The Dom St. Marien
Greetings from Magdeburg! I'm now three organs/concerts behind (Hamburg, Copenhagen, Magdeburg), so here comes the Hamburg installment! I had the pleasure to return to one of my favorite European cities, Hamburg, to perform on a gem of a local organbuilding institution, a 1967 instrument by Rudolf von Beckerath. It is found in the wonderful acoustic ambience of the Dom St. Marien, and as is the case with each of the organs from his firm that I’ve experienced, I found both great inspiration and left with renewed respect for his way of molding highly convincing sounds and his creative re-imagination of centuries-old tonal concepts. This concert took place within the context of the Orgelkunst – Sommerkonzerte 2019 edition.
The Dom St. Marien was the first Catholic church to be built in Hamburg for several hundred years, founded in 1890, and elevated to Cathedral status only in 1995. Its architectural profile – especially its striking redbrick façade with its massive tours and rose window – owes much to the Dom in Bremen. The interior is surprisingly chaste with the exceptions of the golden mosaics in the apse and the bauhaus-esque red framework of the Beckerath organ in the rear gallery. For those who so appreciate the marvelous 1962 instrument in St. Paul’s Cathedral, Pittsburgh, the 1967 casework here bears a clear resemblance, based at 16’ instead of 32’ and with a sort of ‘Kronpositiv” instead of the signature dual Rückpositivs (and, of course, to many others, too!).
The organ was originally conceived with 50 stops over three manuals and pedal. It was a 16’ organ with a 10 2/3’ Gross-Quint in the pedal, but already with a 16’ Principal and 16’ Trompete in the Hauptwerk (i.e. the model “up” from St. Michael’s in Manhattan for example, and a model “down” from Pittsburg and the magnum opus in Montréal). It has all the signatures of their instruments of this time: three fully developed choruses corresponding to the mid-20th-century understanding of the Werkprinzip (PD at 16/12’, HW at 16’, SW at 8’, and POS at 4’). Similarly, the reeds to a certain extent follow suit: firm 16’ 8’ 4’ Posaunes in the Pedal, 16’ 8’ Trompetten in the HW (16’ more fundamental, controlled and extremely prompt, easy to imagine Schnitger as the reference; 8’ brighter and freer, reference to Silbermann and Alsatian reeds?), 8’ Krummhorn 4’ Schalmei (bright; originally the only 4’ manual reed, nicely compatible with 8’ on HW for Grand-Jeu-like effects), and characteristic 16’ Englisch Horn, 8’ Oboe in the Schwellwerk (16’ chameleon, somewhere between a Fagott and Dulcian, 8’ a small Trompete in effect – both superb stops!). I am always amazed by the real breadth and cantabile quality of the principal stops – the scales are generous, the speech mostly on the calm side, and less overtone-rich than some - and there is a wide spectrum of attacks within the chorus work (the 4’ Principal in the Kronpositiv is the sharpest, the 8’ Violprinzipal the softest). The Violprinzipal, as in Pittsburgh and elsewhere, is unenclosed (a Gemshorn and Rohrflöte can be found behind the shutters), and the 8’ 4’ Mixture of this “Schwellwerk/Oberwerk” is a beautiful complement to that the HW for large coupled plenos; the Kronpositiv, with its high position in the case, maintains a more distant spatial relationship to the ‘main case’ as in a Rückpositiv situation. It’s nonetheless periodically satisfying to draw the 8’ Gedeckt (or 8’ Quintadena) + 4’ Principal + II Sesquialtera into the Pleno of the HW or even HW+SW, in this case treating the Kronpositiv more of a “Brustwerk” as in a large Schnitger organ, where you’d find the (often unique) possibility to color the HW pleno with the Sesquialtera (and Scharff) timbre, should you desire it.
The wide-scale stops of the third manual are another fine point of the organ: 16’ Gedackt, 8’ Rohrflöte, 4’ Blockflöte, 2 2/3’ Nasat, 2’ Waldflöte, 1 3/5’ Terz, and 1 1/7’ Septime (!). There’s an antecedent for this Septieme color in the Schwellwerk in the wonderful Montréal instrument in the Oratoire, and because of its location there in the context of a six-rank compound Cornet stop, it suggests that its usage is as much as an ensemble ingredient to complete the “Tutti” of this division as a coloring agent. I personally find the effect of 16’ Ged – 8’ V.Pr – 4’ Oct – 2 2/3’ – 2’ Wald – 1 3/5’ Terz – 1 1/7’ Sep – 16’ Eng. H. – 8’ Ob to be a wonderful “Anches Récit” – of course, in a completely different spirit than Cavaillé-Coll! To this the Mixture *can* be very successfully added, of course, for yet more spice. That Mixture, by the way, in addition to working very well for old polyphony, is precisely the sort of mixture you wish for when you play the second fugue subject of the “Fugue sur le nom d’Alain,” or “Prélude sur l’introït de l’Epiphanie.”
An interesting surprise for me was the relationship of the Pedal to the manuals. In Pittsburgh and Montreal, for example, two instruments both sporting massive 32’ Principal towers and nearly 20 stop independent Pedal departments, presence and power nonetheless can be a problem. This was so much an issue in Pittsburgh that finally supplementary pedal couplers were added (not without some problems – and they have to be handled with care – but one is admittedly happy they are there). I wonder if this Hamburg pedal division has always been as it is today (also with a complete complement of couplers today!). The 16’ Principal, for example, is truly very present, and even loud (I hate to put that word on it, because it is indeed attractive), but it is certainly different effect than the charmingly cloudy, slow-ish ones I’ve previously encountered.
In 2008 the decision was made to somewhat expand the scope of the instrument with some 15 new stops, most of which grouped into an enclosed fourth manual called “Hinterwerk” (which plays mechanically itself, but couples through electric couplers to all other manuals), and then giving the Pedal a 32’ Untersatz, 32’ Bombarde, and 16’ Fagott. The good news is that you can ‘take it or leave it’ – the original content and identity of the organ remains intact, and then you can pick and choose how you wish to incorporate the rest. It’s not an insignificant division (16’ Bor. 8’ Fl. Harm. 8’ VdG 8’ V.Cel. 4’ Pr. 4’ Fl. Oct. 4’ Fug 2’ Octavin V Cornet V Plein Jeu 8’ TR 8’ Vox 4’ CL.) and there are good stops (especially the 8’ 4’ harmonic flutes). It was interesting, however, that I found myself using it sparingly and mostly in a soloist, or echo, special effect capacity. While the Bach used only 1967 resources, in the Alain (Deuxième Fantaisie), only its V-Cornet and 8’ 4’ reeds were integrated into the 8’ Tutti, and there of course, the Viole de Gambe had it’s moment in the sun. In Liszt, the 8’ Flûte harmonique occasionally rounded out a “Fonds d’Orgue,” the Voix Humaine warbled away as in Batiste Offertoire or Communion (wonderfully), and here it was only the Cornet and 8’ Trompette for the Tutti. In the Reubke, except for all the special effects in the pianissimo-piano range where the soft stops were very useful, the Cornet was the only stop that was used in the ensemble (basically at Tutti as a crowning stop). The personal verdict: nice that the added possibilities are there, but still find the original 1967 material of the organ the most poetic and interesting part of the instrument.
So here's another thought-provoking organ which reaffirms yet again how important it is to respect these best instruments from a period not always so ‘in vogue’ today. The proverbial pendulum continues to swing away from these always engaging sounds – full of imagination and originality – and I have often even heard people apologizing for the qualities that makes these organs great on their own terms. As there’s a tendency these days to glorify everything built from 1900-1940, but surely we must admit that there were as many completely anonymous, uninteresting (if well produced) organs from that period which now are de facto considered ‘great’ simply by virtue of the fact that they date from the currently “in vogue” years, or because they ‘read well’ as a specification. It’s a pity that “Orgelbewegung” has become a bit of a dirty word, when there are so many fabulous organs (of course, in addition to truly bad ones) from this time – and yet a time that was probably much more open to risk-taking than our own. When so many new organs are voiced “to perfection,” do we not lose the qualities that, for example, make people unforgettable, interesting, and magnetic? That crazy laugh, that accent, that funny expression, that quirky gait, that unbelievably ability to shock with the unexpected and hilarious, that striking face that might not fit any standard definition of beauty and yet turns heads…
But then again, we live in a time when it’s often difficult to mean what you say and say what you mean!
Greetings from Magdeburg (en route to Bergen in a few hours)!
Nathan
