When the Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ at Trinity Church was damaged by dust and debris from the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, the church dismantled the instrument and planned to either restore or replace it. For the short term, the church installed a “virtual pipe organ” that uses digital samples of real pipe organ timbres, played through a computerized audio system and nearly 100 speakers hidden behind dummy pipes.
Cameron Carpenter opened the Conservatory Stars Organ Festival.
To organ purists who have had epochal debates about whether organs with electronic keyboards can equal the more time-honored pneumatic action, and to organ agnostics who simply have a soft spot for traditional instruments in historic settings, the notion of replacing Trinity’s Aeolian-Skinner with a “virtual” instrument was a horrifying sign of the times.
But the digital organ, built by Marshall & Ogletree, has had a thorough workout since it was installed in 2003, and its performance has persuaded the church’s music office, as well as a good number of visiting organists, that it is worthy of its setting. Trinity has now decided to make the Marshall & Ogletree its permanent organ, and to commission a second for St. Paul’s Chapel. On Tuesday, the church announced that it would sell off the parts of the lamented Aeolian-Skinner.
If the decision was controversial, you wouldn’t have known it on Thursday afternoon, when Cameron Carpenter opened the church’s Conservatory Stars Organ Festival. The church was filled to capacity, mostly with organists in New York for the regional convention of the American Guild of Organists and the national convention of the American Theater Organ Society. Both halves of Mr. Carpenter’s recital drew standing ovations.
In a program split between organ classics and audacious arrangements of piano works, orchestral scores, film music and pop songs, Mr. Carpenter showed that the digital organ can produce the grand sound of a pipe organ, from the crystalline, flutey treble sounds through a robustly reedy and brassy midrange right down to floor-shaking basses. He also showed a way in which the digital organ was superior: added to the 170 stops normally available on the Trinity organ were another 125 theater-organ stops. Nearly doubling an organ’s available timbres by adding software is a feat a pipe organ can’t match.
Mr. Carpenter’s performance was as flashy and virtuosic as the occasion demanded. He began with his own transcription of Chopin’s “Revolutionary” Étude, in which the speedy chromatic runs were all in the pedals. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G (BWV 541), though more conventionally executed, was scarcely less energetic, and Franck’s “Pièce Héroïque” has rarely sounded so thoroughly visceral. It wasn’t until his own “Love Song No. 1” that Mr. Carpenter showed he had an introspective side as well.
That was displayed only fleetingly. His performance of Liszt’s “Mephisto Waltz No. 1” magnified the music’s inherent thunder and drama. For some of the pop works, including John Williams’s “Raiders March,” Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” and Django Reinhardt’s “Mystery Pacific,” Mr. Carpenter drew freely on stops that approximated percussion, bells and celesta, amid more robust timbres. He closed his program with an improvisation that wove together the melodies of Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday,” Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” and the Cyndi Lauper hit “True Colors.”
The Conservatory Stars Organ Festival runs on Thursdays through Aug. 9 at Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, (212) 602-0800. The next recital, on July 12, is by Nathan Laube.
The vestry of Trinity Church Wall Street has affirmed Trinity’s long-term commitment to its Marshall & Ogletree virtual pipe organ by authorizing the disposition of the parts from its decommissioned Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ. As a further endorsement of Trinity’s virtual pipe organ, the vestry also announced that it would begin a fundraising effort to acquire a similar state-of-the-art organ for St. Paul’s Chapel, to replace its decommissioned instrument. Both pipe organs were covered with debris and sustained heavy damage when the World Trade Center towers fell on September 11, 2001.
The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, Rector of Trinity Church/St. Paul’s Chapel said, “Our virtual pipe organ, which started out as a practical, interim solution in the wake of a terrible tragedy, has proven itself to be an instrument capable of filling our sanctuary with awesome and inspiring music. We are hopeful that once again, St. Paul’s Chapel too will be host to such joyful noise.”
After coming to terms with the dust, ash, and smoke that choked its instrument, Trinity Church made the controversial decision to purchase a virtual pipe organ. To purists, the notion of an instrument of the computer age finding a home in venerable Trinity Church was a radical one. However, expediency required a creative solution, given the gestation period required to install a new pipe organ, as well its tremendous expense. Moreover, the technology had evolved.
Enter Douglas Marshall and David Ogletree, classically trained concert organists whose extensive knowledge and interest in computers and high quality audio included their desire to design and produce a pipeless organ that would approach—and possibly even exceed—the musical quality of the world’s greatest pipe organs. When Trinity’s Music Director, Owen Burdick, auditioned the Marshall & Ogletree prototype instrument, he knew its majestic sounds were perfect for Trinity Church. That moment marked the beginning of the “Opus 1” organ’s serious development, to meet the 21st century needs of a 19th century church facility.
According to Dr. Burdick, “Trinity Church is proud of its role in developing the first major new instrument of our time. A virtual pipe organ could only exist in this new century because of the continuing exponential growth of computer speed and memory. With a full range of tonal quality that is unrivaled, its development is not only historic, but the perfect answer for a church of our design and mission.”
Installed in 2003, Trinity’s Marshall & Ogletree “Opus 1” instrument is actually two 85-stop organs composed of two consoles, a 2,000 pound tone generation system, two audio systems, and proprietary software operating on the Linux platform. In the more than nearly four years since it was installed, it has played efficiently and well, and has gone through many changes and improvements as Marshall & Ogletree has further developed its technology. The organ is able reproduce the sound of any rank of pipes that has ever been recorded. It can be voiced to reflect the aural qualities of European and American classical and 
Romantic organs, and be instantly re-tuned to early historical temperaments that no pipe organ can.
Still, the test of any instrument is in concert performance. Dr. Burdick said, “Our virtual pipe organ was played and judged by experts during the summer of 2006, when we invited six concert organists to give hour-long recitals on the instrument for our International Organ Festival. These six consummate musicians were unanimous in praising the instrument.”
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