A New Zealand company is tending what will be one of St Mary’s enduring treasures.
By Anthony Barich
St Mary’s Cathedral will have one of the finest symphonic organs in Australia once its major overhaul is complete, cathedral organist Jacinta Jakovcevic said, after returned from an inspection at New Zealand’s South Island where the work is being done.
The project involves the addition of several ranks of pipes and the restoration and preservation of the original Dodd organ built in 1910, most of which is still present within the existing organ.
Miss Jakovcevic, 35, Director of Cathedral Music and Principal Organist at St Mary’s Cathedral, said that her visit to the South Island Organ Company in Timaru in April revealed that the Dodd organ had not yet been assembled, but is expected to be complete by the time the cathedral is ready by Christmas.
Her research into the newly-constructed consoles, whose planning she was also involved in, revealed “the extent to which organs are, in actual fact, incredible feats of engineering”, Miss Jakovcevic said.
She also revealed that St Mary’s Cathedral is gaining a smaller ‘chancel’ organ, built in 1905 by Arthur Hobday (1851-1912), which is also undergoing restoration in preparation for its new home in Victoria Square. This organ will be located in the northern archway to the left of the former sanctuary, while the Dodd organ will move into the new choir loft at the western end of the cathedral – its original home until it was moved into the temporary gallery in the southern transept in the early 1960s. She said both instruments would be playable from each other’s consoles and that allow for “a great deal” of overall flexibility.
She said it is one of the few examples in Australia that has survived the ‘neo-classical organ revival’ to remain a purely symphonic instrument, as many modifications occurred to such instruments nationally and internationally throughout the 20th century.
In a letter published in the newsletter of the Royal Society of Church Music, an international organisation based in London, Miss Jakovcevic said that both the Dodd and Hobday instruments were an essential part of the “rich heriage” of symphonic style organs built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Miss Jakovcevic, who is doing a Masters on a case study of the Dodd organ at the University of WA, said that Josiah Eustace Dodd (1856-1952), who built Perth’s Grand Organ, was an Australian trained by the ‘legendary’ South Australian organ builder George Fincham. Dodd then started his own firm in Adelaide that became a powerhouse in the fledgling Australian organ-building industry, having built over 80 organs. Hobday was also trained by Fincham for almost 30 years before settling in New Zealand in 1896.
“So we have a unique position of having possibly one of the finest examples of an Australian symphonic organ housed in our cathedral in addition to an organ, although hailing from New Zealand, whose roots are firmly embedded in the Australian symphonic tradition,” Miss Jakovcevic said.