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Cadet Chapel Four Manual Organ Source: Old brochure provided by Alan D. Reese 
Description of the new Four Manual Organ The new Organ is being built by M. P. Moller, of Hagerstown, Maryland, whose Factory is the World's largest, and who built the famous Organ in the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, as well as many others of World-wide reputation. Before the contract for the Organ was awarded, the Superintendent, General M. F. Davis, accompanied by Mr. Hope Leroy Baumgartner, of Yale University, made a thorough investigation of Organs of various makes, also examined quite a number of Instruments, such as those at West Point, and particularly the large four manual Organ in the Larkin Administration Building, Buffalo, which is equipped with the new Moller Self-Player, which has won much attention from Musicians as well as Organ Builders, and is considered the highest development of self-playing organ mechanism that has yet been produced. The specifications of the Organ as it will be built were prepared by Mr. Baumgartner in collaboration with experts of the Moller Organ Works, since the musical demand for an Organ for the New York Military Academy covers wider scope than has ever been made for a Pipe Organ before. The Organ will be used for Chapel Services as well as for Organ Recitals which demand all of the requisites of a Church and Concert Organ in tonal variety, power and dignity. It will also be used to accompany motion pictures and other forms of entertainment, which made it requisite that additional stops, Traps and other effects be included, so that every mood of the motion picture could be properly accompanied by the Organ, from the most sublime scenes through all the gamuts of human life and experience to harsh comedy. In fact, the Organ must contain all the requisites of the best in the Church and Concert Organ as well as the musical requirements of the modern Theatre Organ, and yet these have all to be developed and blended together so that if Full Organ was played the musical results would be the same as that of a Symphony Orchestra, with no strident or outstanding effects or tones. 
A study of the specifications will be interesting to musicians of every type, and size considered leaves nothing to be desired. The Organ will be placed in three locations: - the Great and Choir in a chamber at one end of the stage, the Solo and Swell at the opposite side, and the Echo in the rear. All divisions will be in specially built chambers, with unusual expression for loud and soft effects, with a view of distributing the tone evenly in every part of the building. In addition to the large console required with the many mechanical effects, many of which are used by this Builder alone, there will be included a Moller Patent Solo Self-Playing Attachment, in a separate cabinet, so that when it is desired to play the Organ through the Solo-Player the console is not in any way effected, and it would be possible if desirable to play a separate organ accompaniment to the Solo-Player, which would add much to its effect and also much of interest. To accomplish this wide tonal variety has necessitated the development of much that is new in Organ mechanism, and has brought into use quite a number of new improvements made in the Moller work, which are outstanding in organ mechanics, placing the new Organ for the New York Military Academy in a sphere by itself as the last word in Organ design for a multiplicity of musical uses. It is needless to state that the workmanship and material throughout the organ will be of the best, and tonal experts and voicers of the Moller plant are giving much study to the development and voicing of individual stops, and close contact is being kept with Mr. Baumgartner so as not to lose sight of his ideals. |
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