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News
Building the Past Anew:
The Fisk Opus 116 Organ at Oberlin College's Finney
Chapel
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8. Nearly three stories tall, the organ now towers over the stage of Finney Chapel. In place in the center of the organ - just behind the area where the keyboard will go - is the main console tracker. It mechanically links the players' fingers with the various stops, divisions and individual pipes of the instrument.
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9. Behind the facade of an organ is a world most people will never see - filled with bellows, ductwork, trackers and - most of all - pipes. Internal ladders will eventually allow workers to mount to each level as they install the pipes and begin to voice them. C.B. Fisk's David Pike says when they were being built in the days of the great European cathedrals, pipe organs were the loudest man-made sound most people ever heard. Pipe organs were probably also one of the most complex pieces of machinery ever constructed.
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10. One of the first parts to go in are the tallest - and therefor the lowest-toned - wooden pipes, some of which extend from the floor of the stage to nearly three stories above it. The keyboard has not yet been installed, but the pedal board can be seen near the floor of the first-stage platform. Behind it are some of the bellows that produce the air pressure that powers the organ. Made of wood and leather, their movement must be so precise that they can power the deepest rumble of 30-foot pipes to the sweetest whistle of the flute harmonique.
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