The Organ
"The Great Organ" was built by C.E Walcker Company of Ludwigsburg, Germany. It arrived in the US from Europe in March 1863, with installation completed in November 1863. It was at the time believed to be the largest pipe organ in the United States, with 5,474 pipes and 84 registers. It was the first concert organ in the United States.
The organ case was made by the Herter Brothers of New York, for whom Searles had once worked, from American Black Walnut, based on a case design by Hammatt Billings. The display pipes were manufactured from burnished Cornish tin.
In 1881, the Boston Symphony Orchestra was founded and the Boston Music Hall was their first home. The orchestra required a lot of space for the performers. With the rise in popularity of orchestral concert, interest in organ recitals declined. The organ was removed to storage in 1884 and then sold for $5,000 to William O. Grover. Grover probably intended to donate the organ to the New England Conservatory of Music, but after his death in (circa 1897), it was auctioned to settle his estate. Searles purchased it at auction for $1,500 and began construction of a music hall in Methuen.
Read more about this topic: Methuen Memorial Music Hall
Famous quotes containing the word organ:
“What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“And this mighty master of the organ of language, who knew its every stop and pipe, who could awaken at will the thin silver tones of its slenderest reeds or the solemn cadence of its deepest thunder, who could make it sing like a flute or roar like a cataract, he was born into a country without literature.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)