Performing Arts

11:59 AM CDT on Monday, May 22, 2006

By SCOTT CANTRELL / The Dallas Morning News

PHILADELPHIA – While much fuss was being made last weekend over Philadelphia's newest big organ, its biggest and most famous one – in a department store, of all places – was falling silent.

May 13 was the last day of Lord & Taylor's closing sale in the building long occupied by the John Wanamaker Store. But Macy's, which is to take over the space in August, promises that the enormous organ in the Grand Court will again be heard in twice-daily recitals.

A handful of music critics, in town for the Kimmel Center organ inauguration, got a private demonstration of the Wanamaker organ on Sunday. And what a sound it was.

With the store emptied of merchandise and most display cases, and with upper floors of the seven-story atrium glassed off since the early 1990s, the organ luxuriated in an acoustic that probably was unheard previously. Reverberation rolled around for five seconds, and without having to worry about disturbing shoppers, organist Peter Richard Conte could really cut loose with the big tubas and thunderous pedal registers.

That's exactly what he did in a thrilling performance of the Bernstein Candide Overture. In the Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, hushed strands of string tone gradually were layered with more and more sound until a chills-down-the-back climax, followed by a seamless decrescendo.

The Wanamaker organ was designed for just this kind of orchestral playing, and Mr. Conte is a master at it. His eloquent Liebestod literally brought tears to the eyes.

In 1877, Wanamaker's became Philadelphia's, and possibly the country's, first modern department store. In 1911, it moved to a grand new building designed by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, occupying a whole city block. An organ originally built for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair was installed in the Grand Court.

Much enlarged over the years, the Wanamaker organ has more than 400 ranks of pipes, about four times as many as the Verizon Hall instrument inaugurated last weekend. Depending on how you count, either it or the Atlantic City Music Hall organ is the world's largest.

Starting in 1978, the Wanamaker store went through a succession of owners, and by the late 1980s, years of deferred maintenance had left the organ only marginally playable. But work by volunteers, and, from 1997 to 2006, generous support from Lord & Taylor, made possible a comprehensive renovation. Today, about 95 percent of the huge instrument is playable from its enormous six-manual console on a second-floor gallery.

Recordings of Mr. Conte playing the Wanamaker organ are available on the Gothic label.

E-mail scantrell@dallasnews.com