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The Organ in Biertan
Queen of Instruments
Transylvania, the land of historic organs! Let’s take this opportunity to delve into a truly fascinating subject. Though no official inventory exists, it is said that there are over 1,000 organs in the Reformed, Catholic, Evangelical, Unitarian, Greek-Catholic, and Neoprotestant churches in Romania.
Here, in the Saxon area, every fortified church has or had an organ that accompanied the Lutheran service, which, as we learned, is built as a dialogue between the pastor and the community. Over time, the community’s choir was joined by the deep, delicate, high, or low sounds of the organ. Initially, only cathedrals in Transylvanian cities could afford an organ due to the high costs, but in the 18th century, they grew in popularity, and more communities could afford such an instrument.
But what exactly is an organ, and how does it work? The organ is the largest musical instrument ever built by humans. It is also the most complex instrument made before the Industrial Revolution. For Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the organ was the queen of all instruments.
A member of the keyboard instrument family, the organ produces sound by pushing air through pipes of various sizes. Whether mechanical or pneumatic, the principle behind historical organs is the same: a bellows or compressor blows air into pipes. Pressing a key on the keyboard opens the valve (vent) of a pipe, allowing air to flow and vibrate.
The components of an organ are six:
- First component: The keyboard, also called the "manual"; some organs have one, others have two or three.
- Second component: The register, a set of pipes with a specific tone. A lever near the keyboard allows the musician to change the sound register. There are organs with just one register and others with dozens.
- Third component: The pipes, which can be made of wood or metal, shorter or taller, and can produce different sound timbres.
- Fourth component: The mechanics, the system that pushes air through the pipes. It can be mechanical, pneumatic, electric, or electronic.
- Fifth component: The air supply mechanism, consisting of a manually operated bellows (by the organist's assistant, called the “calcant”), today often replaced by an electric fan.
- Sixth component: The pedalboard, a keyboard for the feet that can play the bass notes. This component can be very complex or completely absent.
The outer, visible part of the organ is called the "cabinet," and it houses the pipes and mechanisms.
The organ in front of you is the sixth organ in the history of the Evangelical Church in Biertan, and it's relatively new! It has no less than 1,290 pipes (of which only a small part is visible), two keyboards, a pedalboard, and 25 registers. It was built in Vienna by organ builder Carl Hesse’s company and inaugurated in Biertan in 1869.
In the 19th century, many parishes turned to firms from other parts of the Empire to build their organs, but earlier, organs were built by local craftsmen. For example, we know that in 1731, master Georg Wachsmann from Biertan built a baroque organ with one keyboard and 10 registers for the church. The old organ was sold for 120 florins to the community of Ațel. Wachsmann’s organ served Biertan until 1794, when it was sold "over the hill" to the community of Dupuș. In its place, organ builder Samuel Maetz, with a workshop in Biertan, constructed a new organ with 22 registers, that offered more musical possibilities. Not only was the organ new, but its location was also new: the balcony supporting it was freshly built in 1794, in the Baroque style.
Nearly a century later, in 1868, disaster struck: the section of the vault above the organ collapsed, causing such severe damage that the instrument could not be repaired or restored. A new organ had to be purchased! The community turned to Carl Hesse from Vienna, the builder of the current organ, which won a medal at the 1867 Paris World Exposition. How much did it cost? Chroniclers mention the sum of 7,000 florins, payable in five installments – the equivalent of about €116,694 today.
The Biertan community initially took out a loan for this sum. To cover the costs, each resident donated 5% of their grape harvest to the church. In the 19th century, every household relied on wine production. The parish of Biertan collected the barrels of wine, stored them, and later sold them at a favorable price.
The story of the Hesse organ doesn’t end there. During World War I, the local Saxons were forced to donate some of the metal pipes to the war effort. They were replaced during the 1926 restoration. The organ has undergone several other restorations, in 1994 and 2005.
The Hesse organ, adorned with neo-Gothic finials and pinnacles, is still functional today. Every summer, on Fridays, its sound fills the space of the magnificent Gothic church you find yourself in.
The organ only became a regular participant in Lutheran services in the 18th century, sometimes accompanied by other instruments.
The community organist had the duty to accompany the choir but also to perform solo pieces. At the beginning of the service, the organist would improvise with more or less skill. At the end of the service, the same. Organists were both performers and composers, each having the opportunity to create their melodic line for the psalms. The community’s organist was also responsible for training their successor: a few children from the community were kept close and taught the secrets of the craft. Often, the organist also served as the local schoolteacher.
So what is special here? The historic organs in Transylvania are special for several reasons. One is that they have remained "unaltered." We have organs with Baroque cabinets and Baroque inner mechanisms. In other parts of Europe, there is often a difference of decades or centuries between the exterior appearance of an organ and its interior. Here, the community either didn’t feel the need or didn’t have the funds for such modifications.
Curious how an original 18th-century organ sounds? The good news is that the Wachsmann organ, the third organ in Biertan’s history, was recently restored. The re-inauguration concert took place on October 14, 2023, and it can now be admired in the Evangelical Church in Mediaș.
How is an organ restored? The nearest restoration center for historic organs is in Hărman, Brașov County. It’s a company founded with the help of master organ builder Ferdinand Stemmer, restorer Barbara Dutli, and the Swiss SSOR Foundation. Established in 2003, the company "Organ Construction and Carpentry SRL" (C.O.T. SRL) has restored numerous Transylvanian historic organs and also engages in training young people in the field of organ construction and carpentry.
Restoring an organ begins with carefully dismantling its components and separating them into categories. First, the interior mechanism is worked on, then the cabinet is dismantled. Both the wooden and metal elements are restored by specialists in that material. Depending on the size and complexity of the organ, restoration can take between a few months and one or two years.
We end this fascinating excursion with an allegory from German author H.D. Dietericus, still relevant today. Here’s what he said: "We Christians can transform into living, rational, and wise organs. Our body is the body of that organ: our mouth is like the pipes, our tongue the reed that vibrates in the pipes, and our soul the air, the breath that passes through the pipes. The manual and pedalboard of our spiritual organ is the heart. The registers are the emotions and zeal of our heart and soul. The organist is the Holy Spirit, full of many gifts. God’s right hand will play on the keyboard of our heart, setting it in motion through the wind of His word, so that our body, our feet, our hands, our mind and thoughts, our feelings, and our desires resonate in a good, spiritual, pleasant, and delightful harmony (…)."
Text by Ioana Pătrășcoiu, documented and written as part of the Heritage Lab workshop in 2024. Audio guide by Designers, Thinkers, Makers Association and Biertan Town Hall, in the Culture & Cultures: Connecting the dots project co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration.
Audio guide produced in 2024 via the Culture&Cultures. Connecting the dots project.
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