Better Pipe Organ Database

John C. B. Standbridge (1857)

First Moravian Church
Franklin and Wood Streets
Philadelphia, PA

Note: Not extant. Not playable. (in this location)

Images

ca. 1857 - View of the third church building, with side courtyard, completed in 1856 after the designs of J. A. C. Trautwine. Color lithograph, Rease, W. H. (Photograph from an archival source: Library Company of Philadelphia, submitted by Paul R. Marchesano/Paul R. Marchesano)

Consoles

Main Hall Organ Gallery

Console position: Keydesk Attached
2 manuals
19 stops
21 registers
3 divisions
Key action Type: Mechanical (Details Unknown)
Stop action Type: Mechanical
Stop layout Type: Drawknobs
Manual compass: 54 notes
Pedal compass: 20 notes
Pedal Type: Flat Straight
Combination action: None

Notes

2004-10-30 - Rebuilt Haskell 1896. -Database Manager

2021-01-20 - Description and stoplist found in Ritter's history of the Moravian Church in Philadelphia (1857). The new church, completed in 1856, contained 80 pews without doors to seat 500 comfortably. "The organ gallery in front, at the east end of the chamber, has an elevation of nine feet, and in architectural design corresponds in fashion with the protective screen of the pulpit's platform." "The gallery supports an organ of dignity, character, and corresponding architecture, designed under the direction of your author, and executed by Mr. Edmund Durang as architect, and Mr. J.C.B. Standbridge, whose skill, taste, and judgement is very creditably exemplified in its organic details. "Its outer dimensions are eighteen feet front, eight feet in depth, and twenty-nine feet to the top of the centre tower. "Its disposition follows:" -- Stoplist printed -- The organ cost $2000. The front pipes were gilt and the case was grained by Wooldridge. The description includes additional prose about silky tone and beauty of the stops. -Paul R. Marchesano

Stoplist

Hayes & Zell: Phila, Ritter, Abraham, "A History of the Moravian Church in Philadelphia, from its foundation in 1749 to the present time", 30:181-182. Source: From a 19th c. history of the church 1857

John C. B. Standbridge (1857)
First Moravian Church
Philadelphia, PA

GREAT ORGAN compass C, C, to F, 54 keys
1. Open Diapason metal 54 pipes
2. Stopped Diapason wood 54 "
3. Principal, 4 feet metal 54 "
4. Melodeon, 4 feet metal 54 "
5. Twelfth metal 54 "
6. Fifteenth metal 54 "
7. Seventeenth metal 54 "
8. Nineteenth & Twenty second,
2 rank sesquialtera 108 "
9. Clarionet to tenor D 40 "
10. Slide for a Trumpet
______ 514.

SWELL [ORGAN] with choir bass
11. Violin to 4 feet C metal 42 pipes
12. Stopped Diapason wood 54 "
13. Principal metal 54 "
14. Chimney Flute metal 42 "
15. Fifteenth metal 42 "
16. Two rank Cornet metal 84 "
17. Trumpet metal 42 "
_______ 360.

PEDAL compass, C, C, C, to G 20 keys
18. Double open Diapason wood,
16 feet C, to 8 feet C 13 "
19. Dulciana wood 13 "
20. Couples, great organ and swell
21. Couples, pedal and great organ (Registers)
Pipes, 900.

Copied from a 19th century history of the Moravian Church in Philadelphia. The stop nomenclature is given as printed in the book, except the Great Stopped Diapason was printed "Stopped do." saving space with abbreviation for "ditto". The number of Pedal keys versus the number of pipes is likely that the coupler played all notes but Pedal pipes were only furnished for the compass specified.