‘Breath of Life': Exploring the beauty and power of C.B. Fisk's majestic organs

Boston Globe

06-06-2025

Gloucester is most associated with fishing, of course, and, artistically, with painting (Fitz Henry Lane, John Sloan, Edward Hopper, Marsden Hartley, Stuart Davis, Milton Avery, Joseph Solman) and poetry (Charles Olson, Vincent Ferrini, and don't forget T.S. Eliot's 'The Dry Salvages'). But in musical circles, thanks to Fisk, Gloucester is a world capital. The show includes models and photographs of Fisk organs that are near (Cambridge and Wellesley), far (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, and Minnesota), and quite far (Hong Kong and Japan).
Opus 153, Wesley United Methodist Church, Muscatine, Iowa, 2019.
Dana Sigall
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As 'Breath of Life' very appealingly demonstrates, a pipe organ is about much more than the sounds it creates, regardless of how stirring or beautiful those sounds might be. Before an organ can make music, its own making variously draws on architecture, art, carpentry, acoustics, and engineering. Even when silent, it's a thing of beauty: a piece of magnificent sculpture that doubles as art installation. Fisk designates each of its organs with an opus number, the way musical composition are so designated. That seems altogether fitting.
Opus 171, for example, is a continuo organ, much smaller than its more imposing brethren. That doesn't mean any less care went into its making. It's fashioned of white oak, walnut, boxwood, rosewood, curly maple, cherry, tin, and aluminum.
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Opus 150, Christ Church, Philadelphia, 2018.
Dana Sigall
In addition to organ models and photographs, 'Breath of Life' includes drawings, decorative artwork for the organs, a pair of pipes (one the size of a chopstick, the other big enough to sit on a launching pad at a mini-Cape Canaveral), song books from the 18th and early 19th centuries, and a plaster cast of
A vitrine displays a sampling of organ parts and tools used in their making. They're small wonders of elegance and utility, with names no less beautiful than the items themselves: 'languid,' 'reed tongue,' 'wooden beater and mandrel,' 'cut up knife,' 'toe cone,' 'toe hold gauge,' 'burnisher.'
Opus 78, House of Hope Presbyterian Church, Saint Paul, Minn., 1979.
Photo by Len Levasseur
The show's wall texts are highly informative. Even so, this is the rare exhibition where visitors could forgo explanation and, simply gawking at what's on display, do so with pleasure and edification. That's how attractive the models and photographs and related materials are.
In CAM Green's light-filled, white-walled exhibition space, the models look radiant. The organs are unique, like a fingerprint — or person — the design of each determined by the nature of the space it's sited in and the needs of the church or concert hall that commissioned it. Opus 110, located in Yokohama, Japan, is familiarly known as 'Lucy.' Opus 141, in Niiza, Japan, has blue lacquering. The pipes for Opus 146, in Glendale, Ohio, are arranged to form wing shapes — on wings of song, so to speak.
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Opus 141, St. Paul's Chapel, Rikkyo University, Niiza, Japan, 2014.
Scott Shaw
The nine models are on a scale of 1:16: ¾ of an inch to 1 foot. 'They look like dollhouses to me,' a visitor was overheard to say during a recent visit. Fair enough, but lucky the dolls that get to live in such houses.
'Breath of Life' has a Fisk-selected soundtrack. It consists of organ music, of course. This is a very rare exception to the rule that music accompanying an exhibition is extremely annoying. Here it's not a distraction but an enhancement. For purists who prefer their music in person, there are organ performances in the exhibition space on Wednesdays from 1 to 1:30 p.m.
A final note: The renovation of CAM's downtown campus continues, with reopening scheduled for this March.
BREATH OF LIFE — C.B. FISK, DESIGNERS & BUILDERS OF PIPE ORGANS
At Cape Ann Museum, CAM Green Campus, 13 Poplar St., Gloucester, through June 29. 978-283-0455, ext. 110, www.capeannmuseum.org
Mark Feeney can be reached at