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The Brooks
Concert Hall is an acoustically superb concert hall seating
about 250 people. It is the venue for most concerts performed
by faculty (Holy Cross Chamber Players) and student performing
organizations. It houses two concert grand pianos: a Steinway
Concert D and a Steinway Concert B. It also contains a two-manual
William Dowd harpsichord, and recently the 1840 Thomas Appleton
Organ.
Photographs:
Interior of Brooks Concert Hall
Thomas
Appleton Organ (Boston, 1840)
In the fall
of 2001, the College of the Holy Cross was given a gift of an
important and historic two-manual and pedal organ built in 1840
by the famous Bostonian organbuilder, Thomas Appleton.
This generous gift came from John and Linda Shortridge, former
New England residents who now reside in New Mexico, and are
friends of Prof. James David Christie, College Organist at Holy
Cross. John Shortridge was formerly the Curator of Musical Instruments
at the Smithsonian Institution, where he started the restoration
program and period instrument performance series. Both
he and his wife are noted makers of keyboard instruments.
Recently, John has constructed a small portable chamber organ.
Linda has made more than eighty viola da gambas over the past
twenty-five years. Together, they have restored three nineteenth
century organs rescued from Maine churches, of which the Holy
Cross Appleton is one.
The instrument
is one of the two finest surviving examples of the work of Appleton,
the other being prominently exhibited in the Great Gallery of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Originally
commissioned for the Perkins School for the Blind (the alma
mater of Helen Keller), it was installed there in January of
1840. At the time the organ was being planned, the renowned
composer-organist, Lowell Mason, was professor of organ at the
Perkins School. In 1865, the Hook brothers built a new
and larger organ for Perkins and accepted the Appleton organ
in trade. They soon moved it to the Baptist Church of
Bidderford, Maine. John and Linda Shortridge purchased
the instrument from the Bidderford Church in 1979 and restored
it in an historically informed manner. The organ is in
almost entirely original condition. The exterior of the
handsome case has been wood-grained in a style approximating
the original décor. Barbara Owen, formerly of the
C. B. Fisk Company of Gloucester, Massachusetts, restored the
reed pipes and Susan Tattershall, now living in Denver, Colorado,
did some front pipe restoration. Ms. Owen discovered markings
on the Great Trumpet pipes that indicated they were made by
an earlier English builder, Eliot, and thus recycled by Appleton.
SPECIFICATIONS
OF THE APPLETON ORGAN (1840)
GREAT (lower
keyboard): unenclosed
Open Diapason
8
Dulciana 8
St. Diapason Treble 8
St. Diapason Bass 8
Principal 4
Twelfth 2 2/3
Fifteenth 2
Sesquialtra III
Trumpet 8
SWELL (upper
keyboard): enclosed in an expression box; swell pedal to the
right
Open Diapason
8
Dulciana 8
St. Diapason Treble 8
St. Diapason Bass 8
Principal Treble 4
Principal Bass 4
Cornet III
Hautboy 8
PEDAL:
Sub Bass
16
COUPLERS:
Great to
Swell (actually Swell to Great)
Manuals to Pedal (notched coupler)
- first position: Swell to Pedal
- second position: Great to Pedal
COMPOSITION
PEDALS: two on the left; both for Great combinations
DIMENSIONS:
10 wide; 8-3 deep; 16 tall
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