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The Van den Heuvel organ at the
Holy Apostles Church, New York City
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In 1844 the Church of the Holy Apostles was established; a building site at the corner of Ninth Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street was selected, and construction of a new church, commenced in 1846. The Italianate brick church, designed by Minard Lafever, was consecrated in 1848. It was enlarged in 1854, and again in 1858 with the addition of the transepts, this time to designs of the son-in-law of Richard Upjohn, Charles Babcock, and Upjohn's son, Richard Michell. William Jay Bolton and his brother John provided stained glass windows.
Over the years, various changes were made to the interior of the building, mostly reflecting changing liturgical styles. On 13 February 1922, the South transept was badly damaged by fire, but it was soon restored. In April 1991, a disastrous fire gutted the interior of the church, which has since been rebuilt at a cost of over $ 7,000,000.
The first organ at the Church of the Holy Apostles was built by Hall & Labagh of New York, in 1847. One source indicates that the organ had "two banks keys, 18 stops, 2 octaves pedals," while another states that it had "five Great stops, three Swell stops, and one octave in the pedal. It cost $1,200 and was pronounced very sweet in tone." It was situated in the rear gallery of the church.
In 1859, Holy Apostles established The Chapel of the Free Gospel on West Twenty-ninth Street, "where the poor man and his children might feel more at home than in a church with rented pews." A small organ which cost $500 was installed in the Chapel just before Christmas of 1859. It was built by Levi U. Stuart of New York; however, Richard M. Ferris, with whom L. U. Stuart had been a partner, had died only a year before, and the organ may well have had a Ferris & Stuart nameplate, as did some of the Stuart organs from that period. The mission work did not meet with success, probably because the chapel was too close to the mother church, so the building was sold in 1866; the organ was moved to Holy Apostles and installed in the chancel.
The following year, 1867, both organs were sold, and replaced with a two-manual and pedal instrument, located in the chancel, and built by Levi U. Stuart. That instrument appears to have been rebuilt by L. C. Harrison, New York, Op. 92, c.1886, but just what was the extent of the work we do not know. L. C. Harrison was a successor to the noted New York organbuilder Henry Erben. In 1895, Wm. H. Davis of New York installed a three-manual and pedal Geo. Jardine organ, built in New York in 1848 for the Church of the Annunciation, and given to Holy Apostles when Annunciation dissolved; the L. U. Stuart organ was taken in trade for an allowance of $300, but what became of it after that we do not know. Nor do we know just how much the Geo. Jardine organ was rebuilt by Wm. Davis. It was "powered with a gas engine." The Jardine/Davis organ was "thoroughly repaired" in 1905.
The gift of the organ to Holy Apostles had three conditions attached. "a. Removal was to be at the expense of the recipient; b. Mr. A. A. Wild, the organist, was to accompany the organ and become the organist of the Church of the Holy Apostles; c. An appropriate brass plate was to be placed on the organ case, recording the gift and the twenty-two years of Mr. Wild's services at the Church of the Annunciation."
No one had any problem with the first and last conditions, but the second one did (and still does) seem unfair to Sheldon W. Ball, who was already the organist at Holy Apostles, and had been for five years. However, Albert Alexander Wild was one of the city's foremost organists; it appears that getting him and the organ was too good to pass up, so poor Sheldon Ball was put out to pasture. We can hope that the church gave him a severance bonus.
In 1917, Archer Gibson, the "private organist of Mr. Charles M. Schwab," was "lured to play [for a wedding, the old] rattle-bang organ" at Holy Apostles. "At the wedding breakfast [he] complained [to the Rector] of the organ.
"Through him we picked the lock of the Carnegie Fund which was never known to give save to small churches. The Carnegie Fund objected to round numbers. The old pipes, I said, were worth about $500. Although for a $5,000 organ, we would ask for $2,500 from Carnegie. The chief clerk made it $2,399. I raised the other half and we got the organ."
The new instrument was built by the A.B. Felgemaker Co. of Erie, Pennsylvania, Op. 1247, 1917. It had tubular-pneumatic action, unlike its predecessors, which all had mechanical action, and although the keydesk had three manuals, the Choir was only prepared for, so the organ was functionally no more than a modest two-manual instrument of nineteen ranks. "Unfortunately, in less than ten years, [it] began needing constant attention." A 1926 appeal sought funds to "repair and complete our present organ."
The emphasis apparently was on repair. The organ "had become somewhat noisy, emitting 'statics' not intended by the organist. A lady, somewhat hard of hearing, was heard to say as she left the church, 'What a shame that someone snored through the beautiful service.'" The 1926 fund-raising drive sought $4,500 but raised only $1,473; another effort in 1929 brought the total to nearly $3,000. Further study suggested the need for even more extensive work, and a target of $11,000 was established; a gift of $6,000 brought the goal within reach. But doubts abounded; several organ companies intimated that they would not be interested in attempting to rebuild the Felgemaker. Prominent New York organists were consulted, and with the passage of time, the plan to build an essentially new instrument which would incorporate the pipes of the Felgemaker, was abandoned. It seemed best to have an entirely new organ at a cost of $21,195. The old one was sold for $500 to Grace Church on City Island.
A new four-manual and pedal electro-pneumatic instrument of 46 stops, built by the Quebec organbuilders Casavant Freres, Op. 1446, 1931, was dedicated with a recital by T. Tertius Noble on Monday, 29 February 1932. It enjoyed praise from such luminaries as Lynwood Farnam, who "considered its tonal qualities the best"; Seth Bingham, who found the specification "very well balanced and complete"; Dr. David McKay Williams, who highly commended "the choice of organ and its specifications"; Clarence Dickinson found Casavant organs to "possess beauty of tone, responsiveness of action and exceptionally satisfying and rich full organ.'"
Unfortunately, the Casavant organ eventually fell on hard times, perhaps validating James Treat's dour observation after a trip to England in 1890 that in America, the organ "is regarded as a piece of Church furniture--a mystery--opened with great eclat, praised for its pushknobs, and allowed to go to ruin." By 1984, the gallery antiphonal division with its solo Tuba, as well as a chorus Tuba in the Choir, and the four-manual console, were gone. Donald Girone installed an 8' Gedeckt and Principals 4' and 2' on the Choir, and a Trompette 8' in place of the missing Tuba, and planned other work, but it was not to be. The Casavant organ was badly damaged during the fire of 1991 by smoke, water, and fallen plaster, and it was decided to replace it completely.
In due course, a contract was signed with Rosales Organ Builders, Inc., of Los Angeles, California, for a new 3m mechanical-action instrument. The Rosales firm provided a small electric-action instrument for temporary use pending arrival of the new organ. However, repairs to the building proved to be far more costly than had been anticipated, and Holy Apostles Church had to withdraw by mutual agreement from the contract for the new Rosales.
In the meantime, in 1994, the Dutch firm of Van den Heuvel had built a new 3m and pedal mechanical action organ for Castle Shiloah, the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Mooibroek in Fairview, Texas. The Mooibroeks subsequently decided to sell the Castle, and offered the organ for sale; Manuel Rosales suggested it to the Church of the Holy Apostles.
After lengthy negotiations, Holy Apostles purchased the organ. By that time, however, there was some urgency to have it removed right away, and the builder originally contracted to do the work had taken on other commitments, so could not move the organ in the necessary time frame. Manuel Rosales recommended that Holy Apostles contact the Organ Clearing House, which is usually able to deploy a trained crew on short notice. Within 48 hours, the Clearing House had arranged for the workers and their housing and meals, rigging, packing crates, transport for crew and organ, insurance, and all the minutiae involved in dismantling, packing, and moving an organ. The crew flew to Texas in mid-May 1996, carefully dismantled and packed the organ, and flew home. A smaller contingent went to New York a few days later to unpack the tractor trailer and prepare for installation.
Putting an organ together always takes much more time than taking one apart, particularly if there are any changes to be made. The church wanted some mechanical and electrical arrangements altered. Too, because of the needs of a community outreach soup kitchen which occupies the nave of the church at noonday, uninterrupted access to the organ was not generally possible. However, with cooperation as the watchword on both sides, the installation made steady progress, and the organ, though not completed, was ready for use early in July. Organ Clearing House workers included Amory Atkin, Terence Atkin, William Dixon, Whitney Fletcher, George Gibson, Richard Hamar, Scot Huntington, and Joshua Wood. During the fall, as called for in the contract for moving the organ, Manuel Rosales regulated the organ with the assistance of Scot Huntington. Dr. William A. Greenlaw, Rector of the Church of the Holy Apostles, has seen the project through to completion, ably assisted by Janet Gracey, Director of Administration, Robert Frisby, Chairman of the Organ Committee, and Donald Joyce, Director of Music.
The instrument will be dedicated with a recital to benefit the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, at 8 p.m. on 3 March 1997. The recitalist will be Ben van Oosten, Organist at the "Grote Kerk" in The Hague, and a renowned recording artist.
For ticket information please contact the church at 212/807-6799. Addtional recitals will follow in the spring.
I am indebted to Janet Gracey and Stephen Pinel, Archivist of the Organ Historical Society, for providing most of the material on which this article is based.
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Instruments | Holy Apostles Church, NYC | The Northeast Organist article