2022 Christopher Soer Organ - Cathedral of St. Peter - Belleville, Illinois

[@Zardman7]

The Reed Organ Society gathering was held in Belleville and I had the pleasure of hearing and playing this organ. Truly memorable!

[@Gg-jq7ht]

What a gorgeous instrument!

[@fnersch3367]

Hats off to Chris. This is the best narration on this subject I've ever heard in my 65 years of dealing with organs. Awesome restoration, awesome church.

[@chrisholley2954]

That full reed chorus on the pedal !!!!!! Have mercy !!!!! It's wonderful. That's what it will sound like when Christ returns !

[@jefferyrowley8873]

Christopher Soer has done a remarkable job with the re-design of this instrument. Thanks to you Brent for showcasing it to us.

[@bryanhardy3311]

This rebuild has been most successfully thought out , the marriage of the front choir organ and flexibility of control of the gallery organ was my dream at our St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney, however they did not carry it out and built a new transept organ , leaving the very beautiful sharp (small) choir organ unused. What a dream installation for any organist and a magnificent organ for any Cathedral.............. Well done Christopher. B.H. (Aust)

[@markaustin4370]

Love this organ!!! Like a big warm hug

[@alwillcoxen1515]

Christopher Soer is quite the organ builder and does an outstanding job on each and every project! There is such warmth, wonderful sound coming from this beautiful instrument...I'd love to sit in the congregation each and every Sunday and take it all in!!! 🙂

[@friendsofthegreatmissionary]

"Well, I have the advantage 'cus I have no idea what a Pommer is supposed to sound like..." HA! Great sense of humor. Thank you Mr. Thompson and Mr. Johnson for the excellent demonstration.

[@JOHN-tk6vl]

Cus?

[@mylesschlicher965]

Wonderful demonstration of the resulting fine instrument. Kudos to all involved in all phases of the demo and renovation.

[@mikemount4411]

Beautiful installation! Love the layout.

[@patrickrichmond9896]

I know Chris from the theatre organ meetings. Chris seems to be doing like what Allan Haker does with the City Museum organ.

[@kelvinsmallwood6315]

Thanks for the tour & demonstrations.

[@phillipreilly1091]

Wonderful sound, just wish the box had been open on those softer stops. A truly amazing job in bringing this back to life and kudos to the organist and parish for the dedication to rebirth this beautiful instrument.

[@evancollins6284]

Lovely

[@neelsdp1]

WOW!

[@Mrmikeytheaccountant]

The setup of the two banks of pipes under the window really reminds me of how the organ is laid out in the choir loft at the National Shrine in DC!

[@mudog35]

great vid !!

[@c-historia]

meraviglioso!

[@JoshuaSobel]

Chris designed the Wicks (6475, I believe) at the church where I grew up. Genuinely great organ considering the constraints he had to work with.

[@markaustin4370]

A masterpiece

[@principals16842]

I grew up with a 1977 Möller and have always enjoyed them, but I have to admit I was apprehensive at the beginning of this video. A 1968 Möller, tricked out with Walker digital stops? It sounded like a scheme sure to offend pipe organ purists, and so few hybrid instruments marry their pipe and digital halves very successfully. But this organ was a lovely surprise! The reimagining of this instrument included a number of new, repurposed, and relocated pipe ranks which seem to blend very well. Given the stacked divisions in each case and the proximity of the upper divisions to direct sunlight, using digital stops for reeds to maintain a workable tuning makes a lot of practical sense. Clearly Mr. Soer spent a lot of time listening and adjusting as he developed this instrument, and it has paid off handsomely.

[@praestant8]

Its not the reeds adversely affected by the temperature, it is the flues!

[@principals16842]

@@praestant8 Yes, but as a practical matter it is the reeds which are typically adjusted to match the flues.

[@organbuilder272]

@@principals16842 The practical matter here is that real stops will last 300 years and more. This electronic crap will last 20 or so. Then, when the equipment is obsolete and there are no replacement parts - what do they do?? The cost of a replacement and the cost of the original fake would pay for the real thing in the first place. The people who advocate the use of this imitation junk are just putting themselves out of business.

[@louisglen1653]

Christopher made a huge improvement to the organ. The voicing is great! The Richard did a great job showing the versatility of the organ. I am sure the congregation sings a lot louder because of the beautiful voicing!

[@praestant8]

... but there are digital voices. How does one voice speakers?

[@louisglen1653]

@@praestant8 Well for starters not all the voices are digital. There are tons of pipes... I am talking about the pipes that were voiced. That being said, digital stops can also be voiced, but I was referring to the actual pipes in the organ. A person doesn't voice the speakers, they voice the WAV files.

[@cindywetzig211]

Wow! Beautiful sound! I never knew it had never been finished from the 1960’s! We have been members for over 33 years! It’s so beautiful to hear each weekend in Mass!

[@praestant8]

​@@louisglen1653 One cannot adequately judge voicing, especially in a very resonant room with mic placements halfway down the nave via a recording. 35% digital is a significant amount for a "pipe organ builder." you cannot "voice" wave files in real time. the processing engine required would exceed the cost of winded pipes.

[@louisglen1653]

@@praestant8 I have done minor voicing on a Hauptwerk organ in a church in real time. It doesn't mean to say I disagree with you and that I know more than you do, because I probably don't. I did not realize however that 35% of the organ stops on this organ are digital. But I still like the sound of the organ, but do prefer organs that are made up of 100% pipes.

[@MrHARDtaHANDLE1]

You want the mixture on the Great? Me: ye...y.. yes please!

[@ErichSlush]

wonderful organ. Take a shot communion wine for each time he says 'point in time'

[@richardnott57]

I can hear running water....is there a big font/baptistry?

[@thewilliamtan]

I'm curious too. Baptismal fountain?

[@djcfrompt]

My thoughts immediately went to a rooftop drain running through the organ loft and a rainy day outside. 😄 Maybe my church is the only one with that particular design flaw.

[@billraty14]

A masterpiece. 6 (or more) ranks of celestes? The Chosen Tune (33:20) proves why this isn't decadence.

[@TheProsaicCult]

roughly 70 or so ranks including digital

[@Willorga1708bux]

What’s the name of the piece at @35:30

[@principals16842]

It's the Poco Adagio (Movement 1b) of the Saint-Saëns Symphony №3 in C minor, aka the Organ Symphony: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gWrRo4OHZ92mars (The title of the video is wrong, but I wanted to find one that showed the organist even occasionally.)

[@richthompson8433]

It's from At the Organ with Virgil Fox; his setting of the Cantabile Symphonique from the Saint-Saens organ symphony

[@Willorga1708bux]

@@richthompson8433 thanks

[@LR-je7nn]

The Cathedral is always locked nowadays....

[@organbuilder272]

Many organ builders - and rebuilders, agree that new pipe organs are going to become a thing of the past. Why bother with an expensive, bulky, heavy, complex instrument when you can go out and buy all the sounds in one package for a fraction of the price. The innovation of electronic voices opened the way for all digital instruments. So organists and rebuilders are contributing with enthusiasm to the death of the pipe organ. Those that exist will continue for perhaps 50 ro 70 years more. Note than Reuter Organ Company, after more than 100 years in the business and thousands of instrument, has gone out of business. This follows Laukhuff last year, Wicks, Kimball, Kilgen, Estey, Aeolian-Skinner, Moller, Hilgren-lane, Roosevelt, and dozens of others. So, speak with delight over your electronic voices and control systems. After all the greatest composers and performers didn't need all those gadgets - in reality, neither do you. Welcome the new trend - praise bands and digital organs - copied from the real thing. In today's world the mediocre is standard. Why expect anything more from organs and organists to tolerate imitations instead of the real thing. When the real pipe organs sit in abandoned buildings, as many are today, weep not. You helped to bring it about by supporting the use of electronically produced sounds. You asked for it. Don't cry when you succeed in putting real pipe organs into the trash bin. There are so many used organs on the market that they are being tossed out. More are coming.

[@praestant8]

Mediocrity and instant gratification pandering to the lowest forms of artistry, if such a word can be used, are heralded with the highest of praise in the US.

[@Geoplanetjane]

No. It’s a fad. The real problem is the demise of congregations and donors for the real thing. No one should stand for this so-called praise music. Sounds to me like predigested supermarket background noise. I do not go to church to hear bar or nightclub music. Also I decry the proliferation of big box generic brand megachurches. Most of these are nothing more than money generators for various cults of personality. The specific organ featured here sounds wonderful in a great resonant space. A sise note here, instead of the fake electronic instruments, I am intrigued with the Hauptwerk system being propagated in Europe. This system incorporates a full sampling of many of Europe’s and the UK’s stellar organs, which are then digitized and capable of being played back on midi equipped consoles, and which use various systems of highest quality speakers. So emulation-reproduction of the actual sounds and controls of the organs this system makes available are reproduced by the Hauptwerk software and played out through the available sound system.

[@jcolbyt82]

@@Geoplanetjane Hauptwerk is an amazing system. I have heard some quite impressive installations where they used “divisions” of speakers and those individual divisions were split up into many different individual speakers. My understanding with this particular installation that I am speaking of, the system is arranged so that each speaker is only producing the sound for one pipe at any given moment. The system also switches the speakers that are sounding around to where they only reproduce sounds that each speaker is capable of reproducing based upon the size and build of each speaker. It was definitely a complex and well thought out installation. Some of the stops sounded fake for sure, but many of the stops sounded wind blown. I have never heard another digital instrument where it produced wind blown quality sound. It’s a shame that more and more churches, who want to keep the organ as a instrument, are going the direction of installing digital organs over actual pipes. You hit the nail on the head as to the main cause. Declining membership and less giving by those that remain in the church. I don’t think that the organ will totally disappear in the future, but I do think they will become more and more of a rarity. As to your comments about mega churches and contemporary music, I am in full agreement with everything you said. I attended a mega church several times when I was in college about 20 years ago. This mega church was a rarity in that they had a 84 rank schantz that they used in every service (it is still used to this day). They have a praise band but play the pipe organ with the praise band. The effect was actually quite stunning, although I didn’t care for the praise music. I always felt like that church was a place to see and be seen. People would show up dressed as if they were at a nightclub. Speaking of money pits, the contemporary Christian music industry is a money making machine. The contemporary music books and music tracks that choirs can buy to sing anthems to are ridiculously expensive. I know that the old fashioned sheet music for the choirs wasn’t free but I don’t recall it being that expensive either. People that produce church music have to be compensated but the level of compensation that the modern contemporary producers make is blasphemy if you ask me. I’m not sure how someone could justify making millions off of Christ. Of course I guess they could say the same about churches who spend millions on installing large pipe organs. I just know I would much rather hear a million dollar pipe organ than a praise band. Anyways, didn’t mean to write a book! Just wanted to comment on what you said and thank you for saying it!!

[@billraty14]

Your points are well taken and your grief is understandable. Perhaps this hybrid instrument, with beautifully voiced and regulated pipes, can help keep traditions alive by sparking interest in the generations that follow, by echoing and witnessing an ideal. It is abundantly clear this instrument wasn't just purchased from stock and dropped in the church, but approached with care and consideration to put the best foot forward. Please note too that the wounds and body-blows that winded instruments are receiving mostly come from the economic changes brought by prosperity, the death of spiritual legitimacy of many faiths and their congregations. If the traditional church is ailing all the other functions will naturally perish with it.

[@organbuilder272]

@@billraty14 How True, Mr. Raty. Not withstanding, the churches that are healthy, flourishing are being convinces that hybrids, which are at best compromises, and not the best answer. How about returning to smaller organs, fewer expensive gadgets and reliable actions - electro-pneumatics like the Kimball or Welte - even Casavant wind chest. Yes, use pneumatic relays and switches. They have proven reliable, easily repairable even by the less experienced Electronics are obsolete in 25 years, cards become unavailable and the system has to be replaces. Much simpler - releather the pneumatics and they go for another 60 years, the system remains intact and nothing goes obsolete or unreplaceable. Amazing the performances put on my organists of two generations ago without all the memories, transposers and such - even 6 pistons per division. Now, organists need page turners, they are so helpless key pushers receiving wild acclaim for mediocre performances. Yes, I am old fashioned But I asl build these things and it is sad to see so many abused and destroyed by changes than were not necessary if a competent person worked on them. Someone who valued what the word maintain, restore and conserve really meant.

[@praestant8]

With more than 35% of the organ's speaking voices being digital stops (certainly Walker technical), it's a wonder how one can call themselves a "pipe organ builder." Fortunately, they are good quality voices in an extremely forgiving reverberant space.

[@dr.reginaldgusgustav9328]

Just be hush for once!!! You’re everywhere bashing digital voices. It’s a great instrument

[@robertscheiblhofer786]

@@dr.reginaldgusgustav9328 Bravo! It IS a great instrument. The artistry is in making an instrument produce a beautiful sound - not in how you accomplish that feat.

[@praestant8]

​@@dr.reginaldgusgustav9328 it's cheating relying on recreating the recorded work of other greater artisans and cheapens the longevity.

[@praestant8]

​@@robertscheiblhofer786 how it is accomplished IS the artistry or lack there of. Taking Skinner digital voices, for example, and adding them to a modified Moller is tantamount to musical plagiarism.