Interesting Question about Urakami Cathedral

[owenexplorerph]

Asking permission to admin to post this thread... Thanks!

 

My curiosity about Urakami Cathedral and Mander Organs started from the discovery of the counterpart Hauptwerk virtual sampleset by Inspired Acoustics. How? YouTube, I guess, from me being an amateur organist student and organ music fan... (Urakami Pipe Organ Samples | Inspired Acoustics)

What interested me is the webpage of the builder about the real organ and this specific phrase: "There are now moves to restore the interior and improve the acoustic."
Sourced from Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki, Japan - Mander Organ Builders (mander-organs.com)

I am interested to learn what they meant about this, knowing the second cathedral is very different from the original cathedral. (destroyed in WWII, similar to Coventry)

Thanks for any official replies!

 

You can look at this Facebook page for pictures of their reconstruction research of the original cathedral: (1) 3d4kアーカイブ広島・長崎 | Facebook

[owenexplorerph]

Additional query also: Is Google Bard AI really correct on this?!
"

Yes, the pipe organ at the former Urakami Cathedral was destroyed in the 2016 earthquake. The earthquake struck on April 14, 2016, and measured 7.3 on the Richter scale. The earthquake caused widespread damage in Nagasaki, including to the Urakami Cathedral. The pipe organ was badly damaged in the earthquake, and could not be repaired.

The samples of the organ were preserved, and can be played on a virtual organ. However, the physical organ itself was destroyed in the earthquake.

"

[Choir Man]

This video from August 2022 by a Japanese news channel shows an electronic instrument being used. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha5t6eIwQcM .

I have found other videos of the cathedral that show that the instrument, or at least its facade, is still present, however the internal condition and playability remain unknown.

 

[Contrabombarde]

Very sad if true - there seems to be a complete absence of information on the internet about the organ since its installation, other than that a CD that was made in around 2001, until 2020 when the Hauptwerk sample set was released. Presumably that must have been recorded before 2016 if the organ was destroyed then?

If this instrument is no more, I wonder how many other world class instruments have fortuitously been sampled prior to unexpected destruction.