congregation. The relatively modest scaling allows nuances at piano and mezzoforte, while the broad mixture and full trumpet still give the necessary majesty for fortissimo use. I am very satisfied with the craftsmanship of Lewtak Pipe
Organ Builders.
ULRIK SPANG-HANSSEN Professor of Organ
Royal Danish Music Conservatory Aarhus, Denmark
I wouldn't be truthful if I excluded a simple confession at the
beginning of my remarks as a builder: competing on the Danish organbuilding market was quite an intimidating affair. In the past 70 years or so, there were hundreds of new organs built in Denmark, 99.9% of them made by excellent Danish organ builders. The only two non-Danish instruments are the produc- tion of Klais Orgelbau from Germany (2010 Aarhus Concert Hall) and Bernard Aubertin from France (2010 Mariager Kirke). Needless to say, we found ourselves in a blood-pressure-raising situation. Expectations were brutally high, in terms of crafts- manship and the tonal aspect of the instrument. In a true Amer- ican spirit of adventure, we took the bull by the horns. The specifications called for twenty-six stops distributed be-
tween twomanuals and a pedal.Whatwas unusual about the stop- list, at least as far as the Danish tradition is concerned, was the presence of eleven eight-foot stops—something nearly unheard of in this part of the world, especially in an organ of this size. In addition, we proposed the addition of a 32' Contra Bourdon in the pedal—another rarity usually reserved for much larger in- struments. This 8'-based specification allowed us to create an instrument with broad sonority that, from the first time it was heard, was fondly named “a gentle giant.” The church building offered excellent acoustics with approxi-
mately four seconds of reverberation in an intimate, not-too- large room of very modern design. It was obvious that any harsh- ness of tone, as well as any unwanted noises, would have a negative impact on listeners. For these reasons, we insisted on placing the blower outside of the main sanctuary. The entire winding system consists of four wedge bellows and a regulating bellow with floating top. The wind is copious and not entirely steady. We installed concussion bellows under each windchest but regulated them to allow for lively, breathing sound. All wind conduits are made of wood. Because the footprint of the instru- ment is quite small, the entire winding system had to be compact and therefore posed many technical challenges. In the end, everything worked out to our satisfaction, even though it re- quired a great deal of customized attention. Themanual windchests aremade of solid oak and feature par-
allel pallets for the manuals. In a fashion typical for most organs in Scandinavia, there are buttons above the pallets that allow for tuning the reedswithout the help of an
assistant.The parallel pal- let is not a new idea; however, it is new inDenmark. I was intro- duced to it by aGerman organbuilder, Klaus Rensch (to whomI amsincerely grateful),who explained tome the principles behind it, and who even took the time to takeme to one of the churches in southern Germany to show me this solution in real life in one of the organs built by his
father.After looking at the drawings and
AUGUST 2013 Console
playing this instrument for just a few minutes, I became com- pletely convinced that thiswould be theway Iwould like to build my new organ for Denmark. In short, the key action was per- fect—it offered gentle pluck, was very direct, and guaranteed an incredible precision. Last but not least, it remained light, even with all stops pulled out, even with all couplers! The parallel pal- let is a very simple technicalmodification of the traditional setup. Rather than moving down one end of the pallet, instead the en- tire pallet is pulled down in the center of its length, causing the move to be parallel to the surface, exposing the entire channel slot at once. In turn, this allows for a much smaller move of the pal- let that, further on, permits a greater mechanical advantage be- tween the keys and the
pallets.The entire systemcan be regulated to perfection and is nomore difficult tomaintain than the tradi- tional pallet.We opted to use carbon fiber for our tracker runs, which only added to the lightness and precision of the key action. The stop action is electric, offering 4,000 memory levels. The
console features our hallmark drawknobs with Baltic amber stones, set in sterling silver. The console is detached from the or- gan case. The design of the console matches the facade, with the music stand having the same “wave” as the top of the organ. We paid special attention to simplicity and cleanliness of the design. There are only minimal accessories, buttons, and gadgets. The light was custom designed and made especially for this applica-
tion.The keyboard has sixty-one keys,with naturals covered with padouk and sharps made of hornbeam covered with bone. Padouk comes from West Africa and has an orange hue to it—a perfect fit for the Baltic amber. The same wood was used for the pedal sharps. The console cabinet and the entire organ case were made fromwhite ash from the AppalachianMountains. The sur- facewas furtherwhitenedwith lye and then treated with specially formulated wood soap with white pigmentation. The entire fin-
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