Rebuilding the Organ, Piece by Piece
Wallace Organbuilders began to reassemble the organ on August 17. Every part, gigantic or tiny, was cleaned with a borax and vinegar solution. Then, one by one, in reverse order of removal, each part was put back into the organ case. All these thin wooden strips are the first link connecting the keys to the pipes, which sounds much more simple than it is!
It took about two weeks of tedious work like this before the pipes were replaced, and the grand 162-year-old George Stevens organ’s “blower” filled the wind chests with air and the sanctuary was filled with music once more!
The organ pipes were tuned to a harmonic system as close to original as possible. That, and the rebuilding of the wind chests and repair of pipes, along with the dramatic improvement in the responsiveness of the keys, require our organist to approach the choice of stops(combined instrument sounds) and the actual playing quite differently, and John Terison is on it!
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