Mary Immaculate & St Athanasius' Catholic Church
50 Whistler Street, Manly

Knud Smenge 1986 (2/27 mechanical)



From SOJ December 1984/January 1985, August/September 1986, February/March 1993, Summer 2004-5:

The organ was built by Knud Smenge of Melbourne and embodies the classical ideals in which Knud and Ilse Smenge were trained. It has two manuals of 58 notes and a concave radiating pedalboard of 30 notes. With mechanical action throughout, the instrument has casework of solid American Oak, mahogany windchests, bone naturals and rosewood sharps for the manuals and solid oak with ebony sharps for the pedals. The consultant was James Forsyth.

The organ is sited at an angle of 45 degrees to the axis of an acoustically resonant building, in the corner of the spacious north transept. It speaks directly into the church with the choir seated alongside.

From the early 1900s until 1964 there was a small pipe organ, possibly built by Estey, which was housed, until its purchase by the church, in the home of a nearby resident. It occupied a position in the church where the new instrument is now situated. The former organ was moved to the rear gallery when the church was enlarged, then, in 1963, the church was widened and the organ was returned to the northern transept. It was dismantled when it no longer functioned reliably and afterwards a second hand Hammond electronic was procured.

Fr Denis Ryan took the initiative to install a new organ when the Hammond was failing and this was made possible by two large contributions to the cost.

The organ was inaugurated during the 9.00am Mass on Sunday, 29th June 1986 in the presence of a congregation numbering more than one thousand people.




The specification is:

Great
Principal
Rohrflöte
Octave
Flute Harm.
Cornet
Flute
Mixture
Cymbel
Trumpet

Swell
Gedackt
Spitzgamba
Vox Celeste
Principal
Kobbelflöte
Octave
Nasat
Scharf
Trumpet Regal
Krumhorn (French)

Pedal
Principal
Subbass
Gedackt
Octave
Italian Principal
Rauschquint
Fagot
Trumpet

Couplers
Swell to Great
Great to Pedal
Swell to Pedal

Tremulant to Great
Tremulant to Swell

8
8
4
4
III
2
V-VII
II
8


8
8
8
4
4
2
1-1/3
IV
16
8


16
16
8
8
4
IV
16
8
(façade)



TC







*
TC









+ (façade)

Compass 58/30
Mechanical action
Toe levers duplicate couplers

* 12 bass notes grooved to Gedackt
+ bottom octave made up of two ranks - Subbass 16 plus Octave 8 (different pipes from those in the other ranks with the same names)








© PdL 2006