Excerpt from The Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star, Vol. 68: August 23, 1906
I shall not attempt here a description of this great organ. I believe I tried it in some correspondence from the west several years ago, and it has been written of much. Mormonism is never, in the ignorant mind, associated with any high achievement in art, and yet, here in this desert city, these religionists, who hold and practice strange beliefs, have erected a musical monument that excels anything that Gentiles have ever done of the same kind. The big organ was erected thirty years ago, but has been modernized internally within the past few years. Standing in the west of the egg-shaped auditorium, its massive front towers loom up to a height of fifty-eight feet, while it occupies a space 30x33 feet. There are one hundred and eight stops and accessories, while within its enormous body it holds more than five thousand pipes. When you stop to think that this instrument is capable of four hundred tonal varie ties, description need go no further. To the musician, the organist, this fact is in itself overpowering.
But these mechanical and structural facts can be had from the guide books. Standing before the great keyboard with its four rows of keys, its innumerable stops, its vast pedal arrangements, and the touch of its master upon it, I come into a. New comprehension of the size and wonder of the instrument. Outside, the hot sun shines down through the leafy interstices of the trees that line the broad walks. The faint chirp of the birds is borne unto me through the lowered transoms. Presently, the organist ceases to talk and turns to his keys. There is a distant rumble, our backs are to the organ, which stands twenty feet or more in the rear of the keyboard. The rumble takes on the elements of ponderous harmony that swells like the sound of the sea; into this there break the sweet flute notes of a Chopin nocturne. Against the deep thrill of the organ’s sub-current the marvelous charm and sweep of the music plays, swinging into the lighter passages with a clear resonance that stirs your pulses, and’ at last dies away with a quiver of exquisite melody.
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