Organ dedicated in recital at Memorial Chapel

Last Sunday, a new organ in the Duke University Memorial Chapel, built by John Brombaugh & Associates, was dedicated in a recital by Robert Parkins, University organist and professor of the practice in the music department.

Discussions about a new organ for the Chapel-in addition to the rolian organ in the choir and the Benjamin N. Duke Memorial or Flentrop organ above the entrance to the Chapel-have been going on for 12 years. The parties involved signed a contract in 1991, construction began in 1995 in Brombaugh's workshop in Oregon and the organ was installed in the Chapel this year between June and August. It cost $300,000 and was financed by gifts to the Chapel endowment. The Brombaugh organ is particularly suited to the Memorial Chapel in two ways: its size and position, and its tuning and sound.

The organ is placed in a light green "swallow's nest" loft set off by gold, red and blue accents and topped by the Duke crest built against the right wall of the Memorial Chapel, opposite the sarcophagi of the Duke family. As organs go, the new Brombaugh is rather small. It has 960 pipes-in contrast to the Flentrop's 5,000 and the rolian's 6,900. With this size, it fits well into the Chapel and is simultaneously historically authentic, copying the 16th- and 17th-century Southern European organs it is based on.

The new organ is distinctly unique-not just for Duke, but for the country-mainly for one reason: In contrast to the other two, this instrument is "mean-tuned," i.e. it is tuned according to the system used for intervals and harmonies before the time of Johann Sebastian Bach, when it was replaced by "equal temperament tuning." For brief period in between, there was a third system called "well-tempered." Now, the Chapel is one of the only churches in the world that has organs tuned to each of the three systems.

Mean-tone tuning, which came back into fashion with the period music movement in the 1980s, is different from equal temperament in that some intervals-thirds and fifths-are pure, which results in a clearer, less vibrant sound. Since it is only possible to mean-tune intervals in a limited number of keys, this system of tuning sometimes sounds out of tune to contemporary ears and, as Parkins explains in the program notes to the recital, "strongly favors certain intervals, chords, and keys over others." On the other hand, the large advantage is that "[e]arly keyboard music, often perceived as banal when filtered through the more homogenous tonal palette of modern equal temperament, suddenly springs to life when the appropriate tuning system is restored." The Brombaugh organ was built for this kind of music.

It is difficult to translate the aural experience of mean-tuning into words, but Parkins' recital made the difference obvious, as will any future performance on this instrument. In addition to illustrating the tuning of the organ, the pieces on the program-works by Iberian, Italian and German composers of the 16th and 17th century-demonstrated some of the possibilities presented by the 21 ranks and 22 stops of the organ.

For parts of the program, Parkins was joined by soprano Kristen Travers, a fourth-year graduate student in the mathematics department. One of the most striking pieces was the "Magnificat de 4o tono" by Antonio de Cabez-n, in which the text of the Magnificat alternated with seven short organ versets, allowing the organist to explore a variety of registrations such as the two-foot flute stop and the regalo. Sebastian Anton Scherer's "Toccata prima" was remarkable for its half-tone scales and chromatic passages, which let Parkins demonstrate another extraordinary feature of the Brombauch organ: It has a mechanical system for switching between the enharmonic pitches Eb and D# or G# and Ab.

In the final piece of the program, Johann Caspar Kerll's "Passacaglia," Parkins once again demonstrated his versatility in chromatic passages and virtuoso runs. In these runs, the distinctive chiff-a clicking sound at the beginning of each note that sounds similar to a marimbaphone-of the new organ was especially audible. Because it combined Italian and Germanic styles, the "Passacaglia" was a fitting end to an excellent recital.