Mark Bennett: Congregation pours heart in effort to get new organ

Apr. 21—As tree blossoms swirled in the warm April wind outside, Donna Gustafson pointed to a photo collage on a bulletin board inside Trinity Lutheran Church.

It shows the progress of the Ohio Boulevard church's quest to get a new, and special, organ. Church members are shown helping carry elements of the instrument into the building, as workers from the Cincinnati organ manufacturer prepare to install it.

The tracker organ — a mechanical-action pipe organ — "looks pristine," said Gustafson, a longtime Trinity member. Trinity's organ committee began planning for a new organ five years ago. A pledge drive began April 14, 2019, on Palm Sunday.

Since then, the congregation has raised nearly $160,000, and the custom-made instrument's installation is just weeks away from completion.

The effort endured the pandemic. Donations included those from families in memory of lost loved ones.

Its fruition means a lot to the small church.

"Everybody kind of has a piece of it in their heart," Gustafson said Wednesday afternoon.

As she spoke, Caleb and Saskia Ringwald of M.P. Rathke Inc. of Cincinnati worked on elements of the organ's installation. Saskia created the sunburst design above the keyboard. Company owner and organ builder Mike Rathke crafted the instrument specifically for Trinity's building, and he, Caleb and Saskia have been installing it at Trinity in recent weeks.

The instrument is known as Opus 13, as the 13th tracker organ the company has handmade and installed since its formation 17 years ago.

"Every instrument we build is a custom design and custom build, because no two buildings are the same," Rathke said Thursday.

The musical history of organs dates back centuries. The keyboard instrument's technology differs from electrical organs. Like a piano or harpsicord, a tracker organ's player has sensitive control over the sound, based on how quickly air enters its pipes.

"This is a direct mechanical connection between your key and the valve that admits wind into the pipe," Rathke explained.

Another of the organ's virtues is its durability. Its components last longer than other organs, Rathke said, because they don't wear out like electronic elements. Its case, pipe and action can last decades.

"It's the way the earliest organs, including those in the time of Bach, were manufactured," Rathke said.

"Bach," of course, was Johann Sebastian Bach, the legendary German composer and musician, who lived from 1685 to 1750 and wrote works for organ, keyboard and other instruments. Notably, Bach also composed music for Lutheran churches in Leipzig, Germany.

Here in Terre Haute, Trinity Lutheran has occupied its spot along Ohio Boulevard since 1953, after the church shifted locations from its original home at 25th Street and College Avenue, according to Indiana Landmarks.

"It's a very, very special church," Rathke said.

He's seen many. Rathke began in organ building 35 years ago after earning degrees at Ball State and Miami universities and studying organ. He trained with makers Goulding and Wood in Indianapolis, and C.B. Fisk in Massachusetts, and then traveled to England to work with Mander Organs in London. Rathke assisted in refurbishing an 1871-era organ in Royal Albert Hall, and helped restore a 1766 George England Sr. organ at the Danish Mansion in Kent.

Since starting his own company in Cincinnati, he's customized organs in the Ohio-Indiana-Kentucky tri-state region, but also has installed some in California, Arizona and Missouri. Rathke's Opus 15 is being made now for a church in Cincinnati. He expects the installation of Opus 13 in Trinity to wrap up in the next few weeks. Fittingly, International Organ Day, established by the Royal College of Organists in England, is today, amid the homestretch of Trinity's organ installation process.

The playing of Rathke's Opus 13, which he said is "a little bit like driving a sports car," will be in the skilled hands of Trinity organist Sara Johnson. She's served as the church's organist since 2006, and studied piano performance and literature at Knox College in Illinois, earned a master's degree in organ and church music at the University of Evansville, and learned organ from professors Douglas Reed at UE and Larry Smith at Indiana University.

Johnson started playing organ as a high school senior, then continued in college to earn money by playing at churches. Her lessons with Reed at Evansville enhanced her interest in performing church music on organ. "He's really responsible for making me love the organ and understand what it's capable of," Johnson said. In the process, she got opportunities to play mechanical tracker organs.

The new one at Trinity offers Johnson her first chance to play a tracker regularly. Though its installation wasn't complete, she played the Opus 13 at Trinity's Easter service. Johnson loves it.

"It's just such a living sound, because you're interacting with the instrument," she said. "It's living and breathing because it really is breathing."

As she and Rathke explained, an organist can manipulate the sound through the pressing of the keys and timing, as a pianist would on a piano.

"Many people feel the mechanical key action gives you more of an element of control," Rathke said.

To Johnson's trained musical ear, the resulting tone is "more vibrant and more alive. It's such a beautiful sound."

For her, the sound is timeless.

"You don't get tired of hearing it," Johnson said. "I don't think I'll ever get tired of that sound."

Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.