The Organ Forum

I'm curious if anyone has come across a more classically voiced Barton Pipe Organ, or knows how theatre organs are/were generally treated when being installed or modified for classical/church installation?  I'm wondering if this was built this way, or was a conversion.  The flute is a Gedeckt, and there is no Tibia listed.

I am looking at a Barton which has a rather classical looking stoplist, 4 ranks, and no tremulants.  It isn't a horseshoe console, but there are colored tabs... but then again consoles come and go.

Any thoughts? It has a trumpet and a violin, so it looks like it is a basic Diapason, Flute, Reed, String deal and should provide a decent amount of tone color for a small home organ (which it was previously before it was stored).

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Chris

Allen ADC-6000-D (getting set up!!)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 61 notes Flemish / Harp / Celesta / Quadra / Minor Tierce (to be added to the Allen)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 3x61 Flemish / Harp / Celesta
Barton 2/4 - in pieces

Friend,

I looked into purchasing a 10 rank Barton church organ a couple of years ago.  While doing my research I learned that since Barton only made the wooden pipes in their organs, when they spec'ed church organs they ordered from Dennison and other pipe makers, more classically voiced ranks.  So the likely-hood of an original Barton Church organ not sound overtly "theatrical" but "churchy" is very slim.   If the organ were a relocated theatre organ - all bets are off.

Hope this helps,

Jordan312 

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"Setting at a fine instrument, makes me a better player."

Okay - well I got an update!  It was originally installed in a theatre closer to me than where it is now but at some point was purchased by a Catholic Church and had work done to make it more suitable for church music.  Does anyone know what that sort of work might entail, generally speaking?  I'm just curious if at some point I was to add a few more ranks to the organ if it could be used as a classical / theatre hybrid.

It turns out that the console still has tabs for a Main and Flute Tremulant.  There is also a chimes tab, but I don't know if the chimes are present anymore.  I wish I could find more information on the smaller Barton organs and their consoles / stoplists.

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Chris

Allen ADC-6000-D (getting set up!!)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 61 notes Flemish / Harp / Celesta / Quadra / Minor Tierce (to be added to the Allen)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 3x61 Flemish / Harp / Celesta
Barton 2/4 - in pieces

Originally the ranks were probably Flute, String, Vox and Diapason.  The flute would have been unified at 16-8-4 and the diapason probably 8-4 with the vox and string at 8' across the manuals.  Barton wasn't terribly generous with unification within ranks.  It probably had a toy counter and percussions if it was installed in a theatre.  My guess is that the modifications were; removing the tuned and non-tuned percussions (except chimes) and sound effects. 

If the "modifications" were done by Barton (ie: reselling a repossessed instrument) then they probably changed the naming on the tabs and the "gedeckt" is possibly a tibia but renamed to make it more liturgical.  They may have also added super and sub octave couplers.

It probably is on 7" of wind, which was not uncommon for instruments of that age and size.

Jeff

Jeff - thanks for your very helpful post!  That sheds quite a bit of light on the matter.  Maybe this stop list will shed some more light on the ranks?  There is a straight stop-rail (no horseshoe) which I am wondering if the console was changed at some point to look less theatre like.  There are still swirly yellow tabs, red tabs (reed), white, and black (coupler) tabs.  There are also blank tabs in some divisions on the console.  I wonder if it would be possible to add further unification or some toys or percussion for increased functionality.

The console has resemblance to a small horseshoe console from a Barton 2/5, though that looks like it has more stoptabs.  Would some unification have been removed for church use?

Also, if anyone could comment I was told this is 4 ranks - what sort of pipe trays should I have to properly move the pipes (dimensions, etc would be of great help)?  Are they costly / time consuming to build?  Do organ companies ever rent them?  I would likely need them only to move the pipes and store them for a short period of time until I could get the wind chests set up.

 

PEDAL

16 Bourdon

8 Stopped Diapason

8 Open Diapason

8 Cello

Swell to Pedal

Great to Pedal

 

SWELL

8 Diapason

8 Gedeckt Flute

8 Saliciaonal

4 Flute D’Amour

Broken Yellow Tab - (4' of Salic.?)

2 Flautino

1 1/3 Quinte

8 Trumpet

Flute Tremulant

Main Tremulant

Swell to Swell 16

Swell to Unison Off

Swell to Swell 4

 

GREAT

8 Diapason

8 Gedeckt Flute

8 Violin

4 Principal

2 Super Octave

Melodia 8'

Vox Celeste 8'

Chimes 8'

Great to Great 16

Great Unison Off

Great to Great 4

Swell to Great 16

Swell to Great 8

Swell to Great 4

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Chris

Allen ADC-6000-D (getting set up!!)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 61 notes Flemish / Harp / Celesta / Quadra / Minor Tierce (to be added to the Allen)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 3x61 Flemish / Harp / Celesta
Barton 2/4 - in pieces

Looking at the stop list.  The 8' stopped diapason on the pedal is the flue extension.  I am correct, basically the flute is a tibia.  It's possible the console was a replacement made by Barton as they did make some straight rail consoles (I've seen pictures of a couple of instruments installed in a radio station and a college).  I am surprised to see an 8' melodia as it is an open flute.  Are you sure this is only 4 ranks?  The 16 bourdon, stopped diapason, 8 gedeckt, 4 flute d'amour, quint, and 2' flautino  are all from the same stopped flute rank (tibia).  Aslo the stop list shows 8' trumpet and 8' vox.  My guess is the trumpet is a replacement for the vox on the Swell but my count shows 6 ranks in the stop list.

Stopped Flute, Melodia, String, Diapason, Trumpet, Vox.

Towards the end of operation Barton wasn't building new instruments, but repossessing them and trying to sell them to churches.  Sometimes a new console was built, but sometimes they used the existing horseshoe console. It would be interesting to know what the name plate (if any) says.  Their last  organs had "Maxcy - Barton"  on them (Maxcy was a guy that dumped some money into the firm  to keep it going). At the end they were pretty much using up what was left in the shop. 

The amount of unification that can be added depends on the relay.  There are work arounds for adding unification and stops to a pneumatic relay, but that's for another post.

Jeff

Jeff,

Thanks again for the wealth of information - this is fascinating.  From everything I know so far it is only 4 ranks - I'm wondering if all the stop tabs are functional, but at the same time it would be weird that they were there if not.  Sadly the nameplate was replaced at some point by a smaller, local organ builder.  There is a newer relay, which may provide the ability to add some more stops.

Is it difficult to find or have replacement tabs made?  I'm somewhat curious what the broken yellow tab said, which might have provided more detail about the rank.  I also wonder if blank tabs were added to replace those from the traps and percussion that was likely removed.

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Chris

Allen ADC-6000-D (getting set up!!)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 61 notes Flemish / Harp / Celesta / Quadra / Minor Tierce (to be added to the Allen)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 3x61 Flemish / Harp / Celesta
Barton 2/4 - in pieces

Arndt Organ Supply makes a lot of exact replacement parts for organs. I have bought percussions, stop tabs, Normal 0 reservoir springs, and magnets for my Wurlitzer from them. Hesco Engraving also supplies replacement stop tabs.

I like to play classical music on my organ. There are a number of classical type registrations that sound pretty good. A typical one is 

8' Tibia, 4' Octave, 2' Piccolo for a full sound. 

As to the type of sound to expect, it will probably be similar to a church organ of the 1920's except for a little more "sizzle", i.e. higher pitches and more harmonic development in the string. I once worked on a Wurlitzer church installation in Waterveliet, NY which  had a six rank church model with white stop tabs and a typical church type specification on the console. However, the pipe work was identical to a six rank Wurlitzer theatre organ. I son't know what Barton normally did for church instruments and it has been 30 years since I played a Barton so I can not say how classical your organ will sound.

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Style D Wurlitzer Pipe Organ
http://www.bluemoonwalkinghorses.com/Style_D_Description5_rev2.html

AllanP - thanks for your comments.  I'll keep the suppliers in mind if/when it comes to that point.  I'm thrilled that I may be sitting on the opportunity for an instrument which is functional for theatre and classical playing (and it has pipes!).

This instrument was originally installed in a theatre, so I am suspecting not much was changed given the information I keep getting.  I believe the blower is still on about 12" of wind pressure.  The original information I found suggests 3 ranks, so possibly at least one more rank was added for the 4 I am being told, or maybe more than that as discussed above.

Unless Barton's theatre installations differed from those of other builders, I suspect the organ had some of its unification removed and the console changed - from a horseshoe to a smaller straight rail of tabs with a rolltop.

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Chris

Allen ADC-6000-D (getting set up!!)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 61 notes Flemish / Harp / Celesta / Quadra / Minor Tierce (to be added to the Allen)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 3x61 Flemish / Harp / Celesta
Barton 2/4 - in pieces

Well, we did it!  Over the weekend my girlfriend and I traveled to pick up the organ.  I don't think I realized exactly what I was getting into at first, but we managed to unload the entire truck last night and now everything is either in the house or the garage.

I'll have to get some pictures when I get a chance, though the console is in pieces and there are pipes and chests everywhere.  Some of the wooden pipes have a whiteish film, presumably from the wood giving off sap or something of that nature.  Is this a problem?  I plan on cleaning and moving the pipes into the climate controlled house once we've recovered.

If anyone has more detailed information about Barton I would be very curious to hear it.  Did they assign Opus numbers like the other builders?  Are there any detailed records of the various instruments original stoplist or ranks?  Any photos of smaller 2m Barton consoles would be of interest as well.  The TheatreOrgans database says it is a 167 Organ built in 1927, but I don't know what that means.  I'm also not sure what changes or additions were made, but if I can narrow down the original spec it should be obvious.

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Chris

Allen ADC-6000-D (getting set up!!)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 61 notes Flemish / Harp / Celesta / Quadra / Minor Tierce (to be added to the Allen)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 3x61 Flemish / Harp / Celesta
Barton 2/4 - in pieces

I found some information on Barton in wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barton_Organ_Company

It appears that the company archives are available at the Oshkosh library.

Considering that I'm not incredibly far from Oshkosh, it might be very interesting to peruse the company archives and see what I can dig up.  Hopefully if things settle down a bit I might get that opportunity one of these weekends.

Are there many pictures out there of pipe construction?  I'm curious if the flute pipes are indeed a tibia rank, or if because the organ was originally 3 ranks, if they were just a "regular" flute, although by the time it was built I would have suspected it would have been a tibia.

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Chris

Allen ADC-6000-D (getting set up!!)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 61 notes Flemish / Harp / Celesta / Quadra / Minor Tierce (to be added to the Allen)
Schulmerich Carillon Americana - 3x61 Flemish / Harp / Celesta
Barton 2/4 - in pieces