A distinguished New York Times editor explores the history of the pipe organ in America in a book that will intrigue and delight anyone interested in classical music and popular culture. For centuries, pipe organs stood at the summit of musical and t... Read more

A distinguished New York Times editor explores the history of the pipe organ in America in a book that will intrigue and delight anyone interested in classical music and popular culture. For centuries, pipe organs stood at the summit of musical and technological achievement, admired as the most complex and intricate mechanisms the human race had yet devised. In All The Stops, New York Times journalist Craig Whitney journeys through the history of the American pipe organ and brings to life the curious characters who have devoted their lives to its music. From the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, organ music was wildly popular in America. Organ builders in New York and New England could hardly fill the huge demand for both concert hall and home organs. Master organbuilders found ingenious ways of using electricity to make them sound like orchestras. Organ players developed cult followings and bitter rivalries. One movement arose to restore to American organs the clarity and precision that baroque organs had in centuries past, while another took electronic organs to the rock concert halls, where younger listeners could be found. But while organbuilders and organists were fighting with each other, popular audiences lost interest in the organ. Today, organs are beginning to make a comeback in concert halls and churches across America. Craig Whitney brings the story to life and up to date in a humorous, engaging book about the instruments and vivid personalities that inspired his lifelong passion: the great art of the majestic pipe organ. Virgil Fox had been assiduously cultivating John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the main benefactor of the Riverside Church, ever since his arrival as organist. AbbyAldrich Rockefeller, Rockefeller's first wife, had died in 1948, and Martha Baird Rockefeller, his second wife, was a former concert pianist who called upon Fox several times to help her pick out new pianos for the Rockefeller homes on Fifth Avenue and at Kykuit, their estate in the Hudson River valley near Tarrytown. The Rockefellers also had the three-manual Aeolian organ at Kykuit regularly maintained and tuned by Aeolian-Skinner, and occasionally invited Fox up to the estate to play for their soirees. Despite Mrs. Rockefeller's appreciation of Fox's talents, the organist's fondness for fortissimo was not entirely to her liking. In early 1953, Rockefeller felt moved to warn Fox a second time that his music was often too loud and dissonant for his and Mrs. Rockefeller's taste. "Mrs. Rockefeller, as your friend and admirer, has written you on the artistic and professional level about the organ playing in the Riverside Church." Rockefeller reminded Fox. "I am writing you on a solely material and business basis. To make clear my thought, let me use a very simple illustration. Suppose you tell your cook you want your eggs soft boiled and she persists in serving them to you hard boiled and when you speak to her about it, she tells you she knows how eggs should be cooked and in what form they are most appropriate for your table. Would you not feel that since you were paying her salary, you should have the eggs as you wanted them irrespective of her judgment in the matter? Does this homely illustration have any bearing on the situation under consideration?" Fox was not about to let his relationship with the church's biggest benefactor be scrambled, not while the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Co. wasfinally installing the new organ Fox wanted so badly. He fumed inwardly, and may even have drafted a combative reply rejecting the idea of a master-servant relationship. But in the letter that Rockefeller did receive and file away that spring, Fox was conciliatory: "On Easter Day, if the organ at Riverside seems fuller than usual, please don't think I've gone back on my promise of eggs to order. It will be momentary and not permanent. I assure you " Rockefeller's reply was terse but complimentary. "The services of the Riverside Church yesterday were supremely beautiful in every respect, " he wrote. Less