The 253-year-old Old Mission Church reverberates with the deep sounds of a pipe organ, transporting you back in time. The musical instrument, which stands almost as tall as the ceiling of this church on RN Mukherjee Road, is also as old as the building itself. Aged with time, it may not make the best music, but its powerful and ethereal music continues to fill the church. The legacy of this majestic musical instrument has been kept alive by Victor Ambett, who is one of the few pipe organists left in Kolkata. On World Music Day, My Kolkata had a chat with the musician to know about his journey, and the past, present and future of pipe organs in Kolkata.
A legacy passed on
Ambett has been playing the pipe organ since 1971 when he was a teenager
Every Sunday morning, the members of the Old Mission Church gather for church service. Once it is time for the first hymn, a loud swoosh can be heard from the right-hand side of the church where the pipe organ, which looks like a musical chamber, stands beside the altar. The deep bass notes rumble like distant thunder and the higher registers soar like celestial voices. The musical magic begins as organist Victor Ambett uses all his fingers on the two-tier keyboard and both his legs on the pedalboard to create the symphony. He has been doing this since 1971, when he was just a teenager.
Ambett’s tryst with pipe organ began a few years before that when he visited St. James Church with his father Victor Allen Ambett. Ambett Sr. was the principal at St. Thomas Church School, Howrah, and the pipe organist at St. James Church on AJC Bose Road. “As a child, I was always interested in music and I would accompany him to the church and watch him play. The very fact that he had to use both his hands and legs to play the majestic instrument surprised me,” recalled the pianist, who by then had some knowledge of piano. “I must have been in class III or IV, studying in Calcutta Boys, when my father started putting me on the keys while he went to take the holy communion. I would only handle the keys because I was too small and my legs could not reach the pedalboard. He used to come back and take over.”
Ambett’s father, (left) Victor Ambett Sr., was the pipe organist at St. James Church, and Ambett himself (right) played the piano from a young age
A few years later, Jogen Khan, the pipe organist at the Old Mission Church passed away, leaving the heritage instrument idle for months. The then senior trustee of the church, N.N.G De, failed to find a suitable musician to replace him and word got around about the position. “Someone told my father about the vacancy. I must have been in class VII or IX at that time. He dropped me to the church one day and I went straight to the organ and started playing. This time, I was tall enough to reach the pedal board. The trustee was not inside the church but he heard the pipe organ play after weeks from his room. He was surprised and immediately asked for me. That day I was hired as the official organist of the church with a remuneration of Rs 50,” said Ambett.
The music must go on
Ambett’s remuneration was soon hiked to Rs 80 and then Rs 100, but in 1981 he decided to not accept the money anymore. “I began my career as a music director at Scottish Church College and I was financially more independent. My father also passed away and many things came to my mind. To serve the church, as a tribute to my dad and to keep the legacy of the pipe organ going, I decided to contribute my remuneration towards the maintenance of the instrument,” said the sexagenarian. And that is how it continues even today.
The pipe organ at Old Mission Church is over 250 years old, same as the church, and Ambett works hard to maintain it
While working at Scottish Church College, Ambett got the opportunity of a lifetime — a chance to play the cottage organ in front of Indira Gandhi, who visited the college for its 150th year celebrations. After Scottish Church, he continued to teach music, moving on to Grace Ling Liang High School in Tangra, then to Assembly of God Church School in Park Street and he now teaches music at St. John’s Diocesan School in Bhowanipore.
Ambett is a qualified musician with a degree from Calcutta School of Music. At present, he is also a certified course director at Royal School of Music, London. He gives piano lessons to about 20 students from his AJC Bose Road home and prepares them for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) examination.
Yet, Ambett’s only regret lies in not being able to train enough pupils to play the pipe organ. “Not many youngsters are taking enough interest to learn it. The condition of the pipe organs in the city’s churches is not very good, so children are unable to learn properly. The cost of repairs is humongous and that’s the reason why so many of them have gone out of order. If we are unable to preserve these organs, we will lose a big part of our heritage.”
L-R: The letter from Scottish Church School about Ambett’s performance in front of Indira Gandhi, and Ambett with the famous pipe organist Sir John Boss from the US, who got the Queen’s Award
Apart from pipe organ, piano and keyboard, Ambett aces other musical instruments like the Western Spanish Guitar, the drums, and the recorder. When he plays at church, however, he is traditional and refuses to play some hymns on anything except the pipe organ. “There are some hymns that we do play on the piano in church. But some hymns I like to play strictly on the pipe organ. Hymns like Rugged Cross, For All The Saints, Jesus Christ Is Risen To Death, Joy To The World etc. have a beautiful bass that cannot be created without the pipe organ,” explained Ambett, who feels like the pipe organ is a big part of his identity.
A musical movement to preserve the sounds of history
According to Ambett, among the CNI churches in Kolkata, pipe organs at Thoburn Memorial Methodist Church, Union Chapel Church, Old Mission Church, St. John’s Church, and very few others are functional. “St. James Church had a beautiful pipe organ with 1,300 pipes that fell silent. Many other pipe organs, like the one in St. Thomas Church on Free School Street, are not in working condition. The cost of repairing is very high and sometimes it is difficult to understand if these can be restored at all because there’s hardly any musicians left in the city who can detect the problem and convey it to Tapan Das.” Tapan Das visits Old Mission Church weekly for maintenance work of the organ and annually, a full fledged regime is followed in the presence of Ambett to keep the pipe organ playing.
An accomplished pianist and music teacher, Victor Ambett’s one regret is that he was not able to train enough pupils in the art of playing the pipe organ
To preserve the heritage of Kolkata’s pipe organs, Victor Ambett intends to survey and document the present condition of the pipe organs in the city. “Funding is the biggest challenge. At our church, our present board of trustees has been working very hard to maintain the organ. But for the others, I want to come up with video documentation to reach more people in Kolkata, especially the Christian community. We all must come forward and save this heritage of an instrument. Through these videos, I intend to show how a pipe organ functions, what goes into the maintenance, how it generates the sound… almost everything about it from science to history. At this point, knowledge is important to make people aware of what we are gradually losing.”
