When I arrived at Pacific Lutheran University, I knew I had the opportunity of a lifetime. I was going to get to play Paul Fritts & Co. Opus 18, a truly magnificent instrument, almost every day of the week. I wanted to make sure that I took the time to learn the sounds of the instrument, to learn beautiful stop combinations for my own performances and to support guest artists. I thought it would be both fun and educational to make a project out of exploring the organ’s tonal palette, and I decided to use the Görlitz Organ Tablature to help me on my journey of discovery.

The Görlitzer Tabulaturbuch, as it is known in German, is a collection of 100 Lutheran chorale melodies harmonized in four voices by Samuel Scheidt (1587–1654), one of Sweelinck’s most well-known students. He was commissioned by the city of Görlitz to create these harmonizations, which Scheidt intended for organists to use and learn from in services and private devotion. They are miniature masterpieces of early Baroque counterpoint, often employing advanced chromaticism; we might compare them favorably to J.S. Bach’s collection of Lutheran chorales that represent the developments of the Late Baroque.

The Fritts organ is especially well-suited to playing music of the North German Baroque, so it felt like a good fit to use Scheidt’s music to explore the instrument’s timbral resources. The combination of many tunes for different seasons of the church year combined with their short length made the collection even more attractive to me. I knew that the scope of this task, registering 111 unique harmonization of 100 chorales, would stretch my thinking about combining stops to beautiful musical effect.

At first, I followed my education in Baroque registration practice. I relied especially on Barbara Owen’s fabulous resource The Registration of Baroque Organ Music, which I had picked up in college. I explored each of the divisions’ principal choruses, their individual flute stops, and the reeds on their own. Once I had exhausted single registers, I was confronted by the many possibilities of combining stops. I considered historical principles, but most often I tried to match the tone of the hymn to the sound of the stops: this principle helped inspire me when I had already employed obvious combinations. Later in the project, I allowed myself to start thinking outside the box, employing ideas more suited to Romantic or even modern styles to see how far I could stretch the organ’s tonal possibilities.

I learned that the reed stops on this particular instrument are its greatest resource. Using reed stops in combination with principals, flutes, mixtures, and other reeds expanded my thinking about how they can be used as an alternative foundation for chorus registrations. By combining many stops at matching pitch levels, I learned important lessons for creatively registering music from the 1800s and 1900s that I will be able to employ in future performances. It was certainly a challenge to find over 100 sonically distinct registrations, and there were times that I used multiple harmonizations to show off the same registration on different divisions. I learned so much about the different qualities of the same stop on the Swell as compared with the Positive and the Great. That point seems obvious, but being attentive to the differences will certainly help me make creative choices in the future when adapting music that may require some deviation from the written directions.

I am sure that many of us have worked through the stops of a new instrument to learn how to make it sound its best; however, I wanted to share my experience as a way to encourage us to take more time with instruments we know, to discover tonal possibilities that may not be immediately obvious. It was important in this case to face the challenge of devising more than just a few ordinary combinations, as I learned a lot more about how stops best like to be combined in specific circumstances. 

I am not quite done (I will reach the finish line at the end of the church year on Christ the King Sunday), but I know the project has already reshaped my thinking about registration—I am a much more flexible thinker, and I am willing to think outside the box if a specific effect will make an exciting sound. I can now better combine my knowledge of registration traditions with the immediate need to register music with a specific instrument’s resources. I also had a lot of fun learning many Lutheran chorale tunes that are no longer commonly used in worship and discovering some very idiosyncratic takes on familiar melodies.

You can hear my registration journey through this YouTube playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjRr8YZiHEj_s1zPGoBc2SysMg7-lemBc&si=t604v9roGAPCev0s.

The Wesley Community Foundation will sponsor an exciting and vibrant evening of music on Saturday, August 23, 2025, at 7:00 PM, in the White-Helms Chapel at The Gardens at Wesley Des Moines. The Choppers Brass Quintet and organist Thomas B. Clark will present From Bach to Beach Boys, a program that spans the centuries with music both sacred and secular, classical and contemporary.

The program opens with Gabrieli’s Sonata pian ’e forte, one of the earliest known works to specify loud and soft alternations between two choirs of instruments. Organist and Tacoma AGO member Paul Tegels transcribed this work for organ and brass, and it will be performed antiphonally, with the brass choir at the opposite end of the chapel from the organ.

The concert will also feature selections by J. S. Bach, George Frederic Handel, and Marc-Antoine Charpentier, alongside works by living composers including Thomas Marlatt, Frederik Magle, and Robin Dinda. The program highlights original contributions from within the ensemble: a composition by hornist Stacey Eliason and three Beach Boys transcriptions for organ and brass by organist and Tacoma AGO member Thomas Clark. The evening concludes with a dramatic rendition of Grand chœur dialogué by Eugène Gigout, transcribed and arranged for organ and brass by Paul Tegels.

Performers include:
Shelly Devlin, trumpet
Kevin Slota, trumpet
Stacey Eliason, horn
Zach McLurg, trombone
Dennis Goans, tuba
Thomas B. Clark, organ

The Choppers Brass Quintet is a Seattle-based ensemble known for its eclectic programming and dedication to both historic and contemporary brass repertoire. Whether performing at art festivals, churches, museums, or colleges, The Choppers are committed to making brass music engaging and accessible. Their repertoire spans from the 16th century to the present and includes original compositions and arrangements by ensemble members. In addition to their collective work, Choppers musicians are active throughout the Puget Sound region as soloists, teachers, clinicians, and conductors, and have performed across the country.

The chapel at Wesley Des Moines is fortunate to have Paul Fritts and Co Organs opus 46, a two manual mechanical action organ situated in a gallery. The room was designed to be accoustically favorable to music, with a shoebox shape, tall ceiling with complex shape, and low pile carpet. The organ is a gift from then Wesley residents Tom and Jan Crews.

Admission is free, and refreshments will be served following the performance.

---

Sponsorship Information

The program is sponsored by the Wesley Community Foundation. Wesley Community Foundation helps enhance the lives of older adults and their families by supporting wellness and educational programs for residents and staff, funding improvements to make Wesley communities even better, and developing capital campaigns to create new Wesley communities.

Funding for the players is provided by the Music Performance Trust Fund of the American Federation of Musicians, which supports admission-free, live, quality music performed by professional musicians to the public of all backgrounds. The Choppers Brass is part of Seattle Musicians’ Union, Local 78-493.

---

More information, including a Google map, may be found in the calendar entry.