SEATTLE — You have to be patient if you want an organ built by C.B. Fisk.
The company only makes about two a year and has a three-year backlog.
The organs take six weeks to assemble and four to six months to tone.
One is being installed at Plymouth Church in downtown Seattle. It’s one-of-a-kind, as are all Fisk organs.
Plymouth’s previous organ was damaged in the Nisqually earthquake of 2001, changing its sound.
The church commissioned Fisk to build a new one for its renovated sanctuary. The $2.4 million instrument was paid for by anonymous donors.
The 27-employee company is based in Gloucester, Mass., “a town known for fish and Fisk,” says project manager Greg Bover.
Bover says the company builds mechanical organs the way it was done in the 17th and 18th century — by hand.
Named Opus 140, Plymouth’s new organ has tens of thousands of parts and approximately 3,500 pipes.
Each pipe “has its own voice,” says Fisk’s tonal director David Pike.
Most of the pipes are an alloy mainly of tin and lead, with parts described in human body terms such as foot, toe, mouth, and upper and lower lips. The rest are wooden.
Pike says there’s “nothing like the sound of wind blown through a pipe,” and that it can’t be reproduced electronically. Each pipe is an “acoustical phenomenon.”
After studying the space at Plymouth Church, a model was made, then a full-sized organ was constructed and tested at the Fisk factory.
It’s then deconstructed, crated and shipped for assembly.
Once that’s done comes the “voicing” of each pipe, one at a time. That’s the tuning, adjusting the tone of every pipe. It’s an artistic and aesthetic evaluation.
This can take 30 seconds or up to two days per pipe, says Bover, meaning the process can take up to six months.
In all, it takes about 30,000 hours to deliver a new organ.
This one has a French romantic sound.
Bover, quoting the company founder, says it will be a “Grande Dame with a je ne sais quoi.”
This unique musical instrument will display its full range and personality likely in the fall.
