In 2021, the choir of St. Vid church housed a relatively harmonious pipe organ puzzle of at least five different organ builders. The organ case, dating back to 1838, was crafted by the workshop of Peter Rumpel, while the majority of the organ pneumatics and pipes originated from the Mayer brothers’ organ workshop in 1912. The organ was the largest instrument of the Mayer brothers’ workshop in the region of present-day Slovenia.
The organ was later upgraded twice more; first in 1928 by the master organ builder Franc Jenko, and later in 1992 by his son, Anton Jenko. The prospectus was contributed by Franc Jenko after the First World War, the added pipes of the 3rd manual were partly imported, partly the work of the workshop of his son Anton Jenko. The electric tracker with electromagnets and the organ console were serial products of the German company Laukhuff and were also installed by Anton Jenko.
Photo: Organistica
Documenting the organ condition
In May 2019, the first serious discussions regarding the condition and future of the Šentvid pipe organ began. In order to gain expert insight into the current state of the instrument and thus a starting point for objective evaluation, planning of interventions and protection of the cultural heritage, parish priest Izidor Grošelj engaged Luka Posavec and Aleš Razpotnik, to first carry out the so-called documentation of the organ.
In October 2021, the organ was thoroughly inspected and documented. We made a detailed inventory of all the pipes, determined the positions of the windchests, and also carried out a detailed photo-documentation of the organ and sound recording.
Photo: Organistica
The organ had 1848 pipes, of which 1528 were metal, 320 wooden, and 27 sounding registers. The largest pipe in the organ was part of the Principal 16′ pedal register and measured about 4 m, while the smallest pipe was 17 mm in size. The organ was operated at high pressure. The electric blower from 1928 (Meidinger, Switzerland) is also worth mentioning, which remained in excellent working order.
We also discovered that the organ disposition was partly incorrectly or incompletely stated in the literature.
From a professional standpoint, the organ was not suited to the volume of the church and, due to alterations by various masters over more than a century, it lacked significant historical value. A detailed examination revealed that the organ was not worth restoring due to inappropriate interventions and alterations, and the poor condition of the materials.
The question of reconstructing the pneumatic system has been raised, which would entail additional high costs for the construction of the pneumatic tone, register structure and the console. However, this would not have solved the problems that already arose when the instrument was installed in 1912: the organ’s size did not correspond to the volume of the church space, the pedal pipes in the large octave were poorly tuned, and consequently, were out of proportion in terms of sonority with the manual (weak bass). Additionally, the close arrangement of the pipes or the lack of space in the organ case also stood out.
It was decided that the pipe organ in the church of St. Vid in Šentvid pri Stični had reached the end of its useful life and would have to be replaced by a new one.
The purpose of accurately documenting the organ was not only to take a detailed inventory of old organ parts that could potentially be used for a new organ, but also to archive and preserve the old master’s legacy, thus enhancing our understanding of tradition and cultural roots.
The process of documenting the old Šentvid organ took place in three phases, namely before the dismantling of the instrument (October 2021 and June 2022), during the dismantling itself, and after the dismantling had been completed. The data we obtained also greatly contributed to the evaluation of the instrument condition.
