First pipes removed during music making
While the cantor Marc Gornetzki plays the last piece of the farewell concert from the old organ, "For Auld Lang Syne", known under the German title "Take farewell, my brothers", the organ builders Hubert Fasen and his assistant Walter Friehs began the dismantling. They lay the first large pipes on the floor next to the instrument. To all in the Evangelical Church of Reconciliation, who on Saturday evening as listeners and singing congregations hear the last organ tones of the Peter organ, built in 1973 and appointed after their builder, this is more than just a symbol. The dismantling of the old organ has really begun. On Monday and Tuesday, the organ builders want to complete the dismantling.
The inauguration of the new organ can be found here
On the back wall of the church building, a several-metre-long visualisation was already on Saturday to see what the pipes of the new organ on the wall, which is to be erected at the beginning of next year, will look like.
Gornetzki, who has been playing the organ for over 25 years, once again played his favorite pieces on the instrument like no other. These are typical works by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Johann Sebastian Bach and the less frequently heard organ virtuosos Joseph Rheinberger and Siegfried Karg-Elert.
Reverend Friederike Schädlich led the singing congregation through the contents of the chorale. There is talk of renewal, of right-string playing, of the joys of musical art, as well as of the wedding to praise the Lord. Freiderike Schädlich made her community want the new organ, which is to be installed at the beginning of next year after several months of thirst. New manuals such as the Celesta's a chimes, expect congregation from the marriage of two organs, namely the old Peter organ and the Speith organ purchased for this purpose from a Catholic church in Lüdinghausen near Münster.
From the original neo-baroque organ of the Cologne organ builder Willi Peter with comparatively modest 14 registers to accompany the community singing, an organ should be created, with which also large orchestral works in all necessary timbres can be played, said cantor Marc Gornetzki in an interview. The extension from 900 to a total of 2463 pipes and 50 registers was connected with the new building from the old parts of two organs. In the future, the gaming table will no longer have a fixed place, but will be mobile, Gornetzki is pleased. Before the actual organ building, however, there would be solid construction work at the beginning of August in the Church of Reconciliation, such as the assembly of a steel girder on which the organ pipes rested.
Organ builder Hubert Fasen promises that the new organ will sound "quite different", even the volume, speech and character of the old pipes from the tin lead alloy can still be worked on "within certain limits". That is precisely the art of the organ builders, Fasen said.
A budget of 400,000 euros is planned for organ construction, said The Rev. Schädlich. Together with the presbytersilvia Silvia Teuscher, she asked her parishioners for donations for the new organ on Saturday. Under the heading "Your sound makes the music" sponsorships for precisely defined pipes can be concluded. Depending on the size and dominance of the pipe, they cost between ten euros and 500 euros. Money that is well invested, because church music has become a focal point in the congregation, the 5000-member parish of Lechenich is agreed.
But the 50-year-old organ was no longer really happy, too many sounds were made in the past, says Kantor Gornetzki. Especially the plastic seals have come of age.