G. Donald Harrison

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G. Donald Harrison

G. Donald Harrison (April 21, 1889 - June 14, 1956) crafted some of the finest and largest organs in the United States. He started out in 1914 as a patent attorney for Henry Willis & Sons, but after military service he began studying organ voicings and techniques.

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In 1927, Harrison joined the Skinner Organ Company, where he spent most of the remainder of his career. When the company merged with the Aeolian Organ Company, forming the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company in 1933, he became the company's tonal director and president in 1940. While the bulk of his work was as a tonal designer and voicer, Harrison will be most remembered by history for his association with "American Classic" organ design. This design concept, an outgrowth of 19th-century Anglo-American organ design, was pioneered by such builders as J. W. Steere of Springfield, Massachusetts, and others, and brought to a high degree of perfection by Harrison's employer Ernest M. Skinner, who admired Steere above all others. The evolution of this tonal concept continued by Harrison's (and later Joseph Whiteford's) life work with the company. Harrison, like Skinner and many others, conceived the American Classic organ as a single instrument that could effectively and convincingly play music of all styles and eras with equal facility. In almost all of his larger instruments - and many of his smaller ones - he achieved this.

There are other views of Harrison. Although he worked for Aeolian-Skinner, his first loyalty always seems to have been to Henry Willis in London...even after his first wife left him for Willis.

Harrison's own approach to organ voicing is not without critics. Many disliked what Professor Robert Baker of Yale called his "brassy clang." Harrison was criticized more than once for his seemingly excessive devotion to mixture stops (the organ at the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston being the most noteworthy example).

Harrison formed part of the movement away from Romanticism and towards a re-appreciation of the Baroque that is a recognized part of our musical history. He maintained Skinner's reputation for mechanical excellence and reliability. Many of his finest instruments possess a charm of their own.

Harrison's died of exhaustion, after weeks of overworking himself to "de-Skinnerize" the organ at Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue in time for a convention. Joseph Whiteford, whom Harrison's "inner circle" detested, succeeded him as the head of the firm. Skinner, although much older, outlived him by four years.

Controversies aside, Harrison seems destined to be remembered for many of his finished works - as any artist should - that are considered today, (years after their completion) as still some of the finest pipe organs ever built in the United States.