Replicating the acoustic signature of an church organ
DEC 24, 2009
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.023952
NYTimes.com : The ceremonial pipe organ of the 18th century was a masterpiece of human ingenuity, so elegant in its outward appearance that a casual observer could only guess at the complexity that lay within.The builders were precision craftsmen celebrated for their skill in hand-making thousands of moving parts and in shaping and tuning metal and wooden pipes to mimic the sounds of each instrument in an orchestra.The effect was breathtaking. “Each instrument speaks to you in a different way,” said Hans Davidsson, a concert organist, sitting before the console of the organ at the cavernous Christ Church, Episcopal, in Rochester.The organ, the Craighead-Saunders , is a unique instrument, not only because of its lovely sound, but also because it is a nearly exact copy of a late Baroque organ built by Adam Gottlob Casparini of East Prussia in 1776. The original stands in the Holy Ghost Church in Vilnius, Lithuania .
© 2009 American Institute of Physics
