B. Rule & Co. Organ in Andover, MA

[solovoxhumana]

Recently, I visited Faith Lutheran Church in Andover, MA to check out their small historic tracker organ. Originally built by E.L. Holbrook in 1899, B Rule & Co. rebuilt major components and pipework before installation was completed in 1996. The organ is mechanical throughout and includes the 1899 double-rise reservoir, chassis and most pipework.

GREAT
Open Diapason 8' (en facade)
Chimney Flute 8' (wood)
Octave 4'
Fifteenth 2'
Mixture IV (draws 2')
Trumpet 8' (LOUD)
Swell to Great

SWELL (enclosed)
Stopped Diapason 8' (wood)
Gamba 8' (1-12 Std. Diap.)
Flute d' Amour 4' (wood w/pierced stoppers)
Octavin 2'
Hautboy 8'
Tremolo (Sw. + Gt.)

PEDAL
Bourdon 16'
Principal 8'
Choral Bass 4'
Great to Pedal
Swell to Pedal


Case


Keydesk


Pedal pipework

[voet]

What a beauty. Thanks for sharing this. I would be interested in your impressions of the instrument. Also, do you have any recording you could share?

Unfortunately I was not able to find any YouTube recordings of this organ, but I did find a recording of another organ by the same builder:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sejcXON3qG0

Here is some information about that instrument.

http://redeemerpres.org/ministries/music-ministry/

This recording from Faith Lutheran Church unfortunately does not feature the organ, but it does seem to have a nice acoustic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz3TVeFqFQc

I wonder if the the Pedal Principal 8' and Choral Bass 4" were added later. I also wonder if the Swell Hautboy 8' was originally a double draw with the bottom octave being a Bassoon 8'. Likewise I wonder if the Swell Stopped (Stop't originally?) Diapason was a double draw, since the 8' Gamba uses 1-12 of that stop.

I would love to hear this organ.

[APipeOrganist]

I wonder if the the Pedal Principal 8' and Choral Bass 4" were added later. I also wonder if the Swell Hautboy 8' was originally a double draw with the bottom octave being a Bassoon 8'. Likewise I wonder if the Swell Stopped (Stop't originally?) Diapason was a double draw, since the 8' Gamba uses 1-12 of that stop.

I would love to hear this organ.

I have seen plenty of stops that have the bass borrowed from another stop that are just the one draw knob without the bass pipes being spit on a separate slide. The Dodd organ at Christ the King Anglican church in Mt Barker has a Gamba on the swell that has its bass borrowed from the swell Leib. Gedeckt and it's one knob, not split.