Blending the Popular and the Profound: Organ Concerts at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition

Abstract The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago was a watershed moment in U.S. organ culture. Over the course of four months, twenty-one of the finest organists in the country, along with Alexandre Guilmant of Paris, performed sixty-two solo organ recitals on a large new organ built by Farrand and Votey, paving the way for the rise of the solo organ concert in the United States. Although this was a seminal event in the organ world, it has largely been overlooked in modern musicological scholarship. This article contextualizes the series within the wider program of the fair's Bureau of Music and compares the programming strategies between Bureau of Music director Theodore Thomas and organ series director Clarence Eddy. Thomas chose to promote a hierarchical programming model that ultimately failed, but the organists endeavored to offer programs that appealed to both the uninitiated and the connoisseur. A detailed analysis of organ concert programs at the fair using a new database reveals the way in which organists embraced a mixture of “popular” and “profound” elements in their programming that was later disseminated in magazines, pamphlets, and performing editions after the event.