Claire Coci: The Cadet Chapel Organ, West Point

Date:	, February 1955
Label/Number:	Vox DL 210
Personnel:	Claire Coci (pipe organ)
Tracks:	Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor / Prelude and Fugue in A Minor – “The Great” / Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor / Chorale-Prelude, “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland”
Location:	West Point Academy, West Point, NY
Producer:	Ward Botsford
Liner Notes:	R. D. Darrell
Research Comments:	The Cadet Chapel Organ was, at this time, the fourth largest pipe organ in the world. The comprehensive booklet that came with this album closes with A Note From The Engineer – Dr. Rudolph Van Gelder: “Great organs, like great cathedrals, are never finished. The West Point Organ is one of the huge organs of the world on which active construction still continues … Organ construction on a grand scale confronts the recording engineer with many problems; the first of these is the noise of the blowers. This unmusical component of the organ sound exists and we can do nothing but admit it … A condenser microphone was suspended about 35 feet in the air between the main banks of pipes … The master was cut on an automatic Skully (sic) lathe with a feed back cutter driven by an amplifier designed for me. The recording characteristic is RIAA. It should be noted that organs of this type generate tremendous low frequency energy, energy that does not sound ‘loud.’ To those who have high power play-back amplifiers a friendly word of caution – protect your speaker at high play-back levels.” (This was a monaural recording)
Status Notes:	This session is confirmed but missing information (e.g. personnel, song titles, exact date, producer, etc.).
Sources:	Ward Botsford AJ John Davis

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