Bovenkerk Hinsz organ (Kampen) - First beta demo

I work in Kampen, almost under the shadow of the church tower and know both organs in the church very well. Strangely enough the organ is much more impressive as a Romantic instrument than as a Baroque instrument. I have heard many concerts on the Hinsz organ, but most prefer to play 19th century music on it.

As you can see and hear in the first youtube video, the organist keeps on having to go down an octave when doubling up on the choral because of the short compass. Too bad Wim Magre has spasms in his hands when holding long notes. And by the way, Jan Zwart's son was the organist in this church for many, many years and without a doubt that first piece was played more than once on this organ. His son also had spasms in his hands, just like a whole generation of organists in Holland. It makes the organ sound wind sick. Too bad. It's not the music. Jan Zwart didn't have it. He is a respected late 19th, early 20th century composer of liturgical music.

Too bad Wim Magre has spasms in his hands when holding long notes. And by the way, Jan Zwart's son was the organist in this church for many, many years and without a doubt that first piece was played more than once on this organ. His son also had spasms in his hands, just like a whole generation of organists in Holland. It makes the organ sound wind sick. Too bad.

I had two organ builders at my house the other day. One local one and the other from the east coast. They were there at my invitation to have a listen to and play my Hauptwerk setup. They absolutely loved it and just didn't want to leave. I also showed them the DVD from Kampen which the above mentioned clip comes from and they both reckoned it was magic! They just couldn't stop talking about it. They had never seen or heard anything like it before and one of them said "It shows that the organ is really a masculine instrument when you can really work it like that and make it play the way you feel" or words to that effect. By varying the wind going to the pipes with your fingers in that way, you let your emotions show in the music. Have you ever seen a violin player not do the vibrato trick with his fingers? If they didn't do that there would be no warmth in the sound.
It is a shame that there is so much animosity between the Zwart/Asma school and the other Dutch organists and even more of a shame to have those feelings spill over onto a wonderful forum such as this. We are all entitled to our opinions but we shouldn't brand others as being wrong in their style when it is so obvious that they really have many fans in the Netherlands and overseas. As I mentioned on another post - One person calls it wind sick and another says that it makes the organ sing.

It is a shame that there is so much animosity between the Zwart/Asma school and the other Dutch organists and even more of a shame to have those feelings spill over onto a wonderful forum such as this. We are all entitled to our opinions but we shouldn't brand others as being wrong in their style when it is so obvious that they really have many fans in the Netherlands and overseas. As I mentioned on another post - One person calls it wind sick and another says that it makes the organ sing.

I think it's important to make a distinction between the Zwart/Asma style of music, which is becoming more and more appreciated these days in much wider circles, and the terrible way of playing that makes an organ sound totally out of breath, which is really caused by overuse of stops and a way of playing inappropriate for such (and most) organs.

As far back as 1970 my dear friend Klaas Bolt, organist of the large Chr. Muller organ in the St. Bavo of Haarlem, and one of the strong proponents of historically informed playing confided to me that he liked a lot of Zwart's music: he told me that when we calmly look at it, listen to it, play it, it's so much better than what the Zwart/Asma haters would have us believe. And believe me, he hated that over-emotional style of playing as much as I did/do. Zwart wasn't quite like that. Asma was a bit more like that, and there are organists today who are far more than the old guys ever were. True, Asma was despised, but today there are many reassessments of him and of Zwart as well. He wasn't as bad as our emotional reactions of the past make us believe.

Actually, thanks to Zwart and Asma, the organ became very popular (but not limited in any way to) in the Christian Reformed circles (Gereformeerde kerk and its offshoots, like the Artikel 31 kerk), and there was a popular organ magazine called De Orgelvriend who kind of promoted this approach.

But look at the situation today: many of these churches now have historically informed new organs, even old organs bought from closed down churches or from England. The magazine has become very respectable, and I subscribe to it as well. many organists in their circles have received conservatory education and the entire atmosphere has changed so much. So, again, historically speaking, a lot of good has come out of this popularizing approach.

The Zwart/Asma sphere is not my personal bag of tea, but I have to give it credit in historical hindsight. Holland has certainly become far more eclectic and pneumatic organs that were destroyed without much thought in the past, are now being saved and treasured. The entire appreciation level for 19th Century and early 20th organs and their music has greatly improved, also as a reaction against the overly pro-baroque period that prevailed mainly from ca. 1940-1980.

As they say: we've come a long way, baby!

Hope this helps. To each his/her own, though. This is also a forum for theatre organ lovers, even less my personal bag of tea. But they have their own well-deserved historical place in the world of entertainment.

I agree, there is no need for animosity here, only for correction when we are wrong on something.

A picture of Zwart's organ as it now stands in Arnhem:

A note about this sample set...We will be offering it in several volumes beginning with a 2 manual version, then a 3 then a 4. In this way those they may not be able to either a) afford the entire organ or b) load the entire organ, will still be able to obtain smaller subsets with specialized organ files to load the sets with a custom specification. Each successive volume will require the previous volume(s) to have been purchased since they build on to the next. Thus once the complete set is done users may obtain all of the volumes and have the full Bovenkerk instrument at their disposal!

Progress is still underway, but we hope to have Volume I available in the near future!

Would it be more attractive to the market if a 1790 Schnitger version (40 stops) will be made available, along with a small 2-manual version and the full version, instead of some arbitrary cuts of the organ?

1790 Schnitger?

Ah, F.C. - a little slow on the uptake today.

Would it be more attractive to the market if a 1790 Schnitger version (40 stops) will be made available, along with a small 2-manual version and the full version, instead of some arbitrary cuts of the organ?

Hi cliveso, I have no doubt that there will be nothing arbitrary about the cuts of the organ. From my experience, Brett has a seasoned understanding of tonal specifications and is a talented voicer. I'm sure that however Brett decides to do it will provide the best end result to his customers.

[B. Milan]

Would it be more attractive to the market if a 1790 Schnitger version (40 stops) will be made available, along with a small 2-manual version and the full version, instead of some arbitrary cuts of the organ?

Stop lists will be posted at some point for each version. They will be carefully thought out and contain a thorough spec as required for each volume.

Brett -

I'm hoping that there will be a set optimized for a two-manual and pedal instrument. Some of us do "only" have two manual instruments!

Thanks,

Lawrence

[B. Milan]

Brett -

I'm hoping that there will be a set optimized for a two-manual and pedal instrument. Some of us do "only" have two manual instruments!

Thanks,

Lawrence

Hello Lawrence.

Please see the very first post of this thread. We plan to first make a 2 manual, then 3, then the full 4 manual version available at staged intervals. There will be 3 volumes in all once completed.

Wow, way back to page one of this thread?!

I guess my mind at some point transposed 3 volumes into 3 manuals. I was also haunted by the "most of us have three manuals" comment that someone made.

Thanks for the clarification.

Regards,

Lawrence

Well..... "most of us have 3 manuals" was followed by a large question mark!! We do all have a rather un-natural obsession with size as a species. We see it reflected in the trend to sample bigger and bigger instruments. There is a lot to be said about quality. Some of the finest concerts I have heard have been on modest but well built organs by top quality organist able to extract every possible nuance from what is available. The gold medal in this field must go to the theatre organ - have a listen to the "George Wright live at the Rialto" album to see what can be produced from a 2/10 organ. One thing we can be sure about is that the Bovenkirk organ will be quality irrespective of the size of the set purchased. (No question mark required??)

[B. Milan]

Here's a little glimpse of the virtual console. Click the image for a full size view (1280x1024).



Some info on the layout... Volume 1 will contain the Full View display only. The ranks which are not included in this volume will have the stop knobs left off, however the text labels for the the rest of the stops will remain. Each successive volume will add more stop knobs to fill out the new specifications.

Volume 2 will feature the Full View display as well as the left and right jamb displays for dual touch screen use. Volume 3 will contain these 3 displays as well as our usual photo realistic console to complete the organ.

We hope you like the new virtual console!

Hi Brett,

I assume there will also be 1024x768 versions of the virtual console? My 2 touch screen monitors are both limited to 1024x768. Hopefully Hauptwerk will just scale consoles to fit the window size at some point then this won't be an issue.

Thanks,
Chris.

[B. Milan]

Hello Chris,

We'll think about adding another ODF with 1024x768 support.

Another option that you could feasibly do is using two screens and dragging 1/2 the Hauptwerk display to the 2nd monitor. The only issue (I just tested this here) is that the Generals at the bottom will not be visible. I also tried right clicking on the application bar (Windows) then clicking 'Move'. Using the up arrow allows you to move the entire application up off the canvas of the screen (so that the General pistons become visible and the top panels of the console are off screen), however once you click off it automatically moves the application back down. I don't know if there is another way to get an application to go above the monitor area and have it stay, perhaps someone else knows if this is possible?

Hauptwerk now will not abort loading if the monitor size is different than the specified console size within the ODF, so you could still use the main stops in this manner (although I realize it's not ideal since the General pistons cannot be accessed by touch screen).

Again, we'll think about it and see what the best way to implement a 1024 size console would be.

Out of curiosity what touch screen monitors are you using?

Hi Brett,

I'm using two VuSys 14" TFTs with MagicTouch addon kits. I actually got the TFTs for free due to a clerical error with a major high-street retailer over in the UK - they had mis-priced them, then refused to honour my order so cancelled it without my consent, but they forgot to cancel the shipment... :)

Don't worry about 1024 just for me, I don't really have the budget for another sample set at the moment because we're due to be moving house in the next month or so. I'm moving back to the north or England and back towards the hills I miss so much down here in flat old Cambridgeshire.

Best regards,
Chris.

p.s. I'm still having a lot of fun with the dry Skinner, and there's a queue of people wanting to give Hauptwerk a test on my kit when I do get moved.