An Organ That Makes Friends Very Easily

Listen to Donald Sutherland play Introduction and Passacaglia in D minor by Max Reger.

Sutherland calls Peabody's Holtkamp "a real present to the school."

The life of an organist can be a solitary one, but it provides singular thrills. "At the chapel at King's College, Cambridge, the organ is very high, in a loft," says Donald Sutherland, "but it takes you closer to the incredibly ornate ceiling—you see it in a way you can't from the floor. And playing in Notre Dame in the late afternoon, the sun comes through the clerestory windows—it's an image that only you as an organist can get."

Sutherland, coordinator of Peabody's organ department for 33 years and one of the world's preeminent organists, has learned (and taught) volumes about the instrument over the decades. For the past 10 years, he's been able to take a short walk from his office to the plum and palisander keyboard of Peabody's custom-built, 3,000-plus-pipe Holtkamp organ. "It has been a real present to the school, he says.

"We have remained very stable, where organ departments at other schools are closing right and left."

Peabody's Holtkamp organ, a gift of Lyman and Nancy Woodson Spire and the centerpiece of Leith Symington Griswold Hall, has allowed Sutherland and his students to expand their performance options. "I want to raise the image of organists as musicians and stress the idea of the organ as a concert instrument, as well as an instrument that creates holy sounds in holy spaces," says Sutherland. "There's a whole repertoire that's not appropriate for religious spaces."

Even a decade after its unveiling, he couldn't be happier with the Holtkamp. "This organ can sound very French, very English—and it always sounds very American," he explains. "It makes friends very easily. It takes on the personality of the player. With some organs, you really have to struggle to find the sounds, you want. I don't think this one has any bad sounds."

While he has come to know the Holtkamp intimately, Sutherland has to be a quick study when he's on tour, performing on ever-differing instruments. He typically arrives two days early. "One of the skills you have to develop is the ability to, in the space of a couple of days, make an instrument sound better to the audience than they've heard it before," he says.

Creating harmony between player and organ is crucial to transforming an acceptable performance into one that's memorable. "Sometimes the instrument tells you something after you've played it," Sutherland says. "It's never quite right until I let the instrument tell me what to say. I have to get myself out of the way."