Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

August 12, 2012

Portland's Kotzschmar Organ is piping down

About to turn 100, the mighty Kotzschmar will soon be dismantled and restored. But before the Portland treasure goes temporarily quiet, it will be celebrated in a festival of concerts.

By Bob Keyes bkeyes@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

Sometimes in Portland, we take our cultural amenities for granted.

We have so many to choose from – and so many new things to engage our imaginations – that we often overlook the treasures that have been here a long time and deserve our attention.

The Portland Observatory, for one. The Longfellow House is another example. The Victoria Mansion.

Tops on the list may well be the Kotzschmar Organ, the estimable king of instruments that resides within City Hall and gives Merrill Auditorium its brassy character.

The massive pipe organ, which turns 100 next week, will soon be disassembled, refurbished and rebuilt to its original luster as part of an ambitious $2.6 million restoration project.

But before the Kotzschmar goes silent, the Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ will celebrate the instrument's majesty and historical significance with a Centennial Festival.

It begins Friday and continues through Aug. 22, the day the organ turns 100.

The festival will feature performances by almost a dozen local, national and international organists. There will be master classes, workshops, lectures and many opportunities for people to learn more about the instrument as well as the plan to refurbish it.

Most of the centennial activities will be centered at Merrill and the official festival hotel, the Holiday Inn by the Bay.

But organs at churches in town – St. Luke's and Williston Immanuel United – will also host performances.

The Kotzschmar will go silent following a gala concert on Aug. 22. The next day, a team from organ builders Foley-Baker Inc. of Tolland, Conn., will erect rigging and begin disassembling the organ's 6,852 pipes and all of its mechanics.

It will take up to five weeks to remove the organ and pack it up, and up to 18 months to refurbish and rebuild it.

A new wind chest will be constructed, and all the pipes, leathers, mechanisms and electrical hooks-ups will be rebuilt, cleaned and rewired.

The result, said Ray Cornils, Portland's municipal organist, will be a better-sounding, more responsive and healthier organ.

"Its lungs are leaking. You hear that with the hiss; it does not always have the proper air pressure it should have. You notice it especially in the bass and tenor pipes," says Cornils, who has played the Kotzschmar for 22 years and knows it as well as anyone.

"The goal is that you will not hear the hiss. You will hear a clarity of the tenor and bass lines and a presence that is not there now. It's just not in good voice, and you do not use certain notes. There are many, many ways musicians can mask the flaws. But in the future, you will hear a wider variety of sounds and a greater freedom of the organist."

The Kotzschmar is renowned. Among those who care about such things, Portland's famous organ is as much a draw as the National Baseball Hall of Fame is to baseball fans or the Metropolitan Opera to opera fans.

"Those for whom the organ is an important and interesting diversion are, and have been for 100 years, aware of the Kotzschmar," said Michael Barone, host of American Public Media's radio program "Pipe Dreams."

Barone often features music performed on the Kotzschmar on his nationally syndicated radio show, and will emcee the centennial celebration in Portland.

"Even if they haven't been able to get to hear it very often, they have followed its progress and applauded its successes. It is very noteworthy," Barone said.

Put another way: If ever we were going to pay attention to the Kotzschmar, these next 11 days offer us the best opportunity.

(Continued on page 2)

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