The Robert and Shirley Ottman
French Classic Organ

by Dr. Lenora McCroskey

The organ was built for St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids, MI, as a gift to the church and to the community from Sara H. Lowry and O. William Lowry by the Gene R. Bedient Co., Lincoln, NE, and dedicated on September 14, 1986.  The organ was relocated to UNT in 2004, through a generous gift from Robert and Shirley Ottman.

The design of this four manual and pedal, 41 stop organ, was based on research of historic French organs at Souvigny, Houdan, Poitiers, and Mitry-Mory.  The case is made of hand-planed white oak, stained and finished with a traditional rubbed shellac finish known as “French Polish.”  Special moulding cutters were ground in the Bedient shop to approximate the moulding profiles of the 1778 organ at Souvigny.  The keyboards are of oak with naturals of cow bone and sharps of ebony.  The traditional French type pedalboard is oak.

The front pipes feature raised Romanesque mouths, and are made of 88 per cent burnished tin.  All interior metal pipes have lead feet and languids, a common French practice.  The reed resonators and bodies of the interior open pipes are of 83 per cent tin, while the bodies of the metal stopped flutes are of lead.  All tin and lead sheets were hammered before being made into pipes.  Wooden pipes are of oak and mahogany.  

The instrument has proven to be an invaluable resource for students in their study of the gamut of organ literature.  Sounds not restricted to the French repertory make it suitable for the exploration of much of the music of the 17th and 18th centuries, especially music from South Germany, Italy, England, and Spain.  

The organ is tuned in quarter comma mean-tone, which gives different character to different tonalities.  Some keys are spectacularly in tune.  As harmonic progressions move away from the commonly used keys of c, d, g, f, etc., the tuning becomes more harsh, making the return to the common tonalities particularly satisfying.