The new $1.5-million organ at Christ Lutheran Church, most likely the largest organ in Maryland, speaks to the congregation with the gusto of a passionate sermon.
“When an organ is used to lead hundreds of voices in hymns, it?s very thrilling,” said Matthew Bellocchio, organ builder and project team leader from the Andover Organ Company in Massachusetts. “Accompanying a congregation, that?s [the organ?s] raison d?être.”
Designing, building and installing the organ (a two-year endeavor) required the Andover organ builders to work as engineers, architectures, artists, musicians and physicists, Bellocchio said.
The “speaking” length of the organ?s 4,000-plus pipes determine the organ?s pitch and range from a quarter of an inch in height to 16 feet tall. The instrument can command eight octaves, reaching the limits of human hearing.
“It?s the first church organ in the country where the front organ can be controlled mechanically from the gallery,” Bellocchio said.
“Music in service to God?s word has been a central part of Lutheran worship and piety from the very beginning of the Church,” said Christ Lutheran?s pastor for the past 24 years, John Sabatelli.
The Christ Lutheran congregation, founded in 1887, will dedicate the organ at 11 a.m. Sunday to Paul Davis, the church?s organist and choir director since the mid 1960s.
“Paul is incredibly loved and incredibly talented,” Sabatelli said. “He?s a musician?s musician.”
During the dedication ceremony, the church?s organists, choir, soprano soloist and congregation will perform a festival cantata, written by Christ Church?s composer-in-residence, Dr. Stephen Folkemer.
“This organ is the most significant instrument installed in Baltimore because of its size and quality, and because it doesn?t violate the integrity of the building,” Sabatelli said.
“My aim has always been to make the organ look as though it has always been there,” said Andover Organ Company President Donald Olson.
The present edifice, a limestone-trimmed brick building, was constructed in 1955. The architect of the National Cathedral in Washington, Philip Frohman, designed the building in modified English Gothic style.
The latest addition to the church, the Andover Opus 114 organ, fills the choir loft as well as the sides of chancel.
