LEWISTON – Even before the music began, Maine’s largest organ created sounds of it own.
Like an out-of-breath runner, the air-powered instrument began to wheeze. Twin engines blew into Depression-era leather bladders, which leaked with high-pitched squeaks and whistles.
Then, the small sounds seemed forgotten.
As organist Scott Vaillancourt played, the vast spaces of Saints Peter and Paul Basilica suddenly filled. High notes cascaded from the lofty arches while low notes rumbled to the stone floor.
Vaillancourt, 35, smiled slightly as he negotiated four keyboards, several pedals and some 60 stops, wooden handles that operate like the levers of a Foosball game.
The music, from Leon Boellmann’s “Suite Gothic,” is one of Vaillancourt’s favorites.
“It’s loud and it’s exciting,” Vaillancourt said when he finished.
And it creates the kind of sound organists dream of making.
This instrument – a 1930s Casavant organ with 5,432 individual pipes – is what drew the Van Buren native to accept this job 2 years ago, leaving a lakeside home in Waterboro to become the basilica’s music director.
And the organ didn’t even work.
“It sat idle for almost 20 years,” said Vaillancourt, who waited a full year to hear his first notes.
It needed repairs to its pipes and its 75-year-old inner workings.
The church spent about $45,000 making it playable. That was just a first step, though.
There are sounds Vaillancourt still can’t make.
And there are sounds, such as the squeaks from the leaky air bags, he’d rather forget. About 30 percent of the organ’s pipes, some 1,600, don’t work yet.
Another $250,000 is needed to update the instrument to like-new condition.
Yet, in its current state, it’s a magnificent organ.
The first time Vaillancourt played it, improvising a few notes, the organ made sounds to match the basilica’s visual majesty.
“It will take you anywhere you want to go,” Vaillancourt said.
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