OrganFax

Many of us folk of a certain generation are familiar with the Victorian ballad "The Lost Chord", beloved of Alan Keith erstwhile compere of Radio's "Your Hundred Best Tunes". Heather Lovett went one better; she mislaid a monumental organ.

We were immensely excited at the news from America: we were grandparents to twins. We began to plan the trip to meet them, figuring that three months would be a desirable age for the introductions. As the project took shape, the "add-ons" evolved. I take full responsibility for this. I have an insatiable appetite for exploring by-ways and making the most of opportunities, and thus it was that we tacked on a few days here and there with friends from college days last seen a quarter of a century earlier. And then the organ burst into my memory, and almost rivalled the babies as a reason for crossing the Atlantic.

I had a clear recollection of a half-hour radio documentary about this splendid instrument which was housed in, of all places, a department store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Excerpts were played, statistics were given, organists and enthusiasts were interviewed, and my juices began to run. It would not be too much to ask, would it, to be taken to see this phenomenon, as our family lived in the suburbs of the very town in question? Arrived and settled in, our son Stuart packed the babies, their pram and sundry needs into his vehicle and took us into the city centre, to Macys, the only department store of note. After tea and muffins we began to make enquiries. The lady at the cash desk was baffled; she had worked there for twenty years and couldn't recall an organ in any part of the building. She called a senior colleague who was desperate to assist, but couldn't enlighten us, so we bought a shirt and left.

It had become a bit of an obsession with me by now, this organ. I spoke of it to every American we met, in West Virginia and Niagara and finally in Albany, New York State. My old friend and our host there was not prepared to dismiss me as deluded. Norah went to her computer and brought up page after page of information about my elusive organ, and the explanation for its disappearance from Pittsburgh. It had never, ever been there. It was the jewel in the crown of the department store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania once known as "Wanamaker & Brown's". I was at the same time delighted and mortified. How stupid I had been! We resigned ourselves to missing out on the organ on this trip, but who knows, we may one day find ourselves in Philadelphia.

John Wanamaker opened his first store in his home town in 1861 when he was just 22 years old, and considered too feeble for service in the Civil War. He was to become the founder of a retailing empire and a legend for innovative concepts, promising guaranteed customer satisfaction and fixed prices. In his day he was way ahead of competition; in 1865 his was the first department store to open a public restaurant; in 1878 it was the first to be lit by electricity and a year later the first to use a Bell telephone.1880 saw the first pneumatic tubes installed as cash carriers and 1882 the first elevators. Wanamaker established a Commercial Institute for young employees in 1896 and shortly after began to sell pianos at the then revolutionary fixed-price system.

John Wanamaker loved music, believed in its civic significance and saw his great stores as a way of spreading musical inspiration and enjoyment. In 1909 he acquired the great Louisiana Purchase Exposition Organ which was then installed in the Grand Court of his Philadelphia store. So massive was the instrument that it took thirteen railroad trucks to transport it to its location. It was inaugurated in 1911, the year when President Taft dedicated the building. Wanamaker lived to 84 years, but his stores eventually succumbed to competition and after being owned by a succession of companies the name finally disappeared in 1995. The organ lives on, however, and has been miraculously restored, giving pleasure to hundreds of devotees in a programme of regular concerts and through an extensive recorded repertoire.

Now I have "found" the greatest pipe organ in the world I am going to keep in touch through "Friends of the Wanamaker Organ". I consider that I have earned the right to consider myself a friend, even if we have yet to meet face-to-face. One day we will do just that.