Orgeln! Orgeln! (Organs! Organs!)

Orgeln! Orgeln! (Organs! Organs!)
German text only

In 34 elegantly formulated "short stories", the two authors describe the organ phenomenon in a multitude of facets from all organ contingents. En route, the reader receives a wealth of factual information about curiosities and conflicts around the organ.  The organ is old, long its history, worldwide its distribution. The largest instruments are found in the USA, bamboo pipes are found in the Philippines, for the blackest bass you have to travel to Australia.  The book does not shy away from these out-of-the-way byways but also examines the variety of forms and problems in Germany.  What about the introduction of organs in the Jewish synagogues?  How did the Nazis let the instrument play for themselves?  What about an organ that's not finished, but after only 639 years there is just one piece?  As in Germany and Europe, described in the two companion volumes from the Göttert / Isenberg partnership, other topics are covered such as the prospectus design, the export, the course of a tender.  The stories surrounding the global spread of the organ are as exciting today as they are in any other instrument. How to reconstruct an organ after an oil painting?  What happens to the instrument in the movie?  How to move a ton-heavy colossus comfortably?  

Karl-Heinz Göttert is professor of German at the University of Cologne. Eckhard Isenberg is cantor at two churches in Cologne.  The specialist knowledge and the writing routine of the two authors have already been illustrated in "Organ Guides Germany" and in "Organ Guides Europe".