Charles Brenton Fisk (1925-1983) was the first American organbuilder to build significant tracker organs in the 20th century. His study of early American and European instruments led him to return to mechanical action, and to set a new course for American organbuilding. He modeled his shop on collaborative enterprise, launching the careers of four other North American organbuilders and providing the foundation for those who carry on the company he founded. Nearly a third of present day shop members worked with Charlie before his death, and continue to be inspired by his approach to study, problem solving, and collegial respect.
C. B. Fisk Inc. was founded in 1961 by Charles Brenton Fisk. Born in Cambridge Mass, he loved music and grew up tinkering with hi-fi equipment. He was a chorister at Christ Church on Cambridge Common where E. Power Biggs was Choirmaster. Charles showed such intelligence as a young man that when he was drafted during WWII, he was sent to Los Alamos where he worked for Robert Oppenheimer. He was 18 years old. After the war he attended Harvard and Stanford, majoring in Nuclear Physics, and worked briefly at Brookhaven National Laboratories, but during his Stanford years decided to pursue a career in organbuilding.
He apprenticed himself first with John Swinford in Redwood City, California, and then with Walter Holtcamp, Sr. in Cleveland, Ohio, who was at the time the most avant garde of American organbuilders. He went on to become a partner and later sole owner of the Andover Organ Company. In 1961 he established C. B. Fisk near his childhood summer home on Cape Ann.
The workshop attracted bright young co-workers who combined their talents in music, art, engineering, and cabinet making to build organs that redefined modern American organbuilding. Always experimenting, C. B. Fisk was the first modern American organbuilder to abandon the electro-pneumatic action of the early twentieth century and return to the mechanical (tracker) key and stop action of historical European and early American instruments. The Fisk firm went on to construct the largest four-manual mechanical action instruments built in America in this century, first at Harvard University in 1967, then again at House of Hope Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1979.
The company has also built a number of instruments based on historical organs, among them one at Wellesley College, patterned after North German organs of the early 17th century, one at the University of Michigan in the manner of the Saxon builder, Gottfried Silbermann, and a three-manual instrument at Rice University modeled on the work of the 19th century French master builder Aristide Cavaillé Coll. The large four-manual dual-temperament instrument at Stanford University used modern technology to combine many different aspects of historical organ styles. Concert hall organs at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Minato Mirai Concert Hall in Yokohama, and Benaroya Hall in Seattle, were designed for maximum impact with orchestra as well as for solo repertoire. In 2003 C. B. Fisk built a five-manual organ for the Cathedral in Lausanne, Switzerland, the first American organ to be made for a European cathedral.
C. B. Fisk still combines the science of physics and the art of music as practiced by Charles Fisk, who saw himself as a teacher and tirelessly shared his insight and experience with others. His style of leadership, modeled after the team of scientists he worked with on the Manhattan Project, involved his co-workers in the day-to-day decisions about the concepts and construction of the instruments. The same people who were drawn by Charles Fisk's bold ideas carry on his work and share their insight and experience with another generation of organbuilders. This dedicated community continues to use its talent and imagination to stretch the boundaries of organbuilding, producing instruments that add to the rich heritage of the King of Instruments.
THE ORGAN IS...A MACHINE, whose machine-made sounds will always be without interest unless they can appear to be coming from a living organism. The organ has to seem to be alive.
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
