St Mary's Manly

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.

From two former parishioners at Manly, Martin Cooke and Anthony McGlynn, who supplied the folllowing by email (2/3/10):

The old organ was moved from the gallery in about 1966-1968. It had two manuals with pedals and the largest pipes were from a stopped 8’ rank. [Pedal Bourdon 16'?] As far as known it was only moved once. And it had never been at the front of the church before.

The old organ had pneumatic action which was replaced with tracker when moved. The only problem with the reconstructed organ was a few leaks. An employee of Hills Music supplied a Hammond electric organ on loan for two years and played for the choir each Sunday. After convincing the church to buy the Hammond organ he stopped attending. It was located flat against the wall of the transept.

There were no structural changes to the church for many years prior to the moving of the organ.

The new current organ was proposed by Kathleen Papalo OAM [long-time organist of the church] and was constructed for just about $300,000.