What is the life expectancy of a tracker organ?
A tracker organ should last indefinitely if it is well built and properly maintained. In America there are many tracker organs from the middle of the 19th century that are still in playing condition and a few from the 18th. In Europe 18th century organs are not uncommon, there are still a decent number that date from the 1600’s, a handful from the Renaissance, and a very few from the late Middle Ages. The world’s oldest functioning organ, a little instrument in a swallows-nest gallery in an abbey in Sion, Switzerland, is said to date from around 1370. The fact is, old organs have perished more often because of changing musical fashion, than because they were worn out. A great number of Europe’s 17th and 18th century organs were modernized, to their detriment, in the era of industrial organbuilding, as were many of America’s tracker organs from the 19th century—when they weren’t simply scrapped in the name of “progress.” Of course, the many calamities of history–fire, flood, earthquake
