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Cover Feature: Sebastian Glück Opus 24 July 20, 2021 Sebastian M. Glück Vice, virtue, and flexibility Among the linguistic tics bandied about the organbuilding craft for the better part of a century is “judicious unification,” apologetically implying that the practice is quantifiably evil depending upon the extent of its use and the judgment of the builder. If we dislike the builder, it is dismissed as cheap expediency; if we adore the builder, it is the methodology of a thoughtful and clever artist. Both assessments can be, and have been, accurate. Duplexing (the ability to play a stop from more than one keyboard) and unification (the ability to play a particular stop at more than one pitch) have been in use for more than three hundred years. A century after the cinema organ flourished, many are granting “unit orchestras” absolution as we try to preserve the few that we have yet to destroy, with the expectation that accompanying silent films in church will reinvigorate appreciation for the organ, even if it is not used to play organ music.
Pipe Organs of La Grange, Illinois, Part 8: Grace Lutheran Church June 27, 2021 Stephen Schnurr Stephen Schnurr is editorial director and publisher of The Diapason , director of music for Saint Paul Catholic Church, Valparaiso, Indiana, and adjunct instructor in organ for Valparaiso University. . The information was delivered as a lecture for the Midwinter Pipe Organ Conclave on January 19, 2015, in La Grange, Illinois. The research for this project provides a history of a number of pipe organs in the village, but not all. For instance, organs in residences and theaters are not surveyed. Grace Lutheran Church of La Grange was organized on April 14, 1887, as the Swedish Lutheran Church, the sixth congregation founded in the village. The lot at the southeast corner of Ogden and South Kensington Avenues was purchased the next month for $600. In June, an architect’s plan for a church measuring twenty feet by fifty feet was accepted, and ground was broken. The basement portion of the church was dedicated on September 25, 1887. The remainder of the structure was completed for dedication on October 8, 1895. This church was served by a reed organ.