Peragallo Organ Company, Paterson, New Jersey; Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Athens, Georgia
From the builder
“Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow, or a communicated sense of fineness.”
—D. H. Lawrence
“It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.” —Voltaire
During the week after I finished writing my previous column, I had several experiences, each of which had some bearing on what I wrote about, so I will describe these before continuing and expanding the discussion from last month. One of them was a delightfully well-timed refutation of something that I wrote last month, the others more in sync with my thoughts.
Elements of old and new make for fertile ground in organ composition; Klaus Huber (1924–2017) built his organ works on this ground. Although even the most recent organ works can hardly be considered new, they still stand outside of the standard canon of repertoire, and thus, sound refreshing.
It was Winston Churchill who once famously quipped that meeting Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the first time was akin only to having one’s first taste of champagne. I think many of us, still mourning the passing of Ed Wallace two covid-plagued years ago, would say the same thing about our departed friend.
