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News
Building the Past Anew:
The Fisk Opus 116 Organ at Oberlin College's Finney
Chapel
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4. A blank wall awaits the building of the new organ, which will preserve the original facade. The Fisk organ is actually larger than its predecessor, so Finney's stage has been extended to accommodate its size. When it is finished, the Opus 116 will extend seven feet farther into the room. Moving pads are carefully draped over the pews, ready to receive more parts.
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5. It may look like an organ has exploded in the chapel, but in fact, each part has been carefully placed in the order in which it will be needed for construction. The long wire-strung rack in the right foreground is the tracker mechanism of the main console.
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6. Workers move the long metal pipes onto the stage. The boxes contain some of the smaller metal pipes, still carefully wrapped in individual protective sleeves. The metal pipes are made from tin and lead and are cast and rolled in the Fisk workshop according to practices centuries old. Each pipe is hammered to smooth out tiny imperfections and improve the sound quality.
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7. Within just a few days, the new organ begins to take on a recognizable shape. The wooden pipes will soon be hidden behind the facade, never to be seen by the audience. Modern electro-pneumatic organs can be - and often are - physically larger, because the electrical contacts that open and close valves allow parts of the organ to be placed farther away from the keyboard - sometimes even in another part of the room. The earlier, tracker organ like the new Fisk Opus 116 - that uses mechanical linkages - has to be more compact. Nonetheless, this new instrument will be a sizable one of its type.
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