Jeremy Thompson - Masterworks for Organ (2021)

Casavant Frères of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada, built the organ in First Presbyterian Church, Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1995 as the firm’s opus 3738. Founded in 1879 by Joseph-Claver Casavant (1855-1933) and Samuel-­ Marie Casavant (1859-1929), the well respected company builds pipe organs through­out Canada, the United States, and in other countries.

At First Presbyterian Church, five ranks of pipes in the 1995 organ speak with the voices given them in 1902 by organbuilder Adam Stein (ca. 1844-1922) of Baltimore, who built the second organ owned by the congregation. Adam Stein had been a key employee of the organ­building firm established in 1872 by Hilborne Roosevelt (1849-1886) and his younger brother, Frank Roosevelt (1862-1895), with locations in New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The Roosevelts built the first organ used by the Presbyterian congregation. That organ was acquired second-hand ca. 1885. Despite the firm’s great success and prestige, the loss of Hilborne by death in 1886 eventually compelled Frank to dissolve the company in 1893, leading to the creation of several other firms by its former employees, including Adam Stein.

When the Charlottesville Presbyterians constructed a new edifice in 1955-56, pipes and perhaps other parts of the 1902 Adam Stein organ were used in a new instrument built for the church. James Cooke Carson (1927-­2007), the church organist for 22 years, 1967-1989, who occasionally built organs and worked on them, modified the instrument over the years. Five entire ranks of the Adam Stein organ, somewhat altered in voice to work ideally with other ranks in the 1995 Casavant organ, lend their distinctive char­ac­teristics to the full complement of 59 ranks of pipes in the Casavant organ heard on this CD.