The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1946, Blaðsíða 20

18
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Winter 1940
ronto, and into it they fitted the more
than 700 pipes which are the heart of
the organ itself.
To step into the organ room is like
walking into a three-dimensional sur-
realist’s dream. You enter through a
small wall-papered panel in a quiet
bedroom, and are faced with row upon
row of pipes in an orderly but confusing
array. Towering beside you and all
around two walls are the bass pipes,
some of them jointed and coiled around
to fit their length into the room. Then
smaller ones, each tier a different size
and shape, right down to the tiny pipes
at the bottom, thinner than the thinnest
pencil.
Unified
The organ is “unified”, as Stewart
calls it, consisting of 10 ranks of pipes
extended to 32 stops. The pipes them-
selves range in “speaking length” from
16 feet to one inch, and are, with only
one exception, hand-made by Canadian
craftsmen. That one is an oboe stop,
imported from the United States. Most
of the pipes are made of a special metal
alloy, and were manufactured at the
Cassavant Freres’ factory in Quebec.
About thirty of the pipes came from
a church in Saskatoon, and there are a
few hand-carved wooden ones which
Stewart got from old St. Mary’s Church
in Regina. He treasures them especial-
ly for their quiet beautiful tone.
There isn’t room for many additions,
but Stewart hopes to add to the pipes,
and recently he has been busy installing
some new ones and will put in more
when they are available.
The blower which supplies the wind-
.chest of the organ is situated in the
basement of the house, and has a special
centrifugal fan developed for organ by
William Legg at Burford, Ont. Power
comes from a small 32-volt, one-half
h.p. motor out in the back yard, and all
the electricity needed for the console it-
self is supplied by two six-volt car bat-
teries. The console is about 32 feet from
the organ pipes and is connected by
cables which carry over 700 wires.
Wiring them all was a really tricky
job, Stewart says, and he is justly proud
of the fact that he did it all himself.
Two or three times a year the music-
lovers of Kindersley district get a chance
to hear the organ in full-dress recital.
Invitations go out by phone and rural
grapevine, and on a Sunday afternoon
there may be anywhere from 50 to a 100
people jammed into the rambling house
and overflowing onto the lawn outside.
Sometimes Stewart will consent to play
a few numbers at such gatherings, but
mostly he sits in the background and
lets the imported organist lead the in-
strument and the audience through the
whole gamut of its emotions. Wilfred
Woolhouse, organist of Knox United
church, Saskatoon, has been out twice
in the past year; and an organist and
adjudicator from Winnipeg, played at a
special program during the festival this
spring.
The rest of the family sometimes assist
too. Besides the father, whose great love
is the violin, there is another son, Laur-
en, and two daughters who are outstand-
ing pianists and accomplished violinists.
Stewart is the son of Mr. and Mrs.
Stefan Kolbeinson at Kindersley. His
grandparents are PorSur and GuSriSur
Kolbeinsson, formerly of Tantallon, Sask.
—By courtesy of Leader Post, Regina.