist/Organ Curator, and Benjamin Bachmann, Music Director/Organist, revised June 2024.
The first organ in St. Paul’s Church was the Whalley & Genung instrument installed in 1889 in a previous church building. This organ was controversial in that it was designed and agreed on without the advice or counsel of the organist at that time, Mr. W. J. Macdougall. He was so upset with the proceedings that he left his post and refused to play the new organ. It seems that, in his opinion at least, it was compromised by the use of certain shortcuts in design and construction that were not unusual for less expensive organs of that era. Acolytes active prior to 1934 remember the old organ, which the organist approached by crawling up through a hole in the Sacristy ceiling. This organ was advertised about and finally found its way into another Episcopal church on the Peninsula. St. Paul’s Church installed Austin Organ Company Opus 1862 in 1934 to much acclaim and celebration. Major organists of the day, including the famous Parisian organist and composer Marcel Dupré, were invited to demonstrate their skills upon the organ, and there are documents on file congratulating the parish for the choice of this builder, and the resulting pipe organ. The new organ was installed after visioning and fund-raising by the rector and organ committee of the time. Austin won the contract in the end, but not without some competition from the other most serious contender, the Kimball Organ Company of Chicago. Austin had the artistic edge, though, because of their association with James B. Jamison who was promoting his newly configured Diapason Chorus. This innovation is not a new thing today, nor was it in the more distant past, but in the 1930’s it was very unusual because of its inclusion of upper pitches and mixtures that provided a clarity and brilliance not common in American organ design during the previous fifty or so years. The Kimball specification was more conventional and very typical of the current American style, while Mr. Jamison’s Austin design reflected the “English cathedral style” which he had admired while traveling in England and Europe. Jamison designed nearly identical organs for the Estey company before he left to go to Austins. One of these, Opus 3017, was installed in a Methodist church in Pennsylvania in 1932. This organ would be important to the life of St. Paul’s organ in the future. It is an unfortunate fact of history that changing taste in organ sound was to wreak havoc with many of the fabulous and magnificent organs built by such giants as Ernest Skinner and the Austins, when the majestic voices of these instruments were declared incapable of playing the music of Bach and his predecessors. The Diapason choruses of the organs like the Skinner at Trinity Church, San Francisco, and St. Paul’s very complete chorus of 16’ 8’ 8’ 4’ 2 2/3’ 2’ and two mixtures, supposedly lacked the brilliance and articulation that was popular in the decades after World War II. This happened to the St. Paul’s Austin when it was “updated” with poorly constructed pipework purchased off the shelf from a German supply house. Many of the original pipes were unceremoniously dumped in the dustbin, as recalled by a parishioner contemporary with these events. The resulting lack of balance in the St. Paul’s main Diapason Chorus took a nearly miraculous stroke of luck to correct! The Estey organ from that Methodist church in Pennsylvania was disassembled and sold off bit by bit, and we were able to replace the original diapason chorus’ lost pipe-work with pipes identical in scale and voicing to the lost originals, and from the same designer and voicer! It was a revelation to hear the “new” pipes after they were installed. The Great division of the organ was now in balance again, both with itself and the rest of the organ. The seemingly out-of-place and odd-sounding 16’ Double Diapason left in the organ from the original chorus which really DID make the organ sound “muddy”, now sat nicely under the grand Large Open Diapason 8’ and the rest of the chorus. At St. Paul’s, the organ also had other indignities visited upon it, for example with the strings in the Swell division, which were cut off at the top to make the tone “warmer”, but which rendered them very difficult to keep in tune. It is unclear to me whether these are even the original Salicional and Voix Celeste from 1934, since Jamison’s notes specify strings with “broad” tone, and the current pipes are rather thin and reedy in tone. Thanks in large part to the meticulous upkeep and research by Michael Page, the organ today is in very good condition. In the years before the Covid-19 pandemic, Michael re-leathered the organ as well as making other repairs and improvements. By 2022, it became clear that another effort to complete restoration was necessary to keep the organ playing. After 45 years of service, the console needs to be replaced and updated. Much of the pipework needs to be cleaned, deteriorated pipes need repair or replacement, and pipework previously removed or altered needs to be restored to its proper place. St. Paul’s is seeing a resurgence in public interest, in part due to its offering of traditional services like Compline and Choral Evensong, and others that feature organ music throughout the service. Interest in these services, together with the efforts of parishioners and others who love St. Paul’s and its organ, offer hope that gradually the repairs will be made so that people will continue to be able to appreciate organ music and find spiritual inspiration through it for years to come at St. Paul’s. - December 9, 2009, edited December 11, 2015 and June 2024 SCAN THIS QR CODE TO SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES
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1934: The dedication of the Austin Organ in 1934. L-r: J. B. Jamison, tonal supervisor;
Otto H. Schoenstein, construction superintendent; J. Sidney Lewis, organist, Grace Cathedral;
Wallace A. Sabin, chairman of the Advisory Committee of Organists;
and Mrs. Connell Keefer Carruth, St. Paul’s organist. Photo: Oakland Tribune.
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