St. Joe’s Prep in North Philly debuts its newly repaired pipe organ with a century-old liturgical controversy

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The original pipe organ at the Church of the Gesu is once again resounding on the campus of Saint Joseph’s Preparatory School in North Philadelphia, after three decades in silence.

The newly repaired 1898 organ has been played for worship services at the school since September. It will soon be featured publicly for the first time, accompanied by the choral group Variant 6.

“The organ is actually not terribly large. It’s really only about 10 ranks of pipes,” said John Walthausen, the concert organist and artistic director of the Philadelphia Organ Festival.

By comparison, the Church of the Gesu organ, crafted by Hook and Hastings of Boston, is less than a tenth the size of that of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

“This is really a small instrument that was designed to accompany a magnificent choral tradition,” he said. “Due to the acoustics of the building it really makes an incredible sound in the space with very little material.”

The concert will feature sacred music by composers such as Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Mozart — pieces once celebrated at the Church of the Gesu before the Vatican clamped down on excessively Romantic music in 1903.

When Pope Pius X became leader of the Catholic Church, he immediately turned his attention to eliminating what he believed to be  the scourge of the faith: people attending services for music rather than prayer.

“Italian Catholics were going into churches and not even facing the altar. They were just facing the choir and the soloists,” said Leo Vaccaro, who teaches history at St. Joe’s Prep. “This was an Italian pope, and he did not like that.”

Pope Pius’ decree Tra le sollecitudini mandated that Gregorian chants, which emerged in the 9th and 10th centuries, were singularly suitable for mass and that there should be no instrumentation except for the organ, if necessary. Ensembles were not allowed to play and women were never allowed to sing during Catholic mass.

The Church of the Gesu could still play its organ, but not in the way it was designed.

“The organ which was designed to play large 19th century music and is now being asked to accompany things like Gregorian chant,” said Benjamin Boyle, conductor and programmer of the upcoming concert. “It doesn’t make any sense. You’re not using any of the capacity of the instrument anymore, because the repertoire has now gone back 500 years.”

This papal decree did not go over well, particularly in Philadelphia, where the Church of the Gesu, modeled on the grand Chiesa del Gesù in Rome and with its new pipe organ, had established itself as a musical stronghold.

“This was a conspicuous parish where everyone understood that there was a great choir, that there was a great robust music program, that they were investing in paying female soloists and paying musicians,” Vaccaro said. “There’s a rumor — that can’t be confirmed — that here at the Church of the Gesu for Christmas Eve mass they paid the Philadelphia Orchestra to come and perform.”

After public outcry, the Church of the Gesu relented and complied with the Pope’s edict.

“They actually brought in a record player to try to teach Saint Joseph Prep students and college students how to sing Gregorian chants,” Vaccaro said. “No one knew how to do it.”

The widely unpopular rule from the Vatican slowly faded after 60 years. By the time of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the Vatican maintained Gregorian chants as the preferred music but allowed congregational singing and instrumentation.

That opened the door to acoustic guitars and tambourines, which irks Boyle.

“I still think it’s amazing to go into the cathedrals of Europe and hear folk guitar music,” he said. “And not in a good way.”

The debut concert of the freshly repaired pipe organ will feature music played in the Church of the Gesu before Pope Pius X’s motu proprio, including pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Pergolesi and Palestrina.

Accompanying the organ will be something that was once strictly forbidden: women singers. The concert’s choir will be eight singers from the Philadelphia chamber choral ensemble Variant 6, led by artistic director Rebecca Myers.

She is excited to perform in a space that has not been part of Philadelphia’s network of performing venues for decades.

“The acoustics in here are amazing. Any choir could come in here and sound like a million bucks,” Myers said. “In Philly there are certain churches that everyone performs at, and this one is completely unknown to the music community.”

Vaccaro said that’s the point. After extensive restoration work, the scaffolding that obscured the church façade came down a few weeks ago. The Church of the Gesu is ready for the public.

“We’re really eager for this concert to happen,” he said. “We hope people come.”

The concert featuring the newly restored pipe organ in the Church of the Gesu at St. Joseph’s Prep will be one night only: Wednesday, Jan. 8 at 6:30 p.m.