AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS CENTENNIAL AGO CONVENTIONS 1941-1958 Stephen L. Pinel Seth Bingham E. Power Biggs Robert Noehren Howdy Pardners! humorous, some are poignant, and the last South. By then, our conventions were serv­ This here is a little ol' invitation from the one is pitiful: ing the needs of a large and diversifiedmem­ Lone Star State. We are fixin' to have a bership all over the country. Roundup next June 23 to 27 for all you organ Washington, D.C., 1941: Ladies attending During the 1940s and '50s, the two most folk at "Ranch Houston," so get out your events scheduled at the Washington Cathe­ important conventions were held in Boston boots, saddle up, and get on the Salt Grass dral will be expected to enter the church in 1950 and NewYorkCity in 1956. The reg­ Trail to "Ranch Shamrock Hilton." We are with your head covered.2 gain' to give you a real Texas welcome and At the Lido swimming pool of the Ward­ istration at those two events exceeded all sure-nuff,one which you won't forget.Yo' all man Park Hotel is a bathing beauty contest the other national conventions of the peri­ be fixing to attend th1s here Organ Rodeo... for men.3 od put together. It was in those cities that the greatest and most long-lasting innova­ So long for now, Pardner, St. Louis, 1948: Headquarters will be at the tions occurred. G. Alex. Kevan, Publicit� Hotel Jefferson.Rates are as follows: $3.50. 4 (Houston, 1958) NEW YORK CITY, 1956 Boston, 1950: Events have been worked The 23rd national convention took place By the time AGO members arrived in out to require a minimum of travel. Bumper between June 25 and June 29, and celebrated Houston in June of 1958, the many-faceted, signs will be given car owners at registrahon the 60th anniversary of the Guild. Because of multilayered, mega-national convention of to assist AGO hitchhikers.5 the war, there was no national convention in the American Guild of Organists was well es­ 1946 to mark the golden anniversary, al­ San Francisco, 1952: It was not surprising tablished. All the characteristics of modern though some local commemorations were conventions were in place: there were large that clever quips were heard about the fact that the AGO convention was following the held.1°Cognizant of the opportunity this af­ crowds, layers of simultaneous events, long Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher forded, the New York committee organized days and short nights, the organ competition, Workmen of North America. One group at the biggest and most spectacular convention and recitals were presented by the leading Sunday dinner was playing a game attempt­ in the history of the Guild. Indeed, the 60th names in the profession. ing to decide which patrons of the restaurant anniversary was larger than life, and by all It was in the two decades preceding Hous­ were organists and which were butchers.6 reports a "barn burner" of an event. ton that the conventions made the transfor­ Registration broke all records with more Minneapolis, 1954: mation-both philosophically and pragmat­ Registration-$15. 7 than 1,600 in attendance. It was the largest ically-from the more localized General gathering of organists ever, and every effort New York, 1956: Last concert of the day: Conventions of the 1920s and '30s, to the ful­ was made to engage the finest performers. 2:00A.M., Milkman's Matinee Recital, George ly mature, fabulous AGO nationals we now Wright at the Mighty Wurlitzer. 8 Convention headquarters were located in no take for granted. But like any century-old es­ less a place than the famous Waldorf-Astoria tablishment, their evolution was a gradual Houston, 1958: Hotels. Shamrock Hilton Hotel, an institution in itself.The committee, process as each committee learned some­ Hotel, $7 to $9. Algiers Hotel (colored), co-chaired by Virgil Fox and Robert Baker, thing from the previous convention's suc­ $4.50. Texas Southern University (colored), reads like a "Who's Who" of the American cesses and failures. Sometimes a committee $2.50.9 organ world. abruptly broke with tradition, such as in A distinction held by the 1956 convention Houston, where the sacred-and expected­ Before World War II, all the conventions was that it was the first AGO national con­ banquet was supplanted with a Texas-style were held in the northeastern quarter of the vention to receive a glut of press coverage. rodeo, barbecue, and square dance! country. The Guild did go to Memphis and Throughout the postwar period, The Diapa­ But lest you think that nothing has Indianapolis in 1929 and 1931, respectively, son had functioned as the official organ of changed in the meantime, ponder the fol­ but it was not until 1952 that the first con­ the Guild, and routine news appeared lowing vignettes, taken directly from the re­ vention was held on the West Coast, and there.11 T. Scott Buhrman, the editor of the views and the program booklets. Some are 1958 when the Guild made it to the Deep old American Organist, was never happy 46 THE AMERICAN ORGANIST about that, so he made it his policy not to gether at St. Thomas for sung Morning and "certainly no inspiration to any student cover AGO events. After Buhrman's retire­ Prayer. All agreed that the service was su­ preparing for his examination." ment, Ray Berry, the new editor, brought a perb, maintaining an air of reverence and Later that afternoon,members split offinto competent team of reporters to the 19 56 con­ devotion without ostentation. Self, who di­ special interest groups. Harold Gleason and vention, and for the first time, 16 pages of rected, recalled that it took the choir most of Catharine Crozier chaired a forum on teach­ candid criticism about the convention ap­ the year to prepare the music.22 David ing with Robert Noehren, Leslie Spelman, peared in THE AMERICAN ORGANIST. Likewise, Fuller, the organist of Dartmouth College, Claire Coci, Vernon de Tar, and Mildred An­ Laurence Swinyard, the editor of The Organ, opened the service with the Choral in B Mi­ drews. Otto Luening, Leo Sowerby, Seth also published a review. Combined with ac­ nor by Franck, and concluded with the Final Bingham, Robert Crandell, and Paul Creston counts from newspapers and memoirs, we of the Symphonie Romane by Widor. In be­ conducted a session on composition, and can get a pretty good idea of who did what­ tween was a varied program of choral William Mitchell lectured on "Examinations and how well. pieces, selected fromthe polyphonic period and Music-Making." The official opening took place on June 25 and the standard repertoire of Anglican Before dinner, Alexander Schreiner gave a with Pierre Cochereau, the organist of Notre church music. The choir, in particular, was recital at St. James that included the Pas­ Dame in Paris, presiding at the newly rebuilt very well received. sacaglia and Fugue of Bach, the Symphonia Aeolian-Skinner organ in St. Thomas Tuesday afternoon brought two veterans of Mystica of Camille Van Hulse, and the Sym­ Church on Fifth Avenue. William Self, then the profession together for a joint concert at phony III of Vierne. Fisher reported that it the organist at St. Thomas, vividly recalled Riverside Church: Donald McDonald, a pro­ was "absolutely wonderful," and Swinyard the event: fessor at Westminster Choir College, and described it as "meticulous, so that the mu­ George Faxon, the organist of Trinity sic took shape, each phrase had beauty of St. Thomas Church was packed for the Church, Boston. Berry described McDon­ form." Fisher questioned the prudence of recital. ...The nave and both balconies were ald's Bach as "clean, crisp, and sparkling" programming three large works on a hot sum­ filled,people had been admitted to the chan­ and commended his tremendous sense of mer afternoon in New York. cel while others stood in the aisles and some proportion in the fiendishly difficult Intro­ The central event of the convention was were even sitting on the floor. One felt the duction, Passacaglia, and Fugue of Healey the appearance of Claire Coci and George customary excitement that is part of the Willan. Reports of Faxon varied, not regard­ Thalben-Ball with the New York Philhar­ opening of a national convention and knew monic in Lewisohn Stadium. The program, tliat this was an historic conjuncture of ing his playing, but to the program. It was all Magnificat "firsts." It was the first tour of Pierre Co­ by 20th-century American composers. Per­ which included the Bach sung by chereau in the United States, his first recital haps Berry hit the nail on the head when he the NewYork Choral Society, and two organ in NewYork City, the firstrecital of the 19 56 wrote, "Modernism, for its own sake, is not concertos by Handel and Delamarter, was convention, and the first recital on the new necessarily synonymous with music which Thalben-Ball's American debut.25 The event organ. To many, the instrument was already is music." Not one of the pieces Faxon was plagued by the same problem that hin­ sacred, as the last organ of G. Donald Harri­ played is in the standard repertoire today. ders most concert spaces in New York-the son, but there were otherswho had not heard Charlotte Garden, who played at St. John stadium did not have an organ. Thalben­ of his death and would learn of it only later the Divine, was apparently not prepared for Ball's blatant indignation at the electronic in the program.12 the overwhelming acoustics of the space, organ supplied for the occasion was noted and played too fast.