JULIAN RHODES' DREAM ORGANS
THE WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL, NEW YORK, NY, USA
MOLLER 1932
The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was designed by Schultze & Weaver and opened in 1931. It is one of New York City's greatest Art Deco buildings.Linda Marie Singer wrote:
Credit the philosophy of millionaire William Waldorf Astor who, back in 1893, dreamed of a one-of-a-kind opulent establishment that would tingle his guests. Originally located at 33rd Street and Fifth Avenue, in 1931 the current site was moved to span 81,000-square feet between Park and Lexington Avenues and 49th and 50th Streets. No wonder thet at the time of its opening it was the biggest hotel in the world, and the first skyscraper hotel, soaring forty-two floors above mid-town Manhattan.The hotel has its share of amazing facts and figures. The roof has two ornamental peaks, 625ft. 7in. high; there are 2,000 rooms, and the hotel has its own railroad siding. The ballroom is four storeys high, the largest in the city. It was here that Moller built an organ which was inaugurated with a recital by Sigfried Karg-Elert on January 6th 1932. 'The Diapason' (February 1st 1932) printed a photograph showing Karg-Elert seated at the handsome drawstop console, eyes raised to heaven, hands playing all four manuals thanks to judicious thumbing and fingering-down, but no stops drawn except for a few coupler tabs. The same issue printed the stoplist, as follows:
GREAT 16 Violone 8 Major Diapason 8 Minor Diapason 8 Violone ext. 16ft. 8 Major Flute 8 Harmonic Flute 8 Violoncello 8 Violoncello Celeste 8 Gemshorn 8 Gemshorn Celeste 4 Octave 4 Violone Octave ext. 16ft. 4 Harmonic Flute ext. 16ft. 2 2/3 Octave Quint 2 Super Octave V Mixture 16 Trombone 8 Tromba 4 Clarion ext. 16ft. Harp 8 Harp 4 Chimes Piano 8 Piano 4 SWELL 16 Bass Violin 16 Bourdon 8 Geigen Diapason 8 Stopped Diapason ext. 16ft. 8 Traverse Flute 8 Solo Violins 2rks 8 First Violin 8 First Violins Celeste 2rks 8 Second Violins 8 Muted Violins 8 Muted Violins Celeste 4 Geigen Octave* 4 Harmonic Flute 4 Stopped Flute ext. 16ft. 4 Violin ext. 16ft. 4 Dolce Violin 2rks ext. 8ft. 2 2/3 Nazard 2 Fifteenth* 1 3/5 Tierce* IV Cornet [Ambiguous: apparently draws asterisked stops 16 Double Trumpet and a separate (19th?) rank] 8 Orchestral Trumpet 8 Oboe d'Amore 8 English Horn 8 Vox Humana 4 Clarion Xylophone 4 Xylophone 2 Chimes Piano 8 Piano 4 CHOIR 8 English Diapason 8 Concert Flute 8 Quintadena 8 Dulciana 8 Unda Maris 8 Violin 8 Violin Celeste 2rks 8 Violas 2rks 4 Chimney Flute 4 Violas 2rks ext. 8ft. 2 2/3 Flute Twelfth 2 Flageolet ext. 4ft. III Viole Cornet 8 Clarinet 8 Orchestral Oboe Orchestral Bells 4 Glockenspiel 2 Harp 8 Harp 4 Chimes Piano 8 Piano 4 SOLO 16 Contra Tibia Clausa 8 Stentorphone 8 Tibia Clausa ext. 16ft. 8 Orchestral Cellos 2rks 8 Orchestral Violins 2rks 4 Tibia Octave ext. 16ft. 2 2/3 Tibia Twelfth ext. 16ft. 2 Solo Piccolo ext. 16ft. 8 Tuba Mirabilis 8 Post Horn 8 French Horn 8 Solo Vox Humana Xylophone 4 Xylophone 2 Chimes Piano 8 Piano 4 PEDAL 32 Resultant derived 16 Open Diapason 16 Open Diaphone 16 Violone Great 16 Tibia Clausa Solo 16 Bourdon 16 Gedeckt 16 Lieblich Gedeckt Swell 16 Bass Violin Swell 16 Viole Dolce 8 Octave ext. 16ft. 8 Violone Great 8 Tibia Clausa Solo 8 Flute ext. 16ft. 8 Gedeckt ext. 16ft or Swell [ambiguous] 8 Violoncellos 2rks Great or Solo [ambiguous] 8 Violin Swell? [ambiguous] 8 Viole Dolce ext. 16ft. 4 Super Octave ext. 16ft. 4 Flute ext. 16ft. 16 Bombarde [ambiguous] 16 Trombone [ambiguous] 16 Trumpet Swell 8 Tuba Solo 8 Trombone [ext. of 16ft.?] 4 Clarion [Solo? ext. of 16ft.?]
It appears that Karg-Elert's concert was not a resounding success. 'The Diapason' remarked that:
Less than forty-eight hours on American soil, after a stormy ocean voyage... and with opportunities for practice curtailed by the procession of events which filled the day and the night, with intermissions crowded by the din produced by armies of carpet-layers and seat shifters, the German visitor was introduced to an example of American speed which was hardly conducive to performance of the task of becoming intimate with the intricacies of an American console layout.Senator Emerson Richards, in a letter to Henry Willis III, was blunter:
About a thousand people showed up, including a large number of well-known organists and other musicians. The affair was a complete bust. Hans Steinmeyer characterized Karg-Elert as a harmonium player, which turned out to be somewhat of a libel on the harmonium! As a player he could not even sustain the rhythm of his own compositions... Schulenberger of the Moller Company ordered the Post Horn cut off permanently after the first number and bitterly complained to me afterward that the recitalist had not discovered that there was a diapason in the organ...The stoplist is the most straightforward of the three which we have examined. 98 speaking stops are drawn from 76 ranks of pipes, with manual extension applied to increase the number of softer registers. The main chorus structures are more strongly developed than in the earlier Larkin organ, but far less so than in G. Donald Harrison's contemporary Aeolian-Skinner organs such as that at Minnesota University, Minneapolis, MN, opened in the same year as the Waldorf-Astoria, with its wealth of chorus-work including 33 ranks in 7 mixtures. The orchestral strings distributed throughout the divisions of the Moller were surely one of the last such statements of orchestral tone-building before the American Classic ethos took hold.
In the late 1950s the organ was removed from the Waldorf-Astoria and, after thorough rebuilding, went to Montclair State College (now University) in Montclair, NJ. It has recently changed hands once more and is now (1999) in storage.
SOURCES
Emerson Richards' letter to Henry Willis III is reproduced in 'The American Classic Organ: A History in Letters', Charles Callahan, 1990.
I am grateful to Bobb Partridge, Dave Schutt and Harold Stover for information about the Waldorf-Astoria organ and its fate.
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