UNESCO has declared organ music and organ building a World heritage site. About news journalist cheers in me, but much more organ builder. I bring out CD with Franz Liszt’s Prelude and Fugue over B-A-C-H, turn volume to stop: goose bumps. B-A-C-H, like Bach, Johann Sebastian; The cantor of Thomaskirche from Leipzig.
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b, A, C, H – se are four tones, y are so close to each or on keyboard, so bar of every harmonic that hardly anyone can compose something sensible outside. Franz Liszt, born a century after Bach’s death, has made se four letters into music that can make concert halls and churches stand out, or even my kitchen. No gags with names, it is said in journalism. No name jokes. It’s just good that Liszt didn’t know that yet.
However, not everyone shudders happy when Liszt Aneinandernagelt in Fortefortissimo chords and harmonic resolution desired by ear is saved until shortly before final chord. When he develops a drama from four tones, writes a thriller. Some time ago my sister rang when Liszt’s B-A-C-H had just returned cups and glasses to kitchen shelf. “What is that!” she drowned, slightly piqued, roar from loudspeakers. “That’s what y put under Edgar Wallace’s music when killer just stabs.”
© Michael Heck Tilman Steffen Editor in Department of Politics, Economy and society, time online to authors page
Yes, fan base of organ music is manageable, allegiance of Queen of instruments is small. Organ CDs are a chore for organists and church communities in direct sales. There is also organ music on Spotify, but polling rates are modest. Hand on Heart: When was last time you were in an organ concert? If you know someone, please write it down in comment area. Before I became a journalist, I held organ concerts as a cultural manager myself. Not without success, but re were also some, re were ten visitors – in a church with 1,500 seats this does not look good.
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Deep in east of Saxony, where this church stands, I learned organ builders after school. I was able to play piano and soldered a lot as a child. Thus, two holiday jobs were enough in company to convince master that he is right one. In years immediately before fall of wall, private ten-man operation was retreat of a sworn troop of – today one would say – left-liberal individuals, whose tendency towards craftsmanship surpassed love of music. In morning we heard German radio. Our morning devotion was not Christian at 7.35 pm, but rubric of East Newspapers – a press review of steered GDR state press, commented by Western journalists. In morning, my bench was on shortwave Radio Luxembourg, where listeners could win if y answered questions on phone correctly to distant countries. On drawing board stood ” old” – master and farmer, and designed what we would build next year.
When checking pipes © private
We planed and glued wood of pines, spruces, oaks, we poured tin and lead to plates and bow it over steel forms to whistle. If we were finished faster at nearby storage place when stacking wood, we decaying time until end of day with a beer and philosophise, wher Gottfried Silber man was measure of all things or he was only an ordinary or Saxon organ builder Was. There was no schedule, no standards. When work on an instrument in workshop ended, we told parishes that Assembly would begin soon. Then we took for several weeks in manses quarters, organ lofts of churches became our work place. If it was too cold outside, we smoked inside.
After that I made civilian service, a few adventurous jobs later I studied cultural management. The local manager of newspaper asked if I didn’t even want to write about culture, instead of organizing culture. That brought me to journalism school.
Organ building and journalism are not that similar. The organ builder researches on site, checks room acoustics, plans, draws. A unique result. It’s handicraft work. And if you succeed especially well, you even set yourself a monument. That flatters ego. In my six years of teaching and working, I have built on four instruments. In same cycle, crises alternated in modern era: first banks, n euro, refugees. There are searches that last one and a half years – like building an organ in my Little district workshop.
My past meets present: Organ Concerto for journalists in Hamburg St. Jakobi-Church @DIEZEIT for HS Pic.twitter.com/1ynMRQmkZD
— Tilman Steffen (@tilsteff) December 10, 2015
In one day my past as an organ builder and my presence as a journalist have crossed anew: 2015, during a commemorative concert for Helmut Schmidt. The entire time-publishing house in Hamburger Jakobi Church listened to arp-Schnitger organ and thought of his deceased editor.
