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Martin Ott Organ Archive

Martin OttOpus 34St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church

Oswego, Illinois
Editorial pipe-organ study accompanying Martin Ott Opus 34
Editorial study of pipework inside an organ chamber. It is not a photograph of this installation.
Opus
34
Year
1985
Stops
17
Ranks
20

The 1985 chapter of Martin Ott Opus 34 at St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church retains a specific detail: the instrument suffered fire damage in 2000. Its technical outline gives 17 stops, 20 ranks, and mechanical action.

01 / 07

The 1985 chapter of Opus 34 at St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church

Martin Ott Opus 34 was built in 1985 for St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church in Oswego. The red-oak organ first stood centered behind the altar and later moved to the front right. Marie Kremer played its dedicatory recital. A fire on January 24, 2000, followed by firefighting water, severely damaged the instrument and church.

The surviving account pairs Opus 34 with 1985. For the St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church project in Oswego, Illinois, without an event label, that pair is best read as catalogue chronology. The named place, St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church in Oswego, Illinois, gives the date its context; a programme or invoice could distinguish order from completion. No present-state conclusion follows.

02 / 07

Oswego as the setting for Opus 34

Opus 34 is documented at St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church in Oswego, Illinois. The church name establishes who stood behind the Oswego project, but it does not reveal the room's size, materials, or acoustic behaviour. In the St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church account from Oswego, Illinois, claims about worship use or public recital belong here only when a dated local source supplies them.

03 / 07

The recorded scale of Opus 34 at St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church

The Opus 34 overview lists 17 stop controls alongside 20 ranks. At St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church in Oswego, Illinois, a rank follows the keyboard compass at a given pitch and tone, whereas a stop may engage one rank or several. A difference of 3 separates the rank and stop counts for Opus 34. In the St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church account from Oswego, Illinois, several pipe rows may answer one control, but the exact arrangement remains undocumented here. Within the documented Oswego chapter, names and pitches remain missing, so the musical reading stays deliberately limited.

A complete disposition would turn the short Opus 34 overview into a much clearer technical portrait. For the St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church project in Oswego, Illinois, it could show how the recorded totals were distributed and which controls drew more than one pipe row. For St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church, such a document would also make later alterations easier to recognize. The current evidence stops with 17 stops | 20 ranks Mechanical action, so the missing detail remains a research question rather than an invitation to guess.

04 / 07

Action and control in the Oswego project: Opus 34

For Opus 34 at St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church, the project summary uses the term mechanical action. For the St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church project in Oswego, Illinois, in practice, that means the key movement reaches a wind valve through physical linkage rather than an electric-only command. The page for St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church does not diagram that linkage or report its later maintenance.

05 / 07

Beyond the totals: one clue from St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church: Opus 34

The source adds a human and physical dimension to Opus 34: it was moved from the centre to front right and a dedicatory recital by Marie Kremer is documented. At St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church in Oswego, Illinois, a church organ can carry several musical duties, but this evidence supports only the features and events it names. For the St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church project in Oswego, Illinois, it does not reveal a normal registration practice or the balance between organ, choir, and congregation. In the St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church account from Oswego, Illinois, the stop list and parish programmes would answer those questions separately. The listed 17-stop, 20-rank scale remains the numerical boundary for this reading.

06 / 07

The later chapter at St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church: Opus 34

The workshop dried the remains and reused parts of the case, windchests, keyboards, and selected pipework in the larger Opus 102 project of 2001. Captions document charred wood and distorted metal pipes. The surviving record identifies which major components crossed from the damaged Opus 34 into its replacement rather than treating the rebuild as wholly new.

07 / 07

Photographs and unanswered questions from Oswego: Opus 34

Opus 34 has 3 archived image references that agree with the project number. The first is images/034/034_m.jpg. Before an image is placed beside the St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church article, its subject, date, photographer, and reuse terms need verification. A historical credit survives, but it is not permission by itself.

The archived narrative gives Opus 34 a history, not a current inspection. A new statement from St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church could confirm whether the organ remains in Oswego, Illinois and identify later work. For the St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church project in Oswego, Illinois, a dated stop list would then allow a responsible comparison with the original project.