A Porsche Organ

[Barry Jordan]

The magnificent Sauer console with its terraced, coloured porcelain stop tablets survived until the 1990s, when the Eule firm, then a VEB, or state-owned firm, ripped it out and put in a hideous, cheap mobile affair with illuminated stop lozenges, rather like bell-pushes.  Eule is obviously a very different firm these days.

 

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It is indeed, but I'm afraid not all the other info is correct! The last major work on the organ took place between 1986 and 1988. It was done, not by Eule, but by Sauer. The console was indeed hideous, but it was (by eastern standards) not cheap ! Did it really have illuminated stops? I don't remember that, but they were popular in the DDR.

 

The VEB's (Volkseigene Betrieb, or, popularly, "Vatis ehemaliger Betrieb") ceased to exist in 1989.

 

Cheers

Barry

[John Sayer]

It is indeed, but I'm afraid not all the other info is correct! The last major work on the organ took place between 1986 and 1988. It was done, not by Eule, but by Sauer. The console was indeed hideous, but it was (by eastern standards) not cheap ! Did it really have illuminated stops? I don't remember that, but they were popular in the DDR.

 

The VEB's (Volkseigene Betrieb, or, popularly, "Vatis ehemaliger Betrieb") ceased to exist in 1989.

 

Cheers

Barry

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Quite right - my apologies for wrongly accusing Eule of the botched 1980s job.

It did indeed have illuminated stop lozenges when I played it in April 2000, in the same style as the Gewandhaus organ.

 

Another eloquent testimony to the quality of Eule's recent work is, of course, the magnificently restored Hildebrandt organ at St Wenzel, Naumburg - IMHO the finest Bach organ there is, anywhere.

 

JS

[Pierre Lauwers]

Another eloquent testimony to the quality of Eule's recent work is, of course, the magnificently restored Hildebrandt organ at St Wenzel, Naumburg - IMHO the finest Bach organ there is, anywhere.

 

JS

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Yes, but I'd add this one:

 

http://www.trost-orgel.de/english/index-eng.html

Pierre

[heva]

Yes, but I'd add this one:

 

http://www.trost-orgel.de/english/index-eng.html

Pierre

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Maybe even more spectacular ...

[Barry Jordan]

Quite right - my apologies for wrongly accusing Eule of the botched 1980s job.

It did indeed have illuminated stop lozenges when I played it in April 2000, in the same style as the Gewandhaus organ.

 

Another eloquent testimony to the quality of Eule's recent work is, of course, the magnificently restored Hildebrandt organ at St Wenzel, Naumburg - IMHO the finest Bach organ there is, anywhere.

 

JS

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Eule is flavour of the month in some circles. But their new instruments did not quite attain the quality of their restorations until recently - I have always rather disliked the organ in the concert hall of the Hochschule in Leipzig, but they scored a spectacular success with their new instrument in the catholic cathedral across the road from us here in 2005.

 

http://kirchenmusik-bistum-magdeburg.de/3910.html

 

Their head voicer Gregor Hiecke is becoming a name to conjure with.

 

Cheers

Barry

[Pierre Lauwers]

I would like to know more about this:

 

HPTW

 

Mixtur Major 4-5 ranks 2'

Mixtur Minor 3 ranks 1 1/3'

 

RP

 

Mixtur 4 ranks 1 1/3'

 

SW

 

Progressiv harm. 3-5 ranks 2 2/3'

 

It may seem somewhat "HPTW and RP classic, Swell romantic", but of course

this is only paper-tiger.

Are there tierce ranks and mixed pipe families in these Mixtures?

[innate]

Yes, but I'd add this one:

 

http://www.trost-orgel.de/english/index-eng.html

Pierre

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Great site, and I'm sure it's an amazing organ.

 

I enjoyed this, on the Organ in Facts page:

 

Numbers of Registers: 63

Numbers of noisy Registers: 47

 

Michael

[Pierre Lauwers]

There is a video on the Trost organ in Walterhausen here:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pY08e_tdtA...ch=organ%20bach

 

This interpretation is rather not my cup of Tea, but it can give an idea of

the instrument. (Note the Tierce ranks in all the Mixtures).

Pierre

[Barry Jordan]

I would like to know more about this:

 

HPTW

 

Mixtur Major 4-5 ranks 2'

Mixtur Minor 3 ranks 1 1/3'

 

RP

 

Mixtur 4 ranks 1 1/3'

 

SW

 

Progressiv harm. 3-5 ranks 2 2/3'

 

It may seem somewhat "HPTW and RP classic, Swell romantic", but of course

this is only paper-tiger.

Are there tierce ranks and mixed pipe families in these Mixtures?

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The backbone of the organ is fairly classical - the Fagott in the RP is a copy of Naumburg, and a magical stop! - so the mixtures have no tierces and are really principal choruses. But the instrument is obviously voiced to be registered additively. The HW Gamba is very German, so not to be used with FH et al in the CC manner; but in general the sound of all divisions is warm and romantic. The Pos mixture is perhaps a little higher and louder than absolutely necessary, although it gives a convincing account of itself in a Petit plein Jeu....... it is a remarkably versatile instrument, which doesn't give up all of its secrets at once. The Pos. Principal 8' I find simply heartbreakingly beautiful. I wish it were mine.

 

Best

Barry

[John Sayer]

Yes, but I'd add this one:

 

http://www.trost-orgel.de/english/index-eng.html

Pierre

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A matter of taste, of course, but having played Waltershausen the day after Naumburg last year, I really don't believe it is in the same league, however beautiful it is to look at. Whilst Hildebrandt seems to have stuck conservatively to the classical Thuringian organ building tradition, Trost, first at Altenburg, then at Waltershausen, seems to have gone up a musical cul-de-sac in pursuit of new pipe constructions and new, ear-tickling sonorities. His organs have many beautiful, often quirky, individual stops, fascinating on their own, but with little use in chorus building. And those mixtures with grinding tierces - the full Hauptwerk principal chorus becomes unbearable after more than a few minutes. Altenburg, too, is not a particularly ingratiating organ to listen to, especially above forte level, but this may have something to do with its chequered rebulding history.

 

Naumburg, by comparison, is one glorious clear, majestic, integrated sound. I have not heard the Grauhof organ in the flesh yet, but from to judge from Margaret Phillips's impressive Bach CDs, it certainly runs Naumburg a close second.

 

JS

[Pierre Lauwers]

Thanks for this very interesting, hands-on comment, John,

 

The question is to know if we, in 2006, "know better" than the 18th century

builders what a baroque organ is.

What we think today is a "proper chorus" is different indeed. We are now

realizing what has been built as Diapason choruses during a long period

in the 20th century were actually a version of a post-romantic idea.

It is highly probable a vast majority of organs Bach played had tierce

Mixtures, for example. We might like it or not.

Is "the" organ, "per se", above all choruses, or individual stops? It seems

a fair number of baroque styles had already gone some way towards

strong colors. Praetorius already described some of them (including strings,

undulating stops, Doppelflöte...) while Dom Bédos description of the Cornet

de Récit for his big specification example might have many a neo-baroque afficionado

falling of his chair if he had the idea to read it.

So Naumburg -with its Rückpositiv Hildebrandt maintained because of a beautiful old case, but otherwise already outdated at that time- might seem, to our ears (and let us be fair, mines included!) more satisfying in Plenum than Walterhausen, from an historic point of view, both are equally significant, and Walterhausen is the most interesting, precisely because it questions the today established opinion.

 

Pierre