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Melanie Sigafoose, David Chamberlain, Katherine Bigelow, and Mike Bigelow

For God's Glory

Bigelow artisans chat about what it means to craft a magnificent pipe organ for a Davenport church —

They labor patiently, day by day, in the St. Paul Sanctuary. Like high-wire artists (or monkeys, they say), the organ-builders scurry up ladders and onto working platforms, built into the inner structure of the organ. They work long after dusk, the organ pipes glowing with the instrument’s interior lights.

Much like an old-world family in the historic tradition of organ-building, Mike Bigelow, daughter Katherine Bigelow, and David Chamberlain give painstaking care to their craft.

Lunchtime provides a rare break from the upper stratosphere of this 36-foot-high instrument. One day last week, over sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies, they sat down to chat.

Joining them was Melanie Sigafoose, St. Paul’s director of music. She has tended to every detail of this organ-building adventure, from contractual matters for ranks and stops to feeding and housing the crew.

What is it like to sit among the people of St. Paul in worship, and to finally hear the organ in its home?

Mike: It’s very gratifying. The organ is a wind instrument meant to support congregational singing.

David: When people assemble for worship, there’s a power and presence felt. The organ, with its audible power and presence, becomes a mirror of that, and helps feed the power and presence of worship.

How would you describe the color and tone of the St. Paul pipe organ?

Mike: It’s very warm and enveloping and inviting and reaching out.

David: You’re talking about an organ in its acoustical environment. It’s always a surprise to hear the difference between the organ alone in the space vs. with the sanctuary filled. The whole purpose of the organ is to encourage people to sing. That will happen if the organ wraps its arms around them.

Mike: We were anxious to preserve the organ’s warmth, and that’s why we worked hard with the acoustician and the contractor to make the sanctuary walls bass-reflective. That’s what gives the organ its warmth: it’s a combination of the tonal quality and the
acoustical environment.

David: The organ doesn’t have natural reverberation like the piano. When you let go of the organ’s keys, the sound abruptly stops. The organ’s sound blooms in the room and decays gracefully if there is reverberation.

You’ve been working on this organ for nearly three years. What is that like for you?

David: It’s like a friend. When the organ is done, it is so hard to leave — there is so much of me in it. We know intimately every sound the organ will make.

The organ almost takes on human form for you?

David, chuckling: Well, the pipes have a mouth, a foot, lips, toes, feet, beards, some have ears, a body, and tongues.

I remember reading about an organ brought to the United States from Europe in the 18th century. The Native Americans heard it and were convinced that there were children inside this box singing. So the organ seems like a natural fit for church singing.

The wood, all the pipes, the keyboards: Does it seem a bit like the Body of Christ to you?

David: Yes, it’s like all the members, the disparate parts, coming together. The sum total is wonderful. Put them under the control of the Master and wonderful things happen.

What is it like to build an organ for a Lutheran congregation?

Mike: I love building organs, especially for Lutheran churches, because they have this wonderful tradition and appreciation for organ.

Melanie: When it began in the 16th century, the Lutheran Church was called the singing church.

Mike: Worship is a communal affair, and what could be more worshipful than joining together and singing praise and doing it with spirit? Even if you can’t sing, you can at least lend your voice and become part of a bigger whole.

David, a Mormon who plays weekly for a Lutheran church in Utah: I’ve been doing it long enough, I call myself a Lutheran organist. There’s nothing more thrilling than hearing the church come alive under your leadership.

How does your appreciation for organ artistry connect with your faith?

Melanie: When I sit down to play, that’s one way I experience God. It’s the mystery of hands and feet coming together, being able to create music.

Katherine: There’s a dedication signature plaque on the right side of the case (bearing the signatures of all those who worked on the organ). It has the initials “SDG” (Soli Deo Gloria, Glory to God alone). It means the organ is dedicated to God.

Mike: We didn’t grow the wood, we didn’t make the tin. God really is the author. God put the tradition into the Church. God put the ideas into our heads. God gave us the breath of life to even work on the organ. God gave us our own personalities that found
their way into the organ.

Katherine, who like her dad is also Mormon: Growing up in so many different churches (on Bigelow organ-building projects), spending day after day in a sanctuary as a little girl, meeting so many different people of so many different faiths and being exposed to many forms of worship — it has opened up my mind and heart, and made me so much more open-minded.

Melanie: This organ is really for God’s glory. When we offer the best effort and music we can, the organist can get out of the way so that worshiping people experience God.

David: St. Paul Lutheran Church seems so alive and full of enthusiasm for the Gospel and everything that spins out of it.

From pencil-sized pipes to the soaring 16-foot “Low C” pipe in the organ façade, the St. Paul Pipe Organ has been crafted for God’s glory.

For the details of organ craftsmanship>>

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"Wonder promotes a searching attitude of simultaneously knowing and not knowing." ~Alfred Margulies