Inside Furman is published monthly during the school year by the Furman University Department of Marketing and Public Relations. For story ideas, e-mail John Roberts, editor.
Under
construction: Opus 121
A grand pipe organ, it has been said, is the throbbing heart of a great cathedral, an imposing, awe-inspiring instrument that evokes the majestic power of God and the awe of religious inspiration.
Charles Tompkins expects Opus 121 to live up to this lofty expectation.
Opus 121 began arriving on campus July 7 from Gloucester, Mass.
Currently strewn about the Charles Ezra Daniel Memorial Chapel, it will take
six workers nearly a month to piece it together. But that's the easy part.
The voicing (similar but more time consuming than tuning) of Opus 121 will
take up to six months, says Tompkins, professor of organ studies.
It's a painstaking, mind-numbing process. Imagine tuning 2,930 pipes for both tone and volume. That's right. Two thousand nine hundred and thirty.
Opus 121 is scheduled to make its debut during a dedicatory recital in April. Tompkins, who has been member of the Furman faculty since 1986, will operate Opus 121's three keyboards. The grand organ will occupy the east end of the sanctuary, a place reserved for it since the building was completed in 1996.
The 350-seat sanctuary, which the late choral legend Robert Shaw called one of the finest acoustical spaces in the country, is an ideal setting for a pipe organ.
"Rarely do you get the opportunity to design both an organ and the room it is to be placed in at the same time, as was the case with Daniel Chapel," says Tompkins. "The high ceilings and resonant acoustics of this space provide an almost cathedral-like sound, which is ideal for a pipe organ. The results will be breathtakingly beautiful."
C.B. Fisk Inc., a Gloucester-based firm founded in 1961, crafted Opus 121. Considered the world's leading organ maker, the company has also built organs for Oberlin College (Opus 116), Stanford University (Opus 85) the University of Oklahoma (Opus 111) and for numerous major concert halls and many churches throughout the country.
The cost of Opus 121 is approximately $1 million, including installation. Trustee emeritus Thomas S. Hartness and his wife, Edna Gladden Hartness, who passed away in June, donated funds for the project.
The first known pipe organ was constructed about 250 B.C. in Greece. By the 15th century most large churches in Europe had an organ. During the High Baroque period, the organ found its most important composer in Johann Sebastian Bach.
In America, the pipe organ reached its highest popularity during the 1920s, when most movie theaters had a pipe organ to accompany silent films. Many auditoriums, churches, concert halls and even some private homes had organs. In 1927, 63 American organ builders turned out 2,451 instruments.
The Great Depression, radio and sound movies brought about the gradual decline of organs. Recently, however, Americans seem to have rekindled their love affair with the pipe organ. U.S. sales of pipe organs are close to $70 million a year, with some 50 firms in North America building 100 to 120 new instruments a year.