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The Ruffatti in Wayne, PA

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  • The Ruffatti in Wayne, PA



    Since my first post about the Ruffatti in Florida went so well, I figure I might as well ask my second question about the Ruffatti in Wayne, PA. Does anybody know how the fire started that burned the church down? They had an older Ruffatti that I worked on quite a number of times (I even got to unscrew one of the 32' Bombarde pipes once! :O They were wood, and "enchamade"! :D They were laying on the floor of the great! :)Mitered once,to bend around - the open end of the pipe spoke directly into the church! :D I really didn't like that 32' Bombarde, because it wasn't powerful enough. The new one is very powerful, metal, and only half length, and mitered like a pretzel! :O But it sounds GREAT! :D I would also like to get the specifications for both organs.
    This all happened WAY before computers, about 20 years ago, and I can't find out anything about this on the net. Thereare references to it in thebiography of Virgil Fox["Virgil Fox (The Dish): An Irreverent Biography of the Great American Organist"]. I hope you can be of more help.




    The organs are not that great, and definitely NOT worth hearing. The room they are in is EXTREMELY dry, and they sound horrible! There is no reverb at all, in either church (the church had to be rebulit from the ground up. It was reduced to ashes! :O) (Organ"S" and Churche"S" refer to the church that burned down and the organ that burned down, and the new ones, that stand in the same place. The church is so acoustically dry that they were CRAZY to put a pipe organ in there! Only a good electronic organ with *LOTS* of REVERB would work at all. But it is a wealthy area, and I guess they wanted the status of having a pipe organ.




    So... I want the specifications on both organs, and does anybody know how the fire started that burned the church and the Ruffatti to the ground?




    Many thanks! ~Cindy! :)



  • #2
    Re: The Ruffatti in Wayne, PA



    What is the name of the church?




    John

    John
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    • #3
      Re: The Ruffatti in Wayne, PA



      [quote user="CindyBradyTooh"]They had an older Ruffatti that I worked on quite a number of times[/quote]That was actually the first Ruffatti installation in the USA - I believe the church was St. Mary's.




      My church would have had the secondRuffatti in the US had it not been for a change of plans.




      That was all way before my time (I was barely a toddler [:)] ), but I have possession of the original organ committee's notes when they toured the Wayne installation.




      Sorry I don't know any more about it.

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      • #4
        Re: The Ruffatti in Wayne, PA

        Saint Mary's Episcopal Church
        Louella Avenue and Lancaster Pike
        Wayne, PA 19087
        (Right outside Philadelphia.)

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        • #5
          This organ was rebuilt about ten years ago by Peter Luley of Pittsburgh. A division in the south transept was added. The console was replaced with a standard American-style drawknob console. To my ears, the result of the rebuild is more bland. Having played the Ruffatti several times for services, my impression was that the flue work was exquisite (if a little thin) but the reeds very snarly. They weren't French reeds or English reeds or any other nationality, just
          ugly reeds. I like big 32' reeds, but this one was way outsized. The only comparable one I've ever encountered in a church of similar dimensions is in the Church of the Atonement in Chicago (built by James McEvers in the 1960s). As I recall, most of the Luley reeds are new and by and large a great improvement, even if on the whole the organ has lost some of its former character.

          The church's web site here: http://www.stmaryswaynepa.org/ is down at the moment. It may have details. Gordon Turk (who also plays at the auditorium in Ocean Grove) has been OCM at Saint Mary's for many years. This is a beautiful church inside, spotlessly maintained. Everything in it seems to be kept polished until it gleams. Even the stone tiles on the floor seem to sparkle.

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