Did You Know That The Postlude Played On Sunday,
February 14, 2021 By Dr. J. Salveson, Minister of Music, Was Written By FPC's Very First Organist?

Provided By FPC's Church Historian, David McMunn
Gordon Balch Nevin (1892-1943) was a beloved and popular church and concert organist in his day, as well as a fine composer of sacred and secular works.  The exciting Toccata in D minor that Dr. Salveson performed so beautifully for our ministry was composed while Nevin was a professor of organ and composition at Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio, from 1915 to 1917. Then, from 1917 to late 1918, the composer was music arranger for the Ernest M. Skinner Organ Company in Boston, MA.
 
The next stop in his storied career as church organist, organ teacher and composer was the First Presbyterian Church of Greensburg. (Ah, the connection!)  From 1918 to 1920, Mr. Nevin led our congregation in Sunday worship in the first years in our new church building designed by Ralph Adams Cram.  In fact, he performed the dedicatory recital of the newly installed Ernest M. Skinner pipe organ that had been ordered some years previously and that now filled the chancel organ cases prepared for it between 1916 and 1918.  I am sure that if you were in the sanctuary on that glorious Sunday afternoon, you would have heard this very composition!