M.P. Möller built the organ in St. Anselm’s Abbey in 1963. It was one of their stock designs of six sets of pipes, with an exposed Great and enclosed Swell division. The organ is installed in the rear gallery of the small chapel, with the console at front left, near the altar.

The switching system in the console employed contacts in strips of wood that were pulled into position to play. These strips would warp, causing periodic ciphers. The keys and pedals also were worn from years of use in the daily office services. The combination action had only four general pistons.

When we began to draw up plans to deal with the problems, we wanted to make the organ be as versatile as possible for the many services that are held in this chapel. The organ mostly accompanies the monks, so it needed to have as many combinations as possible. And since the voices were male and sometimes in a limited range, a Transposer would be most helpful.

We were able to devise a plan that added several voices to simplify accompanying. We added a Transposer that takes the pitch of the organ up or down six half steps, to suit the voices. We added four more general pistons and eight memory levels, giving the organist more ways to set up and save combinations in advance. The keyboards were replaced with new and the pedalboard was rebuilt to new standards with new playing surfaces.

The action now is all solid-state, very quiet and efficient. The organ operates well at all times of the year, without the problems of the past. The work was done on schedule with as little disruption of the services as possible.