“Oh my, yes. Pipe organs can last for several hundred years with proper maintenance. Unfortunately, tastes change, and sometimes the local organist and/or music committees can’t resist the urge to significantly alter the sound of the organ, or sometimes to just put their own stamp on it simply because they can, so to speak. Then thirty or forty years later when it’s time to once again perform major maintenance, the people in charge spend a considerable amount of money restoring the instrument to its original specifications. To find an historic organ with its original sound unchanged is significant.”
“How much time at the console do you need?” the Dean said.
Dean Breckinridge was a sharp negotiator, but so was Tom, and it only took them a few minutes to strike a deal which gave Tom virtually unlimited access to the organ for the next three days. The cathedral, for its part, would receive a specified number of CDs for free and additional copies at a set price.