Visited a 1923(?) Austin Organ

[rjsilva]

Yesterday I visited an organ made by the Austin Organ Company, from maybe 1923. It was in a very nice old stone church with beautiful dark wood ceilings which were high and angled, stone/tile/wood floors, old wood pews, etc. The organ itself has been neglected and many things didn't function, but not like the frankenorgan I visited a little while ago.

One interesting thing about the organ is that it has a resultant 32' stop. The second octave played either the diapason 16' or bourdon 16' (can't remember which one) one octave lower and the lowest octave played that same octave, but I presume that lowest octave was meant to be combined with another stop (or the same stop with a 5th?) although nothing else sounded. I wonder what it would have sounded like had it been working properly. Another interesting thing is the angled pipes (see photo) which I'm guessing is for the bourdon 16'. I've never seen an angled pipe before.

I think this organ could have been decent if it were in good shape. The music director, recently hired, is going to have it assessed for repair.

The console:




The organ loft at the front, the pipe chamber was on the other side to the right beyond the edge of the photo:



The angled pipes, there were three or more stacked above this one:



In the pipe chamber:

[myorgan]

Thank you for sharing about this organ. Hopefully, it doesn't end up on the pipe organ scrap heap. Generally these organs are worth saving.

Michael

P.S. I think I missed the angled pipe in your photo, but generally angled pipes are mitered. It's not an uncommon practice when in a tight space.

[Pipeorganbuilder]

The angled pipe appears to be one of the Bourdon pipes that had to be mitered due to space limitations.

[Terpodion]

Very nice. I hope it gets restored. There are not many unaltered Austins like this. We service one which is about that age and you can see the fingerprints of Robert Hope-Jones all over it. He worked for Austin for about 18 months (correct me if I err) and his influence turned up in pencil thin strings, the diapasons with high, narrow mouths with leathered lips, big flutes, higher pressures and the stop key consoles. They are wonderful instruments if you know what to do with them.

[solovoxhumana]

Excellent! I absolutely love Austin pipe organs especially since one can tour inside the pipe chest.

[michaelhoddy]

pencil thin strings, the diapasons with high, narrow mouths with leathered lips, big flutes, higher pressures and the stop key consoles. They are wonderful instruments if you know what to do with them.

In balance though, this pretty much reflected just about every American builder to greater or lesser extents in the 1910's to the early part of the 1930's, not just Austin. By most accounts, Hope-Jones and the Austins had a very contentious relationship for the brief time he was there, but his influence and the influence of the nascent symphonic-orchestral movement in organ building met its extremes in many 1920's-era organs by many builders.

I once played a 1927 Austin that was essentially a larger version of the same thing. Well-constructed, but definitely an acquired taste- quite beyond E.M. Skinner's ideas of "symphonic" to the point of being a special-purpose instrument. No flues above a pair of hooty 4' Flutes in two of the manuals, leathered lips, high cutups abounding, teeny buzzy strings, Vox in a box, and so on!