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ofAnja Laud
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shut down
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2021 is the year of the organ. The Evangelical Church in Frankfurt and Offenbach therefore presents a different one every month.
If you want to go to the organ in the venerable Nieder-Erlenbach church, you first have to squeeze up a narrow spiral staircase. “Occupational safety didn’t play such a role back then,” says Stefan Küchler, provost choirmaster of the Evangelical Church in Frankfurt and Offenbach, and laughs. Then he sits down at the console and begins to improvise on the organ. The conference of regional music councils in Germany declared 2021 the year of the organ. The Propsteikantorei uses this to present another from the city dean’s office every month. The organ in Nieder-Erlenbach is the beginning because it is something special. It dates from the 18th century, making it the oldest in the city.
“Our old church and organ connect us with the generations who sat here in the benches before us and who, like us, have lived through difficult times,” says Petra Lehwalder, pastor of the Nieder-Erlenbach community. She is happy that the organ of her church is the focus at the beginning of the organ year. Johann Benedikt Ernst Wegmann, who came from a Frankfurt organ builder dynasty, and Johann Friedrich Meynecke built the instrument in 1781, as an inscription discovered in 1955 shows.
Church music
The Offenbach church musician Bettina Strübel publishes an organ podcast on YouTube under the title “Luther.Mirjam.Offenbach” in which musicians give short concerts, not just on the organ.
In the Sankt Katharinenkirche at the Frankfurter Hauptwache Organist Martin Lücker and Pastor Olaf Lewerenz organize a musical prayer twice a week. The next one is scheduled for Monday, January 25th, 4:30 p.m.
To a “Corona Vesper” Under the motto “Fastnacht is a great time”, the Evangelical Church Community Unterliederbach invites you to Sunday, February 17th, 6 pm, in the Stephanuskirche, Liederbacher Straße 36B. Stefan Küchler and members of the Unterliederbach and Höchst Cantorei will play. Donations are requested for the benefit of freelance musicians. . lad
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For two reasons, Küchler thinks it’s good that the organ was the first keyboard instrument ever to be named Instrument of the Year. It is considered the queen of musical instruments because it is the largest, the deepest and the highest, the loudest and the quietest. “It offers a multitude of tonal possibilities,” he says, and then each organ is also unique, because it is not manufactured in series like other instruments, but specifically for each church room.
In the Nieder-Erlenbach church, the altar, organ and pulpit stand side by side and one above the other as a Lutheran unit. Even if the organ was rebuilt over the centuries, it has largely been preserved in its original form. It was last restored in 1984 and returned to its original version with a manual, after a second had not been installed very successfully in 1955. An electric bellows has remained. Confirmants no longer have to use their bodies to breathe as they did a long time ago.
In Corona times, the organ and organ music, both of which were recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage in 2017, are of greater importance, because the faithful are not allowed to sing during worship, as they could release aerosols and infect other people. Lehwalder says the community misses the common singing. It is consoling for many that at least the organ does not have to be silent.
Concerts for the year of the organ have not yet been scheduled because of the pandemic, says Küchler. But the teaching concepts for learning to play the organ would be revised. And then he pulls out a case with a leather handle, an organ case containing pipes and a miniature bellows, which children and adults can try out when organ tours are possible again. Most of them are fascinated, not only by the sound, but also by the technology, he says. And the organ is by no means old-fashioned. Lehwalder can only agree with him. A bride and groom, both Star Wars fans, would have liked the organist to have the Darth Vader theme for their wedding. “That was also possible,” she says. And something else distinguishes the organ. “It is the only instrument that can potentially produce a tone that has no end,” says the cantor. Provided the pipes have enough air.
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