CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Orchestra's pipe organ sat behind a stage shell for decades, unused and dusty, relegated to mothball status after failing to prove effective in its early years.
The world-famous orchestra has finally brought the 70-year-old organ out after a painstaking, $2 million renovation that was one of the final steps in a major expansion and refurbishment at the elegant Severance Hall.
The Norton Memorial Organ was to be played in concert Saturday night for the first time in 25 years at a gala rededication featuring organist Thomas Trotter, members of the orchestra's brass section and music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Marcel Dupre and Franz Liszt.
"We've avoided a lot of repertoire that includes an organ with the orchestra, but there's plenty of stuff we have played since this organ was entombed that has needed an organ. We have done it since the mid-'70s with an electronic organ," said Gary Hanson, the orchestra's associate executive director. "We are thrilled to have the real thing back."
Cleveland's organ was designed in 1930 by a leading American organ builder, Ernest Skinner, and was installed at the orchestra's home, Severance Hall, just before the 2,000-seat venue opened in 1931.
To allow the hall to be used for opera productions, the organ was placed in a catwalk area well above the stage — and that is when problems arose.
The organ wasn't set up to play, as many are, through a grill right into the hall. Rather, the sound from the organ's 6,025 pipes was designed to twist around before making its way into the audience. It was quickly rated a disappointment.
Under conductor George Szell, who led the orchestra to international fame, the organ's situation got worse.
Szell had the hall renovated to improve its acoustics in 1958. While the results were generally successful, the organ wound up behind a new stage shell, audible only through stereo speakers — cutting-edge technology at the time but nowhere near the right way to hear a complex and beautiful instrument.
The organ fell into disuse and hadn't been played in concert since 1976.
The instrument's renovation, which began in 1997, was the final major step in the nearly $37 million renovation of the entire hall. The organ has been cleaned up, tuned and will now play much more directly into the hall.
Jeffrey Dexter, tonal director of the Schantz Organ Co. — hired to restore the organ — walked among the pipes Friday, listening closely during final rehearsals to its bright and clear tones. While he said some kinks are to be expected as an instrument this complicated settles in, he said he wasn't nervous.
The organ was in better shape than many its age because it was used so little, making it a pleasure to work on, Dexter said.
"It's like finding a 1929 Cadillac in your aunt's garage with 1,100 miles on it," Hanson said.