The organs — Erie in 1875, Cleveland in 1978, Tacoma in 2016

1875 – 2017 · the instrument line

The first instruments of the present church: The organ line of the present church opens while the church is still unfinished: in 1875 Derrick and Felgemaker of Erie, Pennsylvania, installed an organ of 2,000 pipes in the newly built church. The published account adds one further instrument fact for the long twentieth century — under President Hesburgh an addition of 300 pipes was approved — and it does not pin the addition's date; the gap is named here rather than bridged.

The Holtkamp, 1978: On 2 April 1978 a new organ was installed — the gift of Marjorie O'Malley, built by the Holtkamp Organ Company of Cleveland, Ohio. Notre Dame Magazine's timeline of the organ project gives the debut its ceremony: a dedication Mass celebrated by Fr. Hesburgh, and a vespers recital by Professor Michael Schneider of Cologne. The tour gives the instrument's measure: four divisions, three manuals, 54 ranks, 40 stops, 2,929 pipes. It served thirty-seven years, and its ending is documented with unusual tenderness: on 28 December 2015, after the Sunday Mass of the Feast of the Holy Family, the Holtkamp played its last song in the Basilica, "Silent Night" — Karen Schneider-Kirner was the last person to play it there, in the diocesan paper's account — and dismantling began the next morning. The pipes were donated to St. Pius X parish in Granger, to be incorporated into an organ for its new church; the Basilica closed from 28 December to 15 January while the choir loft was reinforced from the basement up. The Holtkamp's afterlife is documented too: installed at St. Pius X, it was blessed there by Bishop Rhoades on 22 May 2022. A Fritts studio organ, loaned in October 2015, covered the interval in the west transept.

The Murdy organ, 2016–17: The replacement had been a decade in the making. In late 2006 Campus Ministry formed a committee to explore replacing the Holtkamp — the project timeline names Dr. Gail Walton, the Basilica's director of music since 1988, in its leadership — and the search settled on Paul Fritts and Company Organ Builders of Tacoma, Washington; design work began in 2012 and work on the case in Tacoma in 2013, the case inspired by Dutch masterpieces, the instrument Fritts's Opus 37. The project began in the church itself at Christmas 2013, when the Basilica closed for the first phase — a forty-four-day replacement of the carpeting with some 25,000 slate-coloured porcelain tiles, in the published account; the university's Facilities office dates the new flooring to 2014 and ties it, with the organ, to the gift of Wayne and Diana Murdy, for whom the organ is named. The finished instrument arrived on Sunday, 31 July 2016, on two tractor-trailers out of Tacoma; its façade stood complete by the end of August; it was put through its first full performance test at the annual Blue Mass on 6 October 2016; it was operational by Christmas 2016; and Bishop Daniel Jenky — the Basilica's former rector, by then Bishop of Peoria — returned to dedicate it on 20 January 2017, the Feast of Blessed Basil Moreau, with a recital by Craig Cramer. Its measure is printed as the record gives it: four manuals, 70 stops, and a case forty feet high, on the Basilica's own pages; the pipe count stands at 5,194 in the Basilica's present published record and at 5,164 in the project's announcement — both printed, the Basilica's own figure first.

Sources

1. Notre Dame MagazinePius X in Granger; the new organ's arrival 31 July 2016.
2. University of Notre Dame, Campus Ministry — Self-Guided Tour of the Basilica: the Holtkamp's specification — four divisions, three manuals, 54 ranks, 40 stops, 2,929 pipes.
3. University of Notre Dame — the Basilica's pages (basilica.nd.edu): the Murdy Family Organ by Paul Fritts & Company of Tacoma — four manuals, 70 stops, 5,194 pipes, forty feet high, installed over several months in 2016.
4. University of Notre Dame, Facilities Design and Operations — the closure notice of December 2015: the Basilica closed 28 December to 15 January; the Holtkamp removed; the balcony reinforced from basement to loft; the new flooring installed in 2014; the Murdy gift.
5. Today's Catholic (Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend) — the Holtkamp blessed at St. Pius X, Granger, 22 May 2022; "Silent Night" and the last organist, Christmas 2015.
6. The published history of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Notre Dame) — the Derrick and Felgemaker organ of 1875 at 2,000 pipes; the 300-pipe addition approved under Hesburgh, its date unpinned; the organ project from 2012; the tiles of Christmas 2013; the dedication of 20 January 2017 by Bishop Jenky with Craig Cramer's recital; the pipe count at 5,164 in the project announcement.