Eagle’s Nest

by Arthur Eagle, Music Director

The main Organ at the Parish of St. Mark is one of the finest Organs in the city of Portland. Through the generosity of Louise Savier-Washburn who was the principle contributor, it was installed in 1966. The Inaugural Concerts were played by then Music Director, Dr. Donald McPherson and world renowned Organist, E. Power Biggs. I was present at the second concert by Maestro Biggs on June 21^st and, as a young Organ student, very surprised when he ended by playing three Minuets from the “Little Note Book for Anna Magdalena Bach,” a tutorial collection Bach had written for his second wife to teach her keyboard playing. I was also studying this very simple collection at the time and to hear Biggs play the same pieces made me feel as if I were ‘on my way’ as a musician. But then, reality returned when his last selection from Bach was the immortal “Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor.” This musical form is based upon an eight measure theme in 3/4 time. A Canon, (such as the well known “Canon in D Major,” by Pachelbel) is an eight measure theme in 4/4 time. Bach introduces the theme in the pedal and is followed by twenty-one ingeniously intertwined variations.

Then, a double fugue evolves on the same subject, culminating in a magnificent coda.

(I intend to play the Passacaglia portion at a future Organ Recital.) Of course, we then gave Mr. Biggs a standing ovation and were allowed also to applaud. If you ever feel like ascending the spiral stairs to the Organ Gallery, I will show you where he signed his autograph on our pipe-work with the date.

At its installation, our Bosch Organ was the first large tracker action Organ in the State and second only on the West Coast. A cable goes from the key to the pipe flap and manually opens the airflow. This gives the player precise control over the speaking of the pipe. Most Organs have an electrical wire activating a small diaphragm which then opens the airflow and is comparably imprecise and slow. With forty-four ranks and 2153 pipes divided between three manuals and pedalboard, the Savier-Washburn Memorial Organ was the second largest in the City; the Civic Auditorium being fifty ranks of pipes and an electro-pneumatic action. The selection of stops or various sounds is very similar to the Organs played by Bach and Handel in the seventeen hundreds.

 Presently, two new tracker Organs in Portland are larger; one at First Presbyterian (59 ranks) and one at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (87 ranks), but in our Nave with most excellent acoustics, our Organ is still considered by many to be the finest instrument in the City. It was made in the Bosch Organ Works in Kassel, Germany (Western Germany at the time) and is their 429^th opus, taking over two years to create. The largest pipes are just over sixteen feet tall and the smallest in about half the width and length of a pencil. Spanish Trumpet pipes made of copper are ‘en chamade’ or horizontal rather than vertical, each being a trumpet in itself.

All three manuals as well as the pedal division have both a reed stop (trumpet-like) and a mixture stop, wherein each key plays more than one harmonic sound at a higher pitch to give color and brilliance. The balance and sonority between the flute sounds and the brassy tones are exquisitely voiced so that a perfect blending of sound compliments the room.

Louise Savier-Washburn died in 1963 at the age of 96 and never heard the Organ.  Coming from an old pioneer family, she was a member of “The National Society of Colonial Dames of America,” through the Savier family paternally and the Dorsey Family of Maryland maternally. Incidentally, the corporation I owned for eighteen years, Eagle Products, Inc., which was a plastics engineering and manufacturing facility close to Columbia, Maryland was just off of Dorsey Road, named for her family and close by their ancestral plantation. Her father, Thomas A. Savier (Sa-vee-er) of Italian descent was in partnership with D. W. Burnside (of Burnside Street) as a flour merchant. Some years after the death of her father, her mother married Dr. Henry E. Jones from New York who had removed to Portland and was also one of the founding physicians of St. Vincent Hospital. Doctor Jones and his new family lived in Weimar, Germany for a while when Louise was a girl. She remembered their next door neighbor who was tall, imperious, and had huge hands. He had studied in Holy Orders toward the Priesthood so she called him “Abbe Liszt.” That friendly man was no other than Franz Liszt, the great composer and virtuoso pianist. When the family removed to Portland they lived in the house where now the Cathedral Church of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception now stands, just a few blocks from St. Mark. The property is still shaded by some of the trees they planted many years ago. Louise Savier married Robert Charles Washburn and lived at Vista and Carter Lane until 1929, attending Trinity Episcopal Church until 1930. After his death, she became a members of the Parish of St. Mark. The window between Stations of the Cross IV and V on the Epistle Side is a Memorial to Robert C. Washburn.

I have included below the specification list of our Organ. As you will notice, stops with Roman Numerals are those that have that same number of pipes sounding for every key. The Mixture IV-VI on the Hauptwerk starts in the lower keys with four pipes per key and at middle ‘C’ continues with six pipes sounding per key. The same is true in the Ruckpositiv Manual with the Scharff III-V starting in the bass with three pipes and then increasing to five pipes and the Sesquialtera II has two pipes sounding the entire leangth of the keyboard. In the Brustwerk the Zimbel II has two pipes sounding per key. The Pedal has thirty-two keys and the Mixture IV stop has four pipes sounding per pedal.

About two dozen of these various small pipes are no longer sounding and need to be rebuilt or repaired. All of these “mixtures” need to be evened-out in volume and tone since they now show wear after forty-two years of playing and retuning. The Bond Organ Builders, Incorporated of Portland who service our Organs has quoted a price of $4100.00 to complete this project. At the last Vestry Meeting, it was voted that we raise the funds to accomplish this endeavor. So, we are now making an appeal toward this goal which would take approximately one week of labor for them to do.

Savier-Washburn Memorial Organ Specifications

From the Dedication and Inaugural Recitals Booklet, June 12, 1966. The Organ was built by Werner Bosch, Kassel, West Germany.

HAUPTWERK: Manual II

1. Quintade 16’
2. Principal 8’
3. Spitzflote 8’
4. Octave 4’
5. Koppelflote 4’
6. Flachflote 2’
7. Mixtur IV-VI
8. Trompete 9’ (Horizontal)
9. III-II
10. I-II

RUCKPOSITIV: Manual I

11. Holzgedackt 8’
12. Principal 4’
13. Rohrflote 4’
14. Octave 2’
15. Scharff III-V
16. Sesquialtera II
17. Krummhorm 8’
18. Tremulant

BRUSTWERK: Manual III

PEDAL:

27. Principal 16’
28. Subbass 16’
29. Octave 8’
30. Gadackt 8’
31. Choralbass 4’
32. Mixtur IV
33. Fagott 16’
34. Schalmei 4’
35. I—Pedal
36. II—Pedal
37. III—Pedal

Mechanical Key action with slider chests.
Electric stop action and Electric combination and coupling actions.
A.G.O. standard 32-note pedalboard.
44 Ranks-2,152 Pipes.

You can hear the organ as played during a High Mass or Recital at this link.

Copyright © 2008. The Parish of St. Mark. All rights reserved.