St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church
130 East 4th Street
Erie,
PA
16507 US
Organ ID: 66013
Heritage Pipe Organs of Buffalo NY, in collaboration with Organ Supply Industries of Erie PA, rebuilt St. Patrick's A. B. Felgemaker organ. The current installation features new slider chests for the manual divisions at impost level, greatly improving tuning stability and tonal egress. The guiding principal in this project was to respect the original Felgemaker specification. Heritage retained all of the existing original Felgemaker pipework, while OSI provided vintage ranks to replace stops which had been lost in earlier rebuilds. The inclusion of judicious additions provided useful tonal updates without detracting from the grandeur of the original instrument.
Three stops deserve special mention. The Great First Open Diapason is rich and warm, and fills the room all by itself; a most delightful reminder of the golden age of American organbuilding. The beautiful Choir Concert Flute is both harmonic and tapered - quite the rarity. And finally, the majestic Pedal Trombone, with wooden resoators in the bottom octave, was rescued from a nearby early 20th century Tellers organ, no longer in use.