|
|
| |
|
|
|
Vol. 45 No. 1
March 29, 2006 |
|
|
Pipe organs speak of tradition at L.I.
parishes
By Lena Pennino
Staff Reporter |
| |
TLIC photos/Gregory A. Shemitz |
|
|
“The organ can shake whole buildings or it can create light,
ethereal sounds,” said Paul Eschenauer, music director of
Our Lady of Mercy in Hicksville. “The organ evokes something
deep inside of you which I believe no other instrument can
do.”
Mr. Eschenauer, who has been documenting pipe organs in
Brooklyn and Long Island for 12 years, said he would
estimate that there are about 30 pipe organs on Long Island.
Many of them are found in local parishes but they can also
be found in other religious facilities such as the
motherhouse of the Amityville Dominican Sisters and the
Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington.
All shapes and sizes
Every pipe organ is different, made up of dozens, hundreds
or even thousands of pipes. Like each string in a piano,
each pipe produces one note, so many pipes are needed to
create a full sound.
Different sized pipes create different pitches. Smaller
pipes produce high notes; taller pipes produce low notes.
“Some pipes are 18 feet tall,” said Ray Henderson, music
director at Our Lady of Hope in Carle Place who has been
involved in building 18 pipe organs in his career. “You can
stand in these pipes. They are two inches thick.” The
tallest pipes produce sounds so low they sound less like
notes and more like a grumbling thunderstorm.
The pipe organ is designed to mimic the sound of an
orchestra: flutes, oboes, violins and trumpets, for example.
Pipe organs also produce unique sounds called diapasons,
powerful majestic moans.
Varying the pipes’ size, material and shape creates these
different sounds. Some pipes are made from tin mixed with
lead, or from zinc or wood, and some are shaped like straws
or long boxes or flared like trumpets.
Mr. Henderson was proud to include wooden sugar pine pipes
in the newly installed pipe organ at Our Lady of Hope in
Carle Place. “This type of pine is no longer available in
these large sizes,” he said. Like many of the pipes that
make up the organ in Carle Place, the wooden pipes had been
part of another instrument that was being dismantled.
Pulling out all the stops
Michael Bower, co-director of music at St. Agnes Cathedral
in Rockville Centre, recently sat at one of two organ
consoles there. From that position he had the power to
command an army of more than 4,400 pipes. This console with
its two rows of keys and a pedalboard (a keyboard for the
organist’s feet) is crowded with white knobs to the left and
right of the console. These knobs — marked with various pipe
names such as English Horn, Flute Conique and Grand Cornet —
are called stops.
“They should really be called ‘starts’ instead of ‘stops,’”
joked Mr. Bower, explaining that when he pulls out a stop,
it allows a rank of pipes to play when a key is depressed.
The stops enable him to control the pipes. “The stops are
ingredients to cook up whatever,” said Mr. Bower.
“Professional organists will know how to combine stops to
make something wonderful. We are always making new
discoveries.”
Recently, he started the pipe organ — like a car — with the
flick of a key.
In other rooms unseen, three blowers began pumping air into
a large box called a reservoir that keeps the air
pressurized and wind chests that sit under the various ranks
of pipes.
When Mr. Bower pulls out one of the white knobs — a stop
called “festival trumpet” — it enables that rank of pipes to
play. When he depresses a key on the console, a trumpet
sound blares from flared copper pipes protruding from the
choir loft over the congregational area. “Good for Easter
time,” he said with a smile.
If Mr. Bower were to “pull out all the stops,” he could play
hundreds of pipes at the same time.
A treasure
It may be hard these days to impress people used to so many
high-tech devices such as cell phones and iPods, but the
pipe organ was the computer before computers: a person taps
at a keyboard to control a powerful machine.
“It was the most complex instrument in the world before the
industrial revolution,” said Mr. Bower. It was invented
centuries before the birth of Christ and was used in
churches by 450 A.D. and continues to hold a special place
in the Church’s heart.
“The pipe organ adds a wonderful splendor to the Church’s
ceremonies, and powerfully lifts up men’s mind to God and to
higher things,” according to Vatican Council II.
Mr. Eschenauer is saddened when he hears of parishes
throwing out pipe organs in favor of electronic organs that
are initially less expensive but don’t last as long.
He does note that new electronic organs can sound amazingly
similar to pipe organs, because they use digital sound
samples from actual pipe organs. But, to him, it’s the
difference between attending a concert and listening to a
CD, commented Mr. Eschenauer.
“It can be a good recording but it’s not the same as hearing
it live,” he said. |
|
|
|
|
|
Send
questions or comments about this web site to
webmaster@licatholic.org
E-mail intended as a Letter to the Editor
goes to
editor@licatholic.org
Last modified:
11/17/2007
© Copyright 2006 The Long Island Catholic |
|
|
|
|
