Hoboken, New Jersey
Our Lady of Grace

Wirsching Organ, 1907

Notes from Gerry Shamdosky


Changes to the work of its original designer and builder began back in the 
nineteen-forties, when Francis Rybak of New York electrified the tubular-
pneumatic action, eliminated Audsley's "scheme" of "quintuple expression", and 
replaced the tubular console with a fully electrical one, what I believe was an 
early Reisner and which is the one still there, albeit with new drawknobs 
supplied by Jim Konzelman. In the sixties, Martin Boehling made some tonal 
changes, which included the Cymbal in the Choir.  That's what we on the OLG 
Organ Committee had to work with in the late seventies.

And there was no question of the need to re-action the organ more efficiently; 
the chest action I mentioned to you yesterday was impossible to
work with:  as I recall, the valve seats adjusted with a leather nut at the
top, and you couldn't tell if the individual pipe valves were properly
adjusted unless you put the entire pouchboard/wooden dowel/valve assembly
back for a given stop.  We'd spend way too much time taking those assemblies
down and putting them back up (and each time they had to be fully remounted
back with all of their compression spring screws tightened up), only to find
out we needed to take the assembly down again to make further adjustments.

It was, simply, not an efficient, workable design.

It's interesting to note in Audsley's exhaustive specification of the OLG
organ in his "Twentieth Century" that, whereas pipe scales are broken down
into hundredths of an inch covering many pages, only one brief paragraph is
given to "The Action", saying: "...to be tubular-pneumatic of the most perfect 
description...entirely satisfactory to the Architect.  ...all parts
to be conveniently disposed for ready access for adjustment, repairs,
etc."

I guess The Senator was right:  looks like Audsley never did get up to the
loft, much less inside the chambers.  "Ready access for adjustment, repairs?"  Hardly.

Interesting, too, that circa 1908 he was specifying tubular, when
Skinner was already successfully employing his electro-pneumatic pitman
chests.  And this from Audsley, who was always grousing about
"groove-loving organ-builders" who were reluctant to advance.  But I have the
documentation, in the form of letters Audsley sent to Wirsching and shared
with me some time ago by Wirsching's son Charles, with whom I had an active 
correspondence for a number of years, in which Audsley makes clear his robust 
dislike of Skinner.

And, in Orpha Ochse's Austin Organs book, page 128:  "In 1910 the
Austin board of directors considered buying a controlling interest in the
Art Organ Company of New York.  It had been organized by George Ashdown
Audsley and J. Barr Tiffany.  From about 1905 to 1909 Philipp Wirsching
built organs for this firm, but by 1909 the Art Organ Company was in
financial difficulty.  The prestige of the founders' names and Wirsching's
ability as an organ builder [cf. also the numerous other references in
Ochse to the on-and-off voicing work Wirsching did for Austin around the turn of
the century] were worthy assets, but the Austin company elected to remain
uninvolved."

[Received via e-mail posted to PIPORG-L by Harold Stover January 2009.]