[4] It was at this church that Skinner encountered his first organ and experienced live music for the first time, during a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan songs.
[5] He got a job as a bellows pumper at Taunton's Baptist church for fifteen cents per hour, where he first gained experience repairing and constructing organs.
[6] He was fired after four years, which led to his employment at the shop of a prominent Boston organ builder, George Hutchings, following Ryder's foreman Horace Marden, and voicer William H.
There, Skinner was introduced to the work of Henry Willis, the London builder whose high-pressure chorus reeds and tuba 'organ stop' set the benchmark for much of the 20th century.
Skinner was given access to the large organ at St George's Hall, Liverpool, and met privately with Willis who tutored him in voicing practices and techniques not yet known in the United States.
Skinner developed numerous automatic playing mechanisms which enabled unskilled individuals to operate a large pipe organ like a player piano.
In addition to his orchestral color reeds, Skinner developed numerous string and hybrid flue stops, many with matching celestes.
Among these were the Salicional/Voix Celeste and Dulciana/Unda Maris present in the Swell and Choir divisions of many American organs of the era, as well as his Flauto Dolce/Flute Celeste, his Dulcet (a pair of very narrow scaled string ranks tuned with a fast beat to heighten the intensity), a pair of inverted-flare gambas found in the solo divisions of many of his larger organs that allowed a rich, cello-like timbre for solo lines in the tenor range, the Kleine Erzähler, a softer, brighter version of his earlier Erzähler (which mimics the effect of string players playing very softly), as well as Pedal Violone stops at 32' and 16' pitches, which he defined as "subtle, soft string stops".
His earliest designs built in his workshop in South Boston were for George Foster Peabody and for the Great Hall of City College in New York.
[4] Ernest M. Skinner & Company built large organs for Old South Church in Boston,[11] Cathedral of St. John the Divine (op.
In 1924, at the behest of Marks and William Zeuch, another principal at the factory, Skinner made his second trip to England, this time meeting with Henry Willis III, the grandson of Henry Willis, and spending time in France with Marcel Dupré learning about mutation stops and chorus work of the French Romantic organ.
At the suggestion of English organ builder Henry Willis III, George Donald Harrison joined the Skinner staff as assistant general manager in 1927.
The final instrument was the rebuilding and expansion of the Newberry Memorial Organ, which is located in Woolsey Hall at Yale University.
[12] With the onset of the Great Depression and coincident improvements in the recording and playback of electronically amplified music in larger public spaces, orders for pipe organs fell.
The orchestral style of instrument, which was the Skinner Company's specialty, had been falling from favor among younger organists; many of them were looking for a more classical organ sound.
The final instrument, which was personally designed and finished by Skinner, though built by the Aeolian-Skinner factory, is the large organ at the Chapel of Girard College in Philadelphia (Opus 872 - 1933).
[14] World War II and the resulting materials shortages and related financial troubles forced the company to file for bankruptcy on October 1, 1941.
[14] Afterward, he began writing the book The Composition of the Organ, which remained unpublished in his lifetime, and was completed and published by his son in 1980.
As early as the mid-1930s, Skinner saw many of his instruments rebuilt or modified beyond recognition, while others were simply removed and thrown out wholesale, in the name of "musical progress."
205, 1913), and his final large organ built for the National Cathedral all were subject to this trend by the mid-1950s, further complicating his emotional state as he saw his life's work and ideals gradually becoming extinct.