A Manual Labor of Love

Though it did lose a lovely view, in 1963 the Memorial Church gained a beautiful and versatile organ.

When The Memorial Church was built in 1932, a visitor entering from the west end opposite Thayer Hall had a view down the center aisle, through an opening in the oak choir screen, all the way to an enormous Palladian-style window that stretched almost floor to ceiling at the east end of Appleton Chapel. As was the style of the day, the organ pipes were hidden in the walls of the chapel and as a consequence faced each other.

This organ was an Aeolian Skinner electro-pneumatic organ. This type of organ represented the triumph of technology over human labor, with magnets and pneumatics operating the valves that allowed the organ pipes to sound. Before the advent of electricity, organs were mechanical, known as tracker organs. A tracker organ gives organists a direct connection between their finger and the organ pipe itself, meaning they can control how the sound is heard. Electricity might have made the organ physically easier to play, but left no room for the artistic expression a musician would wish to impart, and which a composer, such as Bach, intended.

Technical Problems

Though the Skinner organ was new when the Church was built, it developed serious technical problems. It was costly to maintain and would require expensive releathering about every thirty years. Since the pipes were located in the walls of the chapel and pointed at each other rather than the congregation, the sound was not optimal. When Organist and Choirmaster John Ferris took up his post in 1958, the organ was in a sorry state. “Workers would come from the organ company every Friday to get the organ ready to play for Sunday,” he remembers. “The organ was never a success in that building. Archibald Davison, Organist and Choirmaster at the time the Church was built, was disappointed in how it sounded and visiting organists also didn’t like it.” In 1959, a committee was formed to look into the problems the organ presented and to make a recommendation to the University. Among others, the committee consisted of then Preacher to the University George A. Buttrick and legendary organist E. Power Biggs, who was responsible for the installation of the Flentrop organ in Adolphus Busch Hall. After seven months of research and discussion, the committee recommended that a smaller tracker organ facing the congregation replace the Skinner. “Many locations for the organ were discussed,” says Ferris. For a while it seemed the best place would be the gallery but the idea was vetoed. “The services were so well attended, that the gallery was often full. Placing the organ there meant the loss of seats.” Instead, the difficult decision was made to place it in front of the Palladian window at the east end of Appleton Chapel.

After researching several organ-building companies, C.B. Fisk, Inc. of Gloucester, Massachusetts was chosen and approved by Harvard in May 1963. The organ builder Charles Fisk, a former Harvard physicist, designed the organ according to classic principles, with four manuals (or keyboards), with mechanical (tracker) action and forty-nine stops with electric action, an organ less expensive to maintain and one not needing the periodic releathering.

Designing a New Organ

Fisk focused his design on three important uses. First, the organ would need to accompany the services in the Church as a whole. With its placement in the Chapel, it had to be heard properly by the congregation sitting in the sanctuary. To do this the organ case was constructed high but shallow to better project sound. Secondly, it had to be effective in accompanying services held in the Chapel. By using the Positive and Swell divisions, an organist can create an effect whereby the congregation feels embraced by the music without being blasted out of the room.

Finally, it was important to include an educational aspect to the new organ. Though influenced by North German and English traditions, it was designed to be a versatile instrument. Harvard (and at the time Radcliffe) students who were interested in organ music could come to the Church to hear and play Baroque organ literature as it was intended to sound. But they could also come and hear Romantic French pieces and even the works of twentieth century composers.

Much care was taken to design the inner workings of the organ to fit in with the environment of the Church. The same care was taken with the exterior of the case, constructed of white oak and adorned with gilded wooden carvings. The carvings are the work of artist Roger Martin, of Rockport, Massachusetts, and each represents some aspect of the sea. A spread of golden seaweed seems to fold around the tops of the organ pipes, some entangling carvings of fish. At the base of the three main pipe pillars are gilded starfish. Though the window may have been covered, it was replaced with a structure that is aesthetically pleasing and adds atmosphere to the Church and Chapel.

After two years of construction, the new organ was unveiled and dedicated at a special service during December 1967. At the time, it was the largest tracker organ in the United States. “The new organ was well-received,” says Ferris. “It definitely met all our expectations.”

A Versatile Instrument

Current Organist and Choirmaster, Dr. Murray Forbes Somerville, feels the organ has introduced many students to great organ literature. “It is an eclectic instrument,” says Somerville. “A wide variety of literature can be performed and heard on it, from Baroque all the way through to Romantic French.”
Organ Scholar Erica Johnson has found the exposure to the Fisk beneficial to her development as an organist. “The Fisk demands that I become more versatile in using the organ,” says Johnson. “I’ve improved my ability to use the organ in a variety of ways, mostly in manipulation of the stops and adapting them to the immense organ repertoire.”

Though there is much controversy over whether tracker organs are better than electric, Johnson definitely prefers tracker action. “On tracker organs the pipe responds very clearly to how you depress the key – if you slowly attack the key, the pipe will speak very slowly, like the slight crescendo of a singer. If you attack it sharply, the pipes will respond with a forte sound. Tracker organs mirror exactly how you play.”