Organs

 

All Saints' is very proud of its two pipe organs, both built at the time of the new church construction in the late 1960’s by Flentrop Organbuilders of Zaandam, Holland. The parish’s decision to engage Flentrop was certainly influenced by the company’s most monumental organ in the United States at the time, the four-manual instrument in St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, Seattle (1965). These mechanical-action instruments were considered radical at the time: Most Episcopal churches favored the “traditional” American Classic electro-pneumatic organs of, especially, Aeolian-Skinner, who placed significant organs in virtually every major church and cathedral in the United States, including Grace Cathedral, San Francisco (All Saints’ mother church until the new Diocese of El Camino was formed in the 1970’s).

 

The small (but mighty!) one-manual positive organ was placed in the church while Flentrop completed the larger main instrument, which arrived some two years later. Both have been crucial in fostering the exceptional congregational singing which All Saints’ is famous for. The direct projection into the room of the organ’s sound – traditional in singing denominations in Europe and the U.S. for centuries until the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries – allows for effortless leading of the singing with relatively few stops.

 

As for organ literature (preludes and postludes and such), while the large organ is happiest playing the music of J.S. Bach and his contemporaries and predecessors, a wide range of music is heard on Sundays and festivals. The warm sounds work for Bach and Brahms, Buxtehude and Mendelssohn. The live acoustics of our worship space enhance the sounds of the organs and of all the music.