Schlicker Organ Co.
1969

This gallery organ is in fact extant, and as Schlicker built it. The entire instrumental ensemble as originally built, was a restoration with a few tonal changes of the 4-manual E.M. Skinner in the chancel, an "Italian" inspired one-manual instrument at the level of the chancel choir pews, and Hermann Schlicker's magnum opus in the rear gallery. There were duplicate consoles at each end of the room, in Schlicker's handsome house style with stop tablets in vertical jambs controlling the entire instrumental ensemble. At various points in time since, the organ ensemble at the front of the room has been enlarged beyond good taste and with two new duplicate draw knob consoles having multi-memory solid-state systems that replaced the Schlicker consoles (which were sold privately). The gallery organ has been poorly maintained in recent decades--now regarded as "decadent" by the local organ community--and while it is in need of a sympathetic restoration, it is almost completely original.

Updated through online information from Douglas W. Craw. -- The present Schlicker instrument in the gallery is Schlicker's "magnum opus" and does not include any Skinner pipework. It was originally 132 ranks and was augmented in the early 90s (as was the Skinner in the chancel) by Richard Meunch and Robert David who also constructed the 2 divisions in the transepts to create the mammoth combined instrument of 364 ranks that exists today.

Identified through information adapted from E. M. Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner Opus List, by Sand Lawn and Allen Kinzey (Organ Historical Society, 1997), and included here through the kind permission of Sand Lawn: Additions to E. M. Skinner Opus 856 (1931) with new console connecting Gallery Schlicker and Chancel Skinner.