PIPE DREAM

Dr. Gary Miller looked at the trumpet pipes in the back of the pipe organ.

Playing the grand new pipe organ at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Perryville is like driving a fine sports car, Dr. Gary Miller says.

"It lets you get away with nothing ... You can take yourself right off the road with it."

Miller, a professor of music at Southeast who teaches organ, harpsichord and music theory, will attempt to negotiate the curves in a dedicatory recital at 3 p.m. Sunday.

The program includes works by Vincent Lubeck, J.S. Bach, Felix Mendelssohn, Max Reger and Flor Peeters.

In the 1970s, Miller studied organ and harpsichord in Koln, Germany, and researched historical organs in both Germany and the Netherlands. The fine pipe organs of Northern Europe are the Stradivariuses of pipe organs, and Miller says this organ was built with that tradition in mind.

"It has a beautiful simplicity of sound, an authentic, clear and unforced sound" he said. "The pipes are voiced in such a way it's like hearing a really good singer."

Unlike most modern pipe organs, which depend heavily on electronics, the Immanuel Lutheran organ has an old-style mechanical action. The console is built right into the pipe organ.

"The player has the feeling of marvelous contact," Miller said.

"Some of the pipes speak right in my face. It's back to the way it was and the way organs are in Europe."

The blower and the stop action are the organ's only electronic components. "In the old days they had a couple of kids in the back working the bellows," Miller said.

The organ has two keyboards and 21 stops which include 25 ranks and one extension.

It's also a handsome instrument, Miller says.

The German-made metal pipes are constructed of high-content tin, while some of the American-made wooden pipes are made of cherry. Much of the other wood is oak, some of it logged in East Perry County.

The church spent about $225,000 on the pipe organ, which replaced an aging electronic organ that required increasing repairs.

The money was raised through donations, direct pledges and special gifts.

The Rev. Donald D. Loesch says a number of people in the church had yearned for a return to a pipe organ.

"A pipe organ seems to have a little more resonance, it's more in tune with human voice than electronic organ," Loesch says.

Miller served as the church's consultant in its nearly five-year quest to replace its organ. The committee listened to a number of instruments in the Cape Girardeau-Jackson area and listened to more in St. Louis.

Finally, the organ committee decided on the Martin Ott Pipe Organ Company Inc. of St. Louis. "He invited them to come to the shop," Miller said. "They were very impressed with, for lack of better words, its old world craftsmanship."

The organ at the Lutheran student chapel on the Southeast campus was made by Ott's uncle.

Loesch said the organ has elicited "a lot of positive response.

"Among Lutherans the pipe organ is a kind of tradition. It's been part of our musical heritage."

The quality of this organ places the region in the musical vanguard, Miller says. "We caught up in Southeast Missouri when we got an instrument like this in the area. We landed a little gem."