Hello to all
....from Tom Ferry

My BLOG entries appear in the order of oldest entries first. Click below to jump to certain dates:

January 12
January 14
January 15
January 16
January 17
January 18

Updated Sunday, January 25, 2007 11:00 AM

SOUND FILES NOW PUBLISHED

Have you been waiting to hear some sounds from the journey? Click on the word "read" to read the blog entry about the organ (and you can listen there) or click on "play" to play the sample now.

read - play - Naumberg ( 2 MB - MP3 )

read - play - Arnstadt ( 6 MB - MP3 )

read - play - Silbermann ( 3MB - MP3 )

read - play - Berlin Dom ( 2 MB - MP3 )

read - play - Berlin Mariakirche ( 2 MB - MP3 )

Tom at the console of the Volkland Organ (see January 16)

Luther was, of course, the beginning of Lutheranism and had a strong effect on our music. He wrote texts, introduced hymns to the Sunday service, and reshaped the liturgy. The next major person to significantly effect Lutheran music was J.S. Bach.

I am based in Leipzig, Germany, the last place Bach worked and perhaps the most significant, and am visiting surrounding towns in which he had an effect.

On Friday, we visited St Vincent's Church (see photo) and played the Hildebrant organ. Bach approved this organ which means that he was the person who played it and agreed that the builder had done a good enough job to get paid. it was wonderful! It also gave me a new appreciation for what organists of that day did. The pedals are NOT recessed under the keyboards. Go look at our organ at CPLC. The organist can sit up straight and play the keys and the pedals. On the St Vincents organ, the organist must always lean forward to play the keys. Your back hurts after a while of that! SOUNDFILE (2MB - MP3).

On Saturday, we visited St Thomas Church in Leipzig. This is the church that Bach served until he died. Being Cantor here means that Bach was responsible for playing services there, as well as preparing the choirs for the other Lutheran churches in town AND preparing any music for town functions. Here is where Bach wrote a cantata for every week! We heard the St Thomas church choir of men and boys with the symphony orchestra present a Cantata today. Pictures include a statue of Bach, who is quite revered, a picture of St Thomas Church, and a picture of me with the students who are also on this trip eating lunch. We are all having a wonderful time and hope that everyone back home is well. Tomorrow brings worship service at St Thomas Church and a trip to Halle, Handel's birth place.

J.S. Bach came there to approve an organ and was promptly offered the job as Cantor, which he turned down. That organ is no longer there but in the front of the church is a small organ built in 1664. It is one of the oldest unchanged organs still in service in this region. On it G.F.
Handel (of Messiah fame) received organ lessons as a young man.

After seeing market Church, we went to the Handel House which is now a museum. This is the mansion in which Handel was born. It has a wonderful tour which speaks of Handel's life and accomplishments as well as a fantastic instrument museum.

Halle was very instrumental in the Pietist movement and there is still a large campus founded by a Lutheran Pastor to educate orphans in knowledge, workskills, and biblical living. The school was closed by the communists but has reopened and now trains all ages in a variety of skills as well as offering a Lutheran retreat center.

This is a sign from the school started as a Pietist way to help raise and train orphans. As you can see, it also houses the Wittenburg University.
I particularly liked that fact that this building, in the heart of Luther's area of influence, is for Jewish studies!

Market Church in Halle

Market Pulpit	Market Organ
Market Crucifix	Steeple at Night

January 15, 2007

Monday...

We took an early train to Altenburg. There is a wonderful castle that is in need of restoration there. In fact, many parts of the castle were under construction. The castle church was built in the 1500's but the interior was redone in the Baroque. Check the picture of the art work above the alter - it is a scene of the open tomb done with statuary in white and gold. Very amazing. The organ was begun in 1735 and finished in 1739. Shortly thereafter Bach came to play it and was well pleased. It is a wonderful instrument, very silvery in tone like ours, but with a solid bass supporting everything. I hope that our new ranks for the pedal sound half as good as the same ones on this organ! As you can see from the picture (below), the case is very elaborate with gold leaf to match the rest of the church decorations. Krebs was organist here for many years and the organist gave us a wonderful short concert of his music. Krebs was particularly known for his organ with instrument pieces. Look for some of them when I get back!

Also in Altenburg we saw the Bartholomew church and the Brother Church. The Bartholomew church was something of a disappointment. The organ had been designed by Franz Liszt but was so altered that is no longer resembled his organ. The Brother church however was a beautiful example of 19th century work and the organ was an unaltered Germany romantic instrument. In this case, the fact the DDR was so poor that they could not afford to change the instrument was a blessing. The sound was beautiful and played Reger's chorale preludes just wonderfully. It is not a sound we ever get to hear in the US as no American instruments are built in that style.

Tomorrow we head for Arnstadt, Bach's first job, and Erfurt. There is a rather funny story considering how highly Bach is prized now about Arnstadt. Apparently the church council complained that Bach played the hymns so fast and with so much ornamentation that they could not recognize the melody. Bach responded by playing so simply and slowly that the congregation could not sing the hymns. Not exactly the thing you would expect from this most respected of church musicians!..
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Ornate Alter at scene of tomb at Castle Church

Organ at the Castle Church

We got up very early on Tuesday because the train ride to Arnstadt was about an hour and a half. This is the first place that J.S. Bach was Cantor. His family was very active musically in the area for several generations. AT only 18 years of age, Bach was asked to approve the new Wender organ at the church.

After playing it, he decided that he really liked it and wanted the job, which he got. The instrument is very different from any other we have seen. It is missing some of the higher sounding stops entirely and because of the odd distribution of stops, picking sounds for pieces was a challenge. The pedal only had three stops: a 16' sub-bass like on our organ, an 8' principal like on our organ, and a 16' Posaune like we are adding. The Posaune was really loud and somewhat obnoxious sounding as were several of the stops on the manuals. SOUNDFILE (6MB MP3)

Unfortunately, this organ was transformed into a romantic organ bz Steinmeyer. The restoration that has put it back into the closest shape that we can discover to what Bach played had to duplicate the pipes that had been used in the Steinmeyer to put into that organ and then create new pipes to replace those that were missing. They had less to go on than I might like. Did it really sound this way when Bach played it? We will never know. One of the pictures is of the white and gold, ornate pulpit which is placed above and behind the altar! I'm not sure if that would be considered exaltation of the pastor or simply great pressure for good sermons!

Next stop was Erfurt were there is a Volkland organ highly praised in an early 18th century list of organs. It incorporates the warmer, rounder sounds of Southern Germany (which was catholic) and was a pleasure to play. It was also very ornate.

Romantic Organ at Brothers Church

Brothers Church (19th Century, Altenburg)

Pulpit above the alter at Bach's Church

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We went to Freiburg today. It was a mining town and got its name from the fact that anyone could come and stake a claim for free. There are several Silbermann organs here but we only saw one because of restoration work.

However, this is an magnificient organ that has had only limited restoration work since it was built in 1711! Like the Wender organ in Arnstadt, it had a small number of sounds in the pedals and those sounds are loud! It is in the Cathedral (which is a Lutheran church but once was the Catholic Cathedral) and fills the whole place with a warm rich sound. SOUNDFILE (3MB MP3)

The Silbermann Organ

We took the train back to Berlin and checked into our hotel. Then we headed downtown to see the Berlin Cathedral and Mary's Church. The cathedral is neither Lutheran nor Catholic but, surprisingly enough UCC, which in Germany is a mixture of Reformed and Lutheran. The organist here had a wonderful sense of humor and thanked us Yanks for saving the organ by "opening up the roof". In WWII an American bomb hit the cathedral and broke the dome and left a huge hole in the floor. The organ, which sits in an alcove off the sanctuary was undamaged by the bomb. The hole in the floor meant that no one could enter the church to get to the organ, and thus the organ was not scavenged for metal or wood, nor was it dismantled by the communists. Because it was under an overhang it was protected enough from the weather that it remained in reasonably good condition.

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...............Berlin Cathedral Alter

Organ and Console at Berlin Cathedral

Organ at St. Mary's Church

After the cathedral we headed for Mary's church. This is a church without a congregation. Just a few blocks from the cathedral, it also sits in former East Germany and thus was closed during communist rule.
Now reopened it is too far from residential areas to have many local members. Sunday attendance averages between 100 and 150 people and is mostly tourists.