Pipe Up

The splendid interior of the Methuen Memorial Music Hall.

Photograph by Len Levasseur

The Methuen Memorial Music Hall, with its lavish English baroque-inspired interior, was built to house the first concert organ in the United States. It’s worth a visit, even for those who find the music emitted by the 6,088-pipe instrument a bit bombastic, or associated only with church services. People bring “baggage to the table,” says concert organist Carson P. Cooman ’04, research associate in music and composer in residence at Harvard’s Memorial Church, just as they do with “other forms of classical instruments…in a world where pop music reigns.” He took up the organ at age 10, mastering its traditional range and flourishes, as in J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, but now he specializes in contemporary works. He’ll perform “Yankee Doodle Variations,” by Carlotta Ferrari, among other pieces, on July 18 for the hall’s summer and fall concert series.

Watching organists, dwarfed by 64-foot pipes, maneuver keys and pedals while you puzzle out the musical mechanics can be half the fun. (Air vibrating through different-sized pipes produces the panoply of sounds.) The Methuen organ was built in 1863 in Germany for the Boston Music Hall. Edward F. Searles, a rags-to-riches, Methuen-born interior designer, bought it later and built the hall. The splendor speaks to his respect for the instrument; the three-foot-thick walls to its power.    

Click here for the July-August 2018 issue table of contents

Read more articles by Nell Porter-Brown

You might also like

Salsa Squared

Latin dancing fills the streets in Harvard Square   

Pony Plunges

Scrapbooking a woman who rode horses into the sea

Sister Acts and Cyanotypes

Julia Rooney’s paintings cross the analog-digital divide.

Most popular

Grow, Make, Eat, and Imbibe

Alumni promote the local origins of edible goods

The Professor Who Quantified Democracy

Erica Chenoweth’s data shows how—and when—authoritarians fall.

Jodie Foster Honored at Radcliffe Day

The actress and director discussed her film career and her transformative time at Yale.

Explore More From Current Issue

Garber, Trump, and the Fight for Harvard’s Future

Introducing a guide to the issues, players, and stakes.

Walter Wick’s I Spy Series

I Spy Creator Walter Wick at the Norman Rockwell Museum 

Harvard’s Plant Collection Meets Space Science

Light-based analysis of botanical collections link plants to Earth’s changing climate.