I’ve written a couple of times recently about the opening of William and Mary’s new “Arts Quarter,” featuring a new Music Building and a renovated Phi Beta Kappa Hall, home of the college’s Theater, Speech, and Dance Department. The article I’m writing about today goes more deeply into one of the star components of the new Music Building, its newly-installed Peragallo organ. The organ debuted on Sunday in the concert hall of the new building.
The story quotes Tom Marshall, who was deeply involved in the acquisition of this instrument. I’ve known Tom for more than 20 years, and respect him both as a person and as an instrumentalist. Tom is a member of the W&M faculty and an organ instructor, but until now the college did not have an organ of its own. Tom taught his organ students in the church he served, the Williamsburg United Methodist Church, which purchased a Peragallo organ more than 15 years ago. The church is right across Jamestown Road from the campus, so this was convenient for both Tom and his students, but it was not ideal. The church benefited, however, because we were often treated to wonderful organ music during services, either by Tom or by one of his students.
In 2017, Tom saw an advertisement in the American Organist Magazine about the sale of an organ, which had been built in 2003 to specifications for John Whitney’s private residence in Atlanta. This instrument had an automatic pedigree: it was designed by Peraballo, the premier organ company in America, specifically for the space it would occupy in Whitney’s home. For the organists among my readers (and I know of at least one — I’m talkin’ to you, Ruth), here are the specifications for this organ (named “Opus 652”:
The pipes of the instrument are enclosed in a free standing hand crafted casework on the far end of the music room. The key desk is in traditional Skinner draw knob style constructed of dark mahogany. The draw knobs are of rosewood with maple inserts. The key coverings are of padauk and maple.
The tonal design is decidedly French Romantic. The Grand Orgue includes a complete Principal chorus. The Positif includes a variety of open and capped flutes, a complete cornet decomposé and a variety of wonderful reeds of both chorus and solo style. The Récit is complete with large warm strings and a Cavaillé-Coll style Hautbois. The Pédale includes five 16’ voices and three 32’ colors to shake the room. All of the tonal finishing was performed by the Peragallos themselves as the instrument was being installed in the room.
The case is of African Mahogany with hand carved grilles in gold in the rounded towers with the Whitney family monogram. The facade contains the functional pipe work of the Grand-Orgue’s Montre and Prestant. These pipes are of polished zinc and include rear roll tuners, gothic or Roman arched mouths and extended pipe toes.
The crowning jewel of the instrument shall is the stately Trompette en Chamade. This set of 49 reeds are positioned horizontally high in the casework. These pipes provide the organist with a most useful tool for processional and fanfare effect.
Moving right along.
In 2013, John Whitney decided to downsize, and he recognized that it might be difficult to sell a house with an organ in it. The organ was dismantled and placed in storage until it was put up for sale a few years later. The sale caught Tom’s eye, especially given Whitney’s desire to have it reside in a state (rather than private) university. That, and an attractively low price, led to the 2017 decision for William and Mary to purchase it for $150,000. For context, when the church purchased its Peragallo organ 15 years early, it paid almost $1 million for the instrument. The college got quite a deal.
William and Mary agreed to buy the organ on the condition that interested organ folks – W&M students, alumni, and friends – would raise additional funds to keep it stored and eventually moved to Williamsburg. This condition was met and the deal was sealed for a combined cost of $300,000.
Acoustics are an important element in an organ’s sound. In the case of Opus 652, its specifications were given to the concert hall’s architects who designed the room specifically for the instrument. According to John Peragallo III, currently an executive with the company, “Of course, we adjusted all of the pipework to speak properly in the new space.”
Beyond the use of the organ, other musical events in the hall can have acoustics appropriately reconfigured for use. Peragallo adds, “The adjustable acoustics of the hall are something to behold.”
The organ arrived on campus on September 11, and it took about two weeks for installation and fine-tuning. On Sunday, October 22, Mickey Thomas Terry, a master organ instructor at Howard University, put the organ’s full capabilities on display in a program designed to showcase all aspects of this instrument. According to the article:
From the spectacular opening with Vierne’s Allegro from his Symphony No. 2 in E minor to the even more spectacular ‘Fantasia and Fugue on BACH’ by Liszt, along with the delicacy and ethereal nature of Fax’s ‘Quiet Church’ and grand, dignified ‘Solemn Voluntary’ of Robert Harris, the Peragallo responded with clarity of sound, thrilling, full, and superbly balanced for the 450-seat concert hall.
This is just one among many things I don’t know much about. I have often heard Tom play the organ, and I have attended organ concerts in the William and Mary Chapel, where the small historic organ fits the small space of the chapel. I didn’t know anything about the acquisition of this organ, but I know Tom well enough to know that he probably hasn’t thought about much else over the past few years. I know he is thrilled to realize that he was instrumental (pun unintended but left in because it’s a good one) in acquiring this organ for the college to which he has devoted so much of his career. I hope the college names something after him.
Yea! music department. Like Anne, I am sending this article to our "organ friend" in Roanoke for translation and opinion. It sounds terific! Thanks for the info.
Wow. I have an organist friend to whom I will send this article! Thanks.