That’s a huge organ!
Daily concerts, and best way to see it is the the accompaniment to the holiday light show between t-giving and xmas.
Six manuals? Keith Emerson doesn’t even need six manuals.
Anyone else immediately reminded of the UU’s Organ from Terry Pratchett’s books? 
I wonder if this one has an earthquake pipe or a whole selection of animal noises…
I wonder if the 3.5-acre Luray Caverns’ Stalacpipe Organ would be bigger…
I had always heard that the Rockefeller Memorial Carrilon at the University of Chicago is the largest single instrument ever built. 72 bells, 100 tons of bronze.
Why did JS Bach have 21 kids? Because his organ had no stops.
ERMAGERD if I ever pass through Philadelphia, I am going there!
I don’t think you are allowed to count the whole Earth as part of a “Stalacpipe” organ just because it is attached to it.
I wonder if that’s based on whether you count the framework/housing. By sheer mass, maybe, or would all those pipes eventually add up to 100 tons? Would you include the blowers and the bellows? All the electronics and controls? IIRC carrilon mechanisms aren’t half as complicated.
Interesting question, anyway. I wish I knew enough to figure it out.
The thing that gets me about those big pipe organs is that although they certainly sound impressive (we heard the one in the cathedral in Seville several years back), they always just sound like big pipe organs, regardless of the “stops” the organists adjust. They never manage to sound much different. I am left wondering about the point of all that adjustability if they always just sound the same.
One year during Bumbershoot, they rigged the 200 foot deck on the Space Needle to be one of the bridges on a giant earth harp, and strung it to the ground. It was a pretty big, functional musical instrument. But not nearly as complex as this steampunk monstrosity.
Not much gets by Ms. Friedrichs.
Apparently I’m 12 hours too late to make the first dick joke.
Depends on whether the whole earth resonate when you play it, or just part of it.
I could talk your ear off about pipe organs. When I was 17-21 me and a friend would would impersonate, cajole, smooth talk our way into churches to play their organs. My friend Jeff got his doctorate in pipe organ performance a few months ago. It still tickles me to see him at the top of Google image search when I look for him.
There is Sooo much great music for the instrument, but I will leave you with this. A well known fugue from Bach.
Notice how his fingers are curled up like a claw? That is because the keys are more like buttons than piano keys. Notice how the video looks out of sync? That is because the pipes are far away, and take time to hear.
It is a wonderfully challenging instrument.
And you don’t even have to use your hands!
