In 1913, Lemare traveled to the Welte factory in Freiburg, Germany to record organ rolls on the Welte Reproducing Organ Player. Lemare said: “The greatest kindness was shown to us by Mr. & Mrs. Edwin Welte. We were invited daily to their home for afternoon coffee.” (OIHM p. 37)
Lemare Postcards from Freiburg, Germany
Lemare adapted seven Wagner transcriptions in order to play them on the Welte’s two manual organ. These included Siegfried Idyll, the Preludes to Parsifal Act I, Meistersinger Act I and Act III, the Kaiser March and Siegfried’s Funeral Music.
Lemare also recorded transcriptions of Danse Macabre, the Euryanthe Overture of Weber, the finale from Dvorak’s New World Symphony, the Prelude to Humperdink’s Hansel and Gretel, three complete Mendelssohn Sonatas and six major Bach works, including the Fugue a la Gigue, Preludes and Fugues in A Minor and D Major, the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, and the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue. Lemare recorded approximately thirty of his own works, including two movements from his D Minor Symphony, many small pieces, and five Improvisations.
Before Lemare left Germany, he agreed to give a demonstration of his recordings and a few rolls were prepared for a Sunday afternoon comparison recital. Lemare first played a number, then the Welte Philharmonic repeated it. Lemare said: “It was most uncanny to hear this reproduction, to see the stops move in and out with the swell-shades opening and closing by unseen hands.” (OIHM p. 35)
Unfortunately, many of the ninety six organ rolls recorded by Lemare in Freiburg were destroyed in World War I.
In 1933, Lemare was invited to hear some of his rolls played on the Welte organ at the home of Mr. & Mrs. John Way in Pasadena, California. He stated: “Mr. Way is an organ enthusiast and had purchased all my rolls obtainable. It was a great joy for me to hear many of them for the first time.” (OIHM p. 38)
Nelson Barden holds a collection of the Lemare organ rolls which includes donations to him by Lemare’s daughter, Betty Lemare Biza. In 2003, Barden recorded nineteen of the Lemare rolls on the Welte organ at the Church of the Covenant in Boston, Massachusetts. These recordings were produced by Barden in Compact Disc format called “The Art of Edwin H. Lemare”.
A large collection of Lemare organ rolls is held at the Museum der Musikautomaten in Seewen, Solothurn, Switzerland where there is a Welte organ. (The Welte organ and many rolls were originally intended for the ship HMHS Britannic but the Britannic never made it to Belfast due to the outbreak of World War I.)
Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley, California also possesses some of Lemare’s organ rolls and there is a Welte organ in the museum.
Other locations for surviving Welte organs are at Salomon Campus, Canterbury Christ Church University, Church of the Covenant, Boston, Massachusetts and Rochester House, St. Georges Place, Canterbury CT1 1UT.
Lemare was hired in 1915 to play 100 concerts from June to September in Festival Hall for the World’s Fair Panama-Pacific International Exposition. He was paid a salary of $10,000.
Festival Hall seated 3,782 people which Lemare filled twice each day, once at Noon and once at 8:30 p.m., each with a different program.
At every concert, Lemare surprised audiences by requesting three bar themes from the audience for an improvisation. Lemare stated: “Once, a non-musical committee member suggested that the piece “Improvisation” should be eliminated from the program because people wouldn’t understand it! (OIHM p. 66)
By closing day of the Exposition, eighteen and a half million people had come to the World’s Fair. Lemare had played 121 concerts to over 150,000 people at ten cents a head.
After the World’s Fair closed, Lemare was kept on as city organist (1917-1921). “Lemare offers even more permanent musical advantage to this city, affecting more persons and thus reaching further into the consciousness of our times than any other of the exposition’s activities in music. What is even more unusual is the esteem he has won from his brother organists of this city, who are not ashamed to sit at the feet of one of the world’s admitted masters and learn” (San Francisco Chronicle, Walter Anthony Column, November, 1915).
Lemare looked upon San Francisco as his home and stated: “Had it not been for politics and the lack of real musical appreciation on the part of the powers that be, I probably would have remained in this marvelous city as a permanent resident.” (OIHM p. 57) Lemare’s daughter, Betty, shared that her father was very fond of the organ in San Francisco. “It was his favorite and it was his love.”
As a member of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, Lemare attended summer encampments at the Bohemian Grove. The organ at the Grove is the second largest outdoor pipe organ in the world. Lemare recalls “willingly giving of my talent” when the organ was “brought out of its cleft in the rocks.” (OIHM p. 57)
Lemare’s wife, Charlotte, wrote: “Before my husband passed away, he wrote to all of his music publishers the world over, and requested that they send a copy of his works to the Bohemian Club. Thus, the only complete library of his compositions and transcriptions can be found there.” (OIHM, p. 109)
In 1920, Lemare made thirty artist records for the Aeolian Company at Aeolian Concert Hall in New York City.
Lemare was municipal organist in Portland, Maine from 1921 to 1924.
He stated: “People motored from great distances to hear Portland’s great organ, and I met many interesting music-lovers. At these recitals, I was assisted by some of the greatest singers of the day.” (OIHM p. 60)
Lemare next moved to Boston, where he recalled: “I was forced to make my way through snow storms in good time for the engagements.” (OIHM p. 60) While in Boston, Lemare received an invitation from a representative of Adolph Ochs asking him to come to Chattanooga, Tennessee where an Austin organ was being installed in the Soldiers Memorial Auditorium.
Lemare was civic organist in Chattanooga, Tennessee from 1924 to 1929. His salary was underwritten by Adolph Ochs for five years.
Lemare stated: “I often gave the Ochs private recitals. Mr. Ochs’s favorite number was Handel’s Largo and Mrs. Ochs enjoyed the big Wagnerian transcriptions.”
Lemare’s composition Above the Clouds was inspired by the “beauty of the foliage” on Lookout Mountain and was dedicated to Mr. Ochs. (OIHM p. 61)
Lemare designed the Austin Concert Organ in Chattanooga which is considered to be “one of the “finest ever built.” In 1925, Lemare said: “Its tone, power and flexibility are unexcelled. The city has gained a rare treasure which will afford . . . enjoyment now and for untold years to come. The Chattanooga Organ is an artistic triumph tonally and mechanically.”
Making of Lemare Affair IV in Chattanooga: Frederick Hohman
Lemare also designed the organ for the 1928 Mitzpah-Oaks Memorial Temple in Chattanooga. It included a tuba and a 32’ Bourdon.
Photograph by Barger & Nix Organs:
Image courtesy of Bill Barger.
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