Organ donation

Like the proverbial elephant in the room, the enormous William J. Gillespie Concert Organ in Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall sat silently for years as countless concerts took place in its intimidating shadow.

Sunday, the sleeping giant finally spoke, and not with a whisper but a bellowing roar, inundating the 2000-seat venue.

The $3.15 million organ is made up of more than 4,300 pipes of different lengths from three-quarters of an inch — producing a sound so high-pitched it’s barely perceptible to bipeds — to 32 feet — which sounds more like thunder than a musical note. About 60 of the shiny silver tubes are visible to the audience, jutting skyward above the stage with a metallic purple glow in the background. The sharp angular lines and gleaming aluminum are a stark contrast to the undulating white balconies and soft wood trim of the theater.

The instrument sat untouched for so long because even after the construction of the facade, all the pipes in the background had to be built in the C.B. Fisk Inc. factory in Massachusetts before being shipped to the West Coast. Then each one of the 4,322 pipes had to be voiced to match all of the others, which technicians worked on between concerts and rehearsals, sometimes as late as midnight when the hall was available.

It would be misleading to say that both afternoon shows were sold out because the performances were free, but after the tickets went on the market, they were snapped up within hours. World-famous organist Fred Swann, who was chosen to debut the organ, has also christened the organs at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Davies Hall in San Francisco and Orchestra Hall in Chicago.

When he took the stage Sunday he sat down at the console and played a refrain of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” pulling out a few, but not all, of the stops.

Although played by a single gray-haired septuagenarian, the massive instrument can easily overpower a 150-piece orchestra and mimic almost every instrument in it. By pulling different buttons called stops on a panel beside the four stacked keyboards, Swann created fluttering flute melodies, brassy trumpet solos and classic airy organ harmonies.

And under all the myriad voices walked the deep, sinister bass notes played by the foot pedals. Nowhere was this layering showcased to greater effect than in the program’s last piece, a Passacaglia and Fugue by Canadian composer Healy Willan.

Starting with a simple statement of the eerie theme played by the dark, raspy foot pedals, which was repeated throughout the Passacaglia, new voices were continually added on top, each one quicker and more complex than the one before.

Swann’s fingers commanded all four keyboards and his feet danced on the foot pedals as he pulled stops to produce a smorgasbord of sounds as the piece moved toward its booming climax, which was not only heard but felt in the form of vibrations in listeners’ chests.

Before the concert, two representatives of C.B. Fisk Inc gave a jargon-filled presentation, detailing how each pipe was meticulously hand-voiced. The explanation, accompanied by images on a projector screen on the stage, was well above just about everyone in the audience’s heads. But the juxtaposition of the long, laborious process of voicing one pipe with the fact that there are thousands of pipes in the instrument generated “oohs” and “ahhhs” from the audience. It also explained the years theater regulars had to wait before hearing the monumental first performance of the organ.

At the end of the program the crowd was turned into a 2,000-voice choir, with Swann acting as the director and organ accompanist, as everyone stood and sang an early happy birthday to William Gillespie, who donated most of the funds for the organ.

FAST FACTS

COST: $3.15 million

SHORTEST PIPE: ¾-inch

LONGEST PIPE: 32 feet (weighs 1,000 pounds)

TIME ORGAN HAS BEEN SEEN BUT NOT HEARD: Two years

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.