Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES sPRIng 2014 saI-natIOnal.ORg 20 musIc around the world By rosalind Mohnsen t he 20th Historic Organ Study Tour took place from August 5-14, 2013, in North Germany, both the West and the former East. It was the ninth time I was privileged to be a part of this wonderful, educational venture, having first participated in 2002, which tour also took place in North Germany. is afforded the opportunity to see numerous restoration projects completed during the interim. Principal cities visited on the tour included Hamburg, Lübeck, Wismar, Schwerin, Güstrow, Rostock, and Stralsund, cities formerly a part of the Hanseatic League. A total of 31 organs were visited, with the opportunity for tour participants to play at every venue, following an organ demonstration by our tour leader, Kurt Lueders. He is an American located in Paris, a scholar of both German and French organs, and a published author. In addition to the organs, participants studied organ case design and outstanding architecture. Many churches in this area were Backsteingotik (brick Gothic) and very large. e builders of historic organs seen on the tour included Schnitger, Furtwängler, Stellwagen, Winzer, Mende, Friese, Ladegast, Walcker, Lütkemüller, Buchholz, and Kindten, spanning a time period from the late seventeenth century through the late nineteenth. A significant reconstruction was a new organ of four manuals and sixty ranks from 2013 by the firm of Flentrop for the Hauptkirche St. Katharinen in Hamburg. is historic agency builds an organ as would have been known by Johann Adam Reincken, most of which were destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943. It is thought that J.S.Bach played and improvised on the original organ when he visited Hamburg in 1720. e largest remaining and most famous organ by Arp Schnitger was seen at Hauptkirche St. Jacobi in Hamburg. Also four manuals and sixty ranks, Schnitger used twenty-five ranks of 16 th -century pipework from Hans Scherer the Elder and 17 th -century pipework from Gottfried Fritzsche. e organ was restored from 1989-93 by Jürgen Ahrend. Without fine restorers of historic instruments, we would not be experiencing these instruments today. A smaller Schnitger instrument, II/28, was seen in Historic Organ Study tour The 19th-century organ of four manuals and eighty-four ranks from 1871 by Friedrich Ladegast in the Domkirche in Schwerin.

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