Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:32 am
Hello all,
OAM is happy to announce a unique German late romantic organ, the 1904 Wilhelm-Sauer organ op. 915, of Dortmund:
For detailed information please check
http://www.organartmedia.com/Sauer-Intro.html
The organ of Dortmund-Dorstfeld in Northern-Germany is located in a neo-Gothic brick wall church, built in 1904 for the strongly increasing population of the German "Ruhr-Gebiet", which was the largest area of coal mining in Germany.
The 3-manual, 40 stop Wilhelm-Sauer organ. op. 915, was inaugurated in December, 16, 1904. This instrument was completely donated (!) by a private person, Mr. Schulte-Witten, a wealthy citizen, honorary officer and Presbyterian of the Dorstfeld parish. The costs were 15.000 Reichsmark.
The late romantic Sauer organ is one of the very few instruments in Germany (the author only knows two), which have survived almost completely in their original state! This organ even survived four disasters, world war I and II (Dortmund was heavily destroyed, the famous Walcker organ of St. Reinoldi destroyed!), the German organ reform movement ("Orgelbewegung") and a church fire twelve years ago, caused by a lightning stroke, where the burning tower crashed into the church.
Sauer (1831-1916) and Walcker were the most important and biggest organ manufacturers of that time and built more than thousand instruments. Sauer himself was a volunteer of the Cavaillé-Coll (1811-1899) workshop for one year (about 1852), where the young Sauer met the organ builder genius, whose fame grew more and more. Sauer very often is named as a "German Cavaillé-Coll". He transformed French organ concepts to the German sound concepts.
Sauer himself initially therefore had big problems in Germany, because there was an unwritten law, not to build any French oriented organs, (in German so-called "Französelei" at this time), because France was one of the basic enemies of Germany!
It is assumed, that he there especially learned building high-quality overblowing pipes, which we also find in Sauer's instruments. Sauer's sound concept was based on the sound of the late-romantic symphonic orchestra and he tried to transform this sounds into the organs.
The German romantic organ is like a paint-box, where you can add a lot of colours, thus getting new ones by additive mixing.
Therefore you usually find a lot of 8ft stops. The registration is completely different from baroque organs. You always look for orchestral like tonal colours.The mixtures only crown the sound, but aren't leading voices.
The organ movement, not (any more) understanding the sound concept and music of romantic organs, usually resulted in a modification or even total elimination of the (late-) romantic organs, especially in Germany.
Modification, that meant modifying these organs to a "neo-baroque style", usually was not very successful, because it destroyed the inherent perfect sound structure of those organs. Therefore most instruments were completely removed a short time after.
From a today's pint of view, we regret this consequences of the organ reform movement and usually don't find much of those organs in Germany. Due to the appreciation and the efforts of the former organists, this Sauer organ remained unmodified. Only some cleanings and general overhauling took place. Therefore the Sauer organ of Dortmund-Dorstfeld is a first-rate object in the history of music and very often serves a reference instrument for Sauer organ restorations/reconstructions.
When playing or listening to this organ, we have the original German romantic organ sound of 1904 with a strong relation especially to the music of Max Reger.
Reger himself and Sauer had good relations. Straube performed most Reger works on the big Sauer organ of Leipzig.
The Dorstfeld organ has a wide range from very soft tone colours (pppp) up to a very strong Tutti with some "brute force", which is necessary for Reger's work (ffff).
I would like to invite you to joining some demos, which show some typical sounds of this organ. A lot of more preliminary demos you'll find at
http://www.organartmedia.com/Sauer-Demos.html
Let's start in an unconventional way with a waltz form Karg-Elert, a contemporary of Reger with a very own style of composition.
This work, originally written for a special reed organ (German "Kunstharmonium") also sounds very good on such a romantic organ:
Karg-Elert: Valse noble op. 26,5
The registration of the following work tries to simulate a typical reed organ like sound, appropriate for this work:
Karg-Elert: Humoreske op. 26,1
Now let's listen to a Brahms organ work, where six(!) 8 feet stops produce a great warm sound:
Brahms: Choral "Herzliebster Jesu" op. 122,2
Now let's come to a famous late Reger work, Phantasie und Fuge d-moll, op. 135b, which shows the full dynamic range (with super-octave coupler in the final measures).
Be careful, because the organ starts with pppp and ends with ffff . The final measures reach the pain threshold in reality!
Max Reger: Phantasie d-moll op.135b
Max Reger: Fuge d-moll op.135b
There is still a lot of work to be done, so we can't give a precise shipping date. The sample set should be ready not later than end of Q3, perhaps sooner.
Please note, though using 3 release layers and original acoustic, that the requirements are not too high. As far as we can see, the standard settings will fit into a DualCore 4 GByte system.
The project again shows the importance of the sound documentation approach: This organ is endangered, because now, due to decreasing number of inhabitants, the church has to be given up and the future of this organ actually is unknown.
It seems, that we never will hear this organ in this church in reality again.
OAM is happy to announce a unique German late romantic organ, the 1904 Wilhelm-Sauer organ op. 915, of Dortmund:
For detailed information please check
http://www.organartmedia.com/Sauer-Intro.html
The organ of Dortmund-Dorstfeld in Northern-Germany is located in a neo-Gothic brick wall church, built in 1904 for the strongly increasing population of the German "Ruhr-Gebiet", which was the largest area of coal mining in Germany.
The 3-manual, 40 stop Wilhelm-Sauer organ. op. 915, was inaugurated in December, 16, 1904. This instrument was completely donated (!) by a private person, Mr. Schulte-Witten, a wealthy citizen, honorary officer and Presbyterian of the Dorstfeld parish. The costs were 15.000 Reichsmark.
The late romantic Sauer organ is one of the very few instruments in Germany (the author only knows two), which have survived almost completely in their original state! This organ even survived four disasters, world war I and II (Dortmund was heavily destroyed, the famous Walcker organ of St. Reinoldi destroyed!), the German organ reform movement ("Orgelbewegung") and a church fire twelve years ago, caused by a lightning stroke, where the burning tower crashed into the church.
Sauer (1831-1916) and Walcker were the most important and biggest organ manufacturers of that time and built more than thousand instruments. Sauer himself was a volunteer of the Cavaillé-Coll (1811-1899) workshop for one year (about 1852), where the young Sauer met the organ builder genius, whose fame grew more and more. Sauer very often is named as a "German Cavaillé-Coll". He transformed French organ concepts to the German sound concepts.
Sauer himself initially therefore had big problems in Germany, because there was an unwritten law, not to build any French oriented organs, (in German so-called "Französelei" at this time), because France was one of the basic enemies of Germany!
It is assumed, that he there especially learned building high-quality overblowing pipes, which we also find in Sauer's instruments. Sauer's sound concept was based on the sound of the late-romantic symphonic orchestra and he tried to transform this sounds into the organs.
The German romantic organ is like a paint-box, where you can add a lot of colours, thus getting new ones by additive mixing.
Therefore you usually find a lot of 8ft stops. The registration is completely different from baroque organs. You always look for orchestral like tonal colours.The mixtures only crown the sound, but aren't leading voices.
The organ movement, not (any more) understanding the sound concept and music of romantic organs, usually resulted in a modification or even total elimination of the (late-) romantic organs, especially in Germany.
Modification, that meant modifying these organs to a "neo-baroque style", usually was not very successful, because it destroyed the inherent perfect sound structure of those organs. Therefore most instruments were completely removed a short time after.
From a today's pint of view, we regret this consequences of the organ reform movement and usually don't find much of those organs in Germany. Due to the appreciation and the efforts of the former organists, this Sauer organ remained unmodified. Only some cleanings and general overhauling took place. Therefore the Sauer organ of Dortmund-Dorstfeld is a first-rate object in the history of music and very often serves a reference instrument for Sauer organ restorations/reconstructions.
When playing or listening to this organ, we have the original German romantic organ sound of 1904 with a strong relation especially to the music of Max Reger.
Reger himself and Sauer had good relations. Straube performed most Reger works on the big Sauer organ of Leipzig.
The Dorstfeld organ has a wide range from very soft tone colours (pppp) up to a very strong Tutti with some "brute force", which is necessary for Reger's work (ffff).
I would like to invite you to joining some demos, which show some typical sounds of this organ. A lot of more preliminary demos you'll find at
http://www.organartmedia.com/Sauer-Demos.html
Let's start in an unconventional way with a waltz form Karg-Elert, a contemporary of Reger with a very own style of composition.
This work, originally written for a special reed organ (German "Kunstharmonium") also sounds very good on such a romantic organ:
Karg-Elert: Valse noble op. 26,5
The registration of the following work tries to simulate a typical reed organ like sound, appropriate for this work:
Karg-Elert: Humoreske op. 26,1
Now let's listen to a Brahms organ work, where six(!) 8 feet stops produce a great warm sound:
Brahms: Choral "Herzliebster Jesu" op. 122,2
Now let's come to a famous late Reger work, Phantasie und Fuge d-moll, op. 135b, which shows the full dynamic range (with super-octave coupler in the final measures).
Be careful, because the organ starts with pppp and ends with ffff . The final measures reach the pain threshold in reality!
Max Reger: Phantasie d-moll op.135b
Max Reger: Fuge d-moll op.135b
There is still a lot of work to be done, so we can't give a precise shipping date. The sample set should be ready not later than end of Q3, perhaps sooner.
Please note, though using 3 release layers and original acoustic, that the requirements are not too high. As far as we can see, the standard settings will fit into a DualCore 4 GByte system.
The project again shows the importance of the sound documentation approach: This organ is endangered, because now, due to decreasing number of inhabitants, the church has to be given up and the future of this organ actually is unknown.
It seems, that we never will hear this organ in this church in reality again.
Last edited by OAM on Mon Jun 16, 2008 5:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
Prof. Helmut Maier
OrganArt Media Sound Engineering
D-88662 Überlingen/Lake Constance
http://www.organartmedia.com
OrganArt Media Sound Engineering
D-88662 Überlingen/Lake Constance
http://www.organartmedia.com
