Charles Brenton Fisk

Charles Brenton Fisk (February 7, 1925 – December 16, 1983) was an American pipe organ builder. He was one of the first to use mechanical tracker actions instead of electro-pneumatic actions in modern organ construction. Originally involved in the Manhattan Project, Fisk made a career change from atomic physics to organ building. He later co-founded C.B. Fisk, Inc., an organ building firm.

Early life and education
Fisk was born in Washington, DC, United States on February 7, 1925. His parents were Brenton Kern Fisk, a lawyer, and Amelia Worthington Fisk, a social worker and suffragette. In the early 1930s, the Fisk family moved to the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a soprano, he joined the choir of the Christ Church of the Cambridge Common, at which E. Power Biggs was the choirmaster and the organist. Fisk reports that at this point in life, his interest in organs had not fully matured yet. He played trumpets and organs.

On Fisk's 13th birthday, he was given a reed organ, on which he made minor repairs. According to one of Fisk's friends, Fisk fiddled with electromechanical devices and built his own amplifiers when he was 14 years old. Fisk later said that organ music was his favorite to play on the amplifiers because it "showed the amplifier off". He was well-versed in creating tube amplifiers and acquaintances of his parents often requested amplifiers built by Fisk.

Fisk studied at The Cambridge School of Weston from 1938, and graduated from the school in 1942. In 1943, when Fisk was 17, he secured a job in the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory with the aid of his physicist uncle, Joyce Stearns, who also worked there. Stearns had suggested to Fisk's parents that Fisk work with him in the laboratory to avoid conscription during World War II.

Military service and work at Los Alamos


Soon after graduating high school, Fisk was drafted to Army Air Corps, where he worked as a Link Trainer mechanic. A year later, he was transferred to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in July 1944.

While at Los Alamos, Fisk was assigned as an electronics technician and a lab helper in the Bomb Physics division. He worked under Darol Froman with twenty other people. As a member of the 9812th Special Engineer Detachment, Fisk was part of a unit that collected knowledgeable people to conduct research.

His job included soldering pre-amps for electronic sensors. These sensors were used for detecting the presence of a spherical implosion during bomb testing. A spherical implosion is needed for plutonium bombs to function. Those designs were eventually implemented as the Fat Man atomic bomb, which was dropped onto Nagasaki in 1945. He worked as a part of the Manhattan Project, however, he was not made aware of his involvement until some weeks before the bomb was dropped.

"“The work I am doing means nothing to me. That is, I don't understand what the object of it is. Of course, the principle of the whole thing is secrecy, and I am just as much in the dark about the project as you are. My official status is ‘Lab helper in the Metallurgical Lab of the University of Chicago.’ Metallurgy and the University of Chicago have about as much to do with the project as a baby elephant.”"

College education in physics and music
After the war concluded, Fisk studied at Harvard University. Continuing his interest in music, he joined a glee club at the Memorial Church of Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard with an undergraduate degree in physics in 1949.

After graduating, Fisk wished to stay in New Mexico and was offered a position as an assistant in Los Alamos. However, Fisk, due to his father's declining health and his commitment to his would-be future spouse Ann Lindenmuth, rejected the offer. For a year and a half, Fisk studied cosmic rays at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. From 1950 to 1951, he lived in California and attended Stanford University, intending on getting a PhD in physics. At Stanford, Fisk also studied under the American organist Herbert Nanney and became an apprentice of the organ builder John Swinford. He left Stanford's physics curriculum after only completing one six-week semester, and ended up switching to a music curriculum. The Boston Globe and The Diapason attributed Fisk's decision to leave physics to the unease he felt for contributing to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, an opinion essay from The Georgia Review instead argues that attributing his career change solely on moral grounds is an oversimplification. In a letter Fisk sent to his parents on August 12, 1945, he wrote:

"'With only two bombs we have killed between 250,000 and 300,000 Japanese people. Divided evenly over the number of people on the project, each member is responsible for the death of four Japanese. I cannot count this as an honor.'"

and

"'As for myself, I see no reason why you should not tell people of my association with this project. Despite all the foregoing, there has been introduced into our lives an element of pride, the pride that accompanies the success of a mission. I think I can look a combat soldier in the eye now. If you feel like being a little proud too, that's OK. But bear in mind that this is not basically something to be proud of, and if you feel like offering a prayer for the human race, now is a good time.'"

In October 1950, Fisk wrote to his parents to tell them that he was switching to a career in music. Fisk continued working part-time as an apprentice under John Swinford in Redwood City, California, while also studying under music professors Putnam Aldrich and George Houle. One of the first times that Fisk worked on an organ was when he assisted Swinford in building the organ for Santa Barbara's Trinity Episcopal Church. After Holtkamp offered him a position in 1952, and in 1954, Fisk, at Swinford's urging, became his apprentice in Cleveland, Ohio. Fisk learned various aspects of shop technique under Holtkamp, which was something that his apprenticeship with Swinford had lacked. Eventually, he dropped out of his music degree program to focus on organ building.

In a later interview by Keith Yocum, when Fisk was 54 years old, Fisk commented:

"'I don't know enough about Hiroshima and Nagasaki to know what was lost there, culturally, but I know what was lost in some of the big cities in Europe, which seems much more tragic to me right now. For instance, I can't get over what an incredible tragedy existed in one particular place: Katharinenkirche—St. Catherine's Church—in Hamburg, where there was an organ that Bach played, that was just perfect. . . . The joys that could have come out of that one particular instrument were such that. . . . I just think of what was lost.'"

Regarding this last quote, in an essay published in The Georgia Review, Laura Matter opined: "I cringe at the way that a mere thing—a musical instrument—took a privileged place over human lives in his late calculations [...] Empathy is fundamentally an act of imagination: we imagine variations on what we know, and so it was the loss of the organ that Charlie most keenly felt".

Marriage
Fisk's first marriage was to Ann Warren Lindenmuth, with whom he had a son and a daughter. His second marriage was to Virginia Lee Crist, who was from Gloucester. He and Crist married at Rockport, Massachusetts. Fisk and Crist had two daughters and a son.

C.B. Fisk, Inc.
In 1955, Fisk returned to New England from Cleveland. Afterward, he became a partner of the Andover Organ Company in Methuen, Massachusetts, a company that was founded in 1948 by Thomas W. Byers. Like Fisk, Byers was an organ builder who preferred manual organs over electric ones. In 1958, Fisk took full ownership after Byers left the company, and changed the firm's name to C.B. Fisk, Inc., in 1960. In 1961, the firm relocated to a more spacious, recycled factory in Gloucester, Massachusetts. As a result of the move, employees had to move from Methuen to Gloucester. Employees who did not wish to move stayed in Methuen and established a new Andover Organ Company. After Fisk's death, C. B. Fisk, Inc., continues to manufacture organs to the present day, with it becoming an employee-owned company.

C. B. Fisk, Inc., employed notable organists Barbara Owen, Fritz Noack, and John Brombaugh. Some of these organists have moved on from C. B. Fisk and created their own organ-building companies, with Noack establishing the Noack Organ Company and Brombaugh establishing John Brombaugh & Associates.

Membership in professional associations
Fisk was a member of the American Pipe Organ Association, the International Society of Organ Builders, the American Institute of Organ Builders, the Organ Historical Society, and the American Guild of Organists.

Death
Fisk died on December 16, 1983, aged 58 years, due to a liver autoimmune condition, at Philips House, Massachusetts General Hospital. Fisk had lived with sclerosing cholangitis for nearly 3 decades, but it was only diagnosed a few years before his death. Fisk's funeral was held on December 20, 1983, at St. John's Episcopal Church, Gloucester. On January 21, 1984, a memorial service for Fisk was held in the Memorial Church of Harvard University.

Organ building


In contrast with the tracker-action organs of the baroque period, the use of electro-pneumatic action mechanisms was the prevalent practice in early 20th-century organ building. However, Fisk was among the first builders to break with this practice; he adopted the tracker action and stop-action mechanisms of historical European and American organs, making him one of the first modern American organ builders to do so. This was a part of the Organ Reform Movement, of which Fisk was cited as a major participant by The American Organist.

In tracker-action organs, the movement of the keys or pedals is mechanically linked to the valves, enabling air to flow through the organ pipes. In electro-pneumatic action, valves and keys are connected electrically, without the use of mechanical trackers. An organ manual is a set of keys that are played with the hands, similar to the keyboard on a piano. However, unlike a piano, an organ can have multiple manuals, one above another.

To further his understanding of traditional organs, Fisk studied features of historical European organs. Trips to European countries were commonplace, with the first one being in 1959, where he traveled with Arthur Howes. Fisk was particularly interested in the organ located in Jakobikirche church, and he made three journeys to Germany to studied the organ. He then tried to emulate them in his designs.

In addition to building new organs, Fisk restored various historical organs. Barbara Owens, a former collaborator of Fisk, wrote that his works were influenced by German and French organs. His organs were described as having an eclectic nature, as he never stuck to only one style of organ building.

Opus numbers
Fisk gave his organs opus numbers. Some of these works were never built due to cancellations. Some were merely restorations of, and additions to, existing organs. Additionally, opus numbers 1 through 24 were not built by Fisk. This was because he continued the preexisting opus numbers of the Andover Organ Company, meaning those organs were built by Byers.

Opus 24 through 27 were built when Byers and Fisk co-owned Andover, and opus 28 through 35 were built before the rebranding to C. B. Fisk, Inc. Opus 35 through 85 were built by C. B. Fisk, Inc., when Fisk was still alive, and the rest were built after his death.

Philosophy
Jones Boyds, an organist at Stetson University, wrote that Fisk had mixed views on the organ being used along with an orchestra, basing it on this quote from Fisk: "[T]he fortunes of the organ and of the orchestra are to an extent mutually exclusive and my personal view is that the one instrument takes the place of the other [...] There is a human craving, musically speaking, for a towering musical effect. The organ satisfied this craving for hundreds of years before the 19th century orchestra took it over". Still, Fisk studied concert-hall organs ever since 1976.

Jonathan Ambrosino, an organ historian, wrote that although Fisk was inspired by older organs, he added his own personal touches rather than exactly replicating historical organs.

In 1968, The Diapason published an article, written by Fisk and called "The Organ's Breath of Life", in which Fisk argued in favor of using historical organ wind systems. In his essay, he wrote that organs should return to the "warbling" sound of a hand-cranked wind supply with mechanical changes to the electrical wind supply. This idea was negatively received in its publication but now is an industry-standard. "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."In September 1987, Fisk wrote an article called "Some Thoughts on Pipe Metal", in which he described the differences between the tonal qualities of metals used in pipes. He described lead pipes as "a darkness, a hollowness, a sound as of deepest antiquity [and] a strength of sound." and that tin pipes embodied the "sound of refinement". It was published by The American Organist and was cited by organists Jonathan M. Gregoire and Hans Davidsson.

Noted organs


In 1958, Rice University commissioned the Andover Company to build an organ (opus 25). This is one of the first that Fisk made completely from scratch. Before this project, Fisk only performed repairs and additions to already-built organs. Opus 25 marks the last electric organ Fisk would ever make; all of his later works predominantly have tracker actions. A historical feature he adapted in this organ is the Rückpositiv. Rückpositiv is a smaller section of organ pipe that can be played separately from the larger main pipe. Though Rückpositiv can be easily seen in old organs, they were essentially extinct in the 1960s when this organ was built. It is also known as the Andover-Fisk Organ.

His first significant work was constructed in 1961: a two-manual, fully mechanical-action organ (op. 35). It was built in Mount Calvary Episcopal Church, Baltimore, with the help of organ builder Dirk Flentrop. Flentrop advised on the design of tonal and mechanical components, while Fisk decided on the final design, voicing, and construction. The name "Flentrop-Andover" was chosen because it was built when Fisk was still the president of the Andover Company. Andrew Johnson, an organist at Mount Calvary Church, described the organ as being "clear" and "responsive". He also wrote that the organ seemed to "shape the player". This organ includes two pedals that may be configured to activate specific stops to achieve a different tonal qualities. This bypasses having to pull the organ stops manually. These special pedals specifically affect the lower register section, called the Pedal division, of the main keyboard, which is also known as the Great.

In 1964, Fisk built the first modern mechanical organ, of three manuals, in King's Chapel on Tremont Street (op. 44) superseding an E.M. Skinner organ. Organist George Bozeman wrote in The Tracker that it provided a "vivid, rich sound, and a crystalline clarity that reveals the color and texture of each stop". In American Record Guide, William Gatens wrote that based on a recording of it, the organ sounded "thin and strident" and felt "dry" compared to Fisk's later works.

In 1967, Fisk built a pedal instrument for the Memorial Church of Harvard (op. 46). At first, Fisk made an attempt to renovate a pre-existing E. M. Skinner organ in Appleton Chapel, the smaller chancel of the Memorial Church. Despite Fisk's efforts, an organ tuned for the chancel turned out to be unbalanced for the larger chapel, and vice versa. Because of this, it was decided to build a new organ; this time located in the chancel. As for the completed organ, organist Christian Lane said that the control of the wind felt "amazing and voluptuous". In 2010, the Fisk organ was relocated to the Presbyterian church in Austin, Texas, and was replaced by 1929 Skinner Organ Co. organ. Because the Presbyterian church had taller ceilings, it was possible to install full-length 32 ft (~10 m) stops.

In 1970, Fisk installed a three-manual and pedal organ (op. 55) that was inspired by Johann Silbermann's work at Old West Church, using casework from an early Thomas Appleton organ. According to an interview in 1975, not having to build entirely new casework lowered the cost of the organ.

In 1979, Fisk built a four-manual, mechanical-action instrument for Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In 1981, Fisk built an organ (op. 83) for the Downtown United Presbyterian Church of Rochester, New York; it was installed in 1983. It has 2600 pipes, weighs 9 tons, and cost US$300,000. Like many of his organs, it uses manual trackers rather than electric ones.

From 1980 to 1981, a historical baroque organ (op. 72), tuned in mean-tone temperament, was recreated and installed in Houghton Chapel of Wellesley College. It uses reeds copied from historical organs and historical organ wind systems. More specifically, the Rückpositiv and Brustwerk sections of the organ were recreated from the Friederich Stellwagen organ located in the Jakobikirche church in Lubeck. The four Brustpedal cantus firmus stops were copied from the Compenius organ located in Frederiksborg Castle in Copenhagen. Additionally, it was designed so the air supply can be supplied electrically or through manual pedals.

In 1981, another organ was planned for Palmer Memorial Church, which is a de facto church of Rice University. Though Fisk was chosen as the builder, he died before the construction, although C.B. Fisk, Inc., continued to build the organ. The design commenced in 1989.

In 1984, after Fisk died, a 4-manual organ (op. 85) was completed at Stanford's Memorial Church. It was originally commissioned in 1973 but was delayed for 25 years because of financial and logistics issues. It is the largest organ in the Memorial Church and is named the "Fisk-Nanney" organ, which is in part reference to the church's organist, Herbert Nanney. It is designed to accommodate two different tuning systems meantone and equal temperament. A large iron lever above the manuals allows the organist to switch between the two systems. Manuel J. Rosales was consulted during the building process. In 1988, musicologist Mark Lindley published an analysis of the organ's tuning system. He found that the organ included tuning discrepancies, with various notes being a few cents off from their historical counterparts. (See also: Stanford Memorial Church § Organs)

In 1992, a Fisk organ was installed in Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas, Texas. It was originally conceived in 1982, which was when the plans to install an organ for the concert hall were set out. With a tonal design plan completed in 1983, this project was aided by architect I. M. Pei, acoustician Russell Johnson, and visual designer Charles Nazarian. Pei suggested that brass highlights be added to make the organ fit better with its surroundings. The Resonance division of the organ, which operates at high pressure, was made easier to play by using Fisk company's servopneumatic lever mechanism. The organ was well regarded by James Moeser, the former president of the American Guild of Organists, who described the organ as "one of the most important organs to have been built in this or any century".

Appearance in media
Fisk has received media attention from various television shows and radio programs, such as NBC's Today Show, CBS's Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt, and NPR's The Rest of the Story.

After Fisk's death, two novels based on his life were published. One is titled The Organ Builder, written by Robert Cohen (ISBN 9780060159092). It was inspired by Fisk's life and work as described in his obituary in The New York Times. Another was published a few decades later, in 2020, when Stephen Kiernan published a novel named Universe of Two. The protagonist of the novel, Charlie Fish, is inspired by Fisk (ISBN 978-0062878441).

In addition to these literary works, a two-volume biography named Charles Brenton Fisk, Organ Builder was published two years after Fisk's death. It includes his writings and details about the Fisk organs.

In 2013, a 60-minute documentary film named "Opus 139: To Hear the Music" by Dennis Lanson was screened. The documentary details the steps C. B. Fisk, Inc. employees take to build organs and the life of Charles Brenton Fisk.