The Schantz Organ

By 1964, after 30 years of faithful 16-hours-a-day service, the Kimball's mechanisms were worn out, and it was decided to rebuild it with extensive renovations and additions by the Schantz Organ Company.

On May 16, 1965, Dean Lavahn Maesch, '26, dedicated the four-manual Schantz organ. At 51 stops, 63 ranks, and 3,651 pipes, it would be the largest organ ever to occupy the Chapel. The console was on the floor against the stage. The carillon was amplified into the auditorium and/or to the campus at large through the chapel steeple.

The organ pipes were on the same shelf at the back of the stage where the Kimball's had been, and all of the theatrical curtains were removed. The side walls of the stage were parallel to one another, not slanted as they are at present. Whereas the Steere and Kimball pipes had been hidden behind a screen, the Schantz pipes from the Great, Positiv, Bombarde, and Pedal divisions were on display -- a common practice in those days.

The Chapel was now air-conditioned, but provision had not been made to provide sufficient humidity to the room. Dry heat, moisture forming on a cold north wall, and lack of humidity caused this poor organ many difficulties. There were tonal problems as well, which were not entirely the fault of the Schantz Company. In reaction to decades of organs perceived tonally as "bottom heavy," the fashion of the times dictated that organs should now be "thin" on the bottom and "heavy" on top. Balance problems were many. It was almost impossible to hear the inner voices of a fugue, for example.

The campaign to install a finely voiced, mechanical-key-action organ, was begun by Professor Miriam Duncan and carried on by the organ students who formed the "Tracker Backer" club. We all wore bright yellow "Tracker Backer" buttons. (This term, created at Lawrence, has found its way into the lexicon of organists all over the world!) The tracker-action organ, having been out of fashion since electricity came along, had, by the 1960s, returned as the instrument of choice for many organists because of the more intimate contact and control the organist has over the production of sound.

Miriam Duncan retired in 1984. George Damp followed her as university organist and took up the cause. Conservatory Dean Robert Dodson and Professor Damp began the final push to get a new organ -- a tracker (mechanical-action) organ.

In 1993, the Schantz organ was sold to the Alamo Heights United Methodist Church, San Antonio, Texas, where it was made part of another instrument, making a very large organ. The pipes have been revoiced, and, from all reports, the instrument is quite successful.

Stop list for the Schantz organ

Return to The History of Lawrence Memorial Chapel Organs