Organ, isn't that something to do with church? Yes, you usually hear it in church services or in church concerts. But it can also be heard in the concert hall, where it can develop a magic all of its own...
Frenchman Olivier Latry is someone who can work his magic on the organ. His "home instrument" is the great organ of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He is our "palace organist", i.e. the person who plays our organ most often this season. Here you can hear him playing Liebestraum No. 3 (Rêve d'Amour/Dream of Love) by Franz Liszt with the Philharmonie Paris.
Today, it is mainly known from the church or the concert hall. But it only got there quite late. The organ was invented in the Orient in the 3rd century BC and was first used in the circus and on theater stages in ancient Greece and Rome. It was only after the Reformation in the 16th century that it found its way into churches, and initially only into Catholic churches, before later becoming an integral part of church music in Lutheran places of worship.
We owe the fact that it can be found in concert halls to the composers of the 19th century, who incorporated it into large works for orchestra and popularized it in the secular sphere. And in the 20th century, it received a further boost in popularity when it became the accompanying instrument for silent films in cinemas.
But why call it the “Queen of Instruments”? Quite simply because you can “imitate” the sound of almost any other instrument on it. With the so-called stops, the organist can set how the pipes of the organ should sound, ranging from flute to glockenspiel or marimba. Not to mention the volume that can be produced with an organ, depending on the number and size of the pipes.
The organ in the concert hall of the Kulturpalast was built by the Eule company in Bautzen and has no fewer than 4109 pipes. The organist operates it from the keys of a “console” that can be placed anywhere on the stage. The keys, which look like those on a piano, are located on four levels (“manuals”), and the organist also operates foot pedals to produce the very low notes. Organ playing is a high-performance sport! And for the audience, organ concerts are a true voyage of discovery in terms of the variety of sounds and richness of expression.
Many people will certainly put a question mark behind this at first. But it's true: Organ and film go together perfectly!
The reason for this is the instrument's variety of sounds, on which you can imitate almost any noise. So after the invention of (silent) film, it was only natural to place the organ in miniature format in the cinema and have it accompany films. For organists, this is a challenging but also appealing task.
With the advent of sound film, organs disappeared from cinemas, so it is all the more interesting to experience them with film again today. For years, this has been possible in our concert hall when the film is shown on the big screen and our palace organist accompanies the action on the large organ. Already a cult experience for many! And highly recommended for all movie fans.