Why Documenting Pipe Organs?

Often, for reasons of practicality and optimisation, we discard the old in favour of the new. But the history and heritage of our ancestors are our roots, rich with material and spiritual messages. By recognizing this, we discover that it is the values, beliefs, knowledge and traditions of the past that have shaped us into who we are today. It is through understanding the past that we shape our future.

The stories of the past are the foundation of our future

Documenting historic organs is one way of helping to preserve the musical and technical traditions of our ancestors. By documenting instruments in professionally and systematically, we allow future generations to better understand the choices and mindsets of both past and present times. The information obtained through the process of documenting an instrument also greatly contributes to its evaluation and to making it easier to make decisions on how to manage them in the future. After all, the knowledge gained about old instruments also inspires rise to new ideas useful for the construction of new instruments.

Valuing organs

An organ is a complex instrument. To evaluate it properly, it is important to realise that its value is not determined solely by its external aesthetic appearance, but above all by its “content”, which is largely invisible to the average observer. Additionally, the sound produced by the organ, which reverberates in the room, is physically intangible and invisible. The sound of a particular pipe tone is influenced by several factors. It depends on the air supply, the construction of the pipe, the intonation and spatial effects. However, it is the aesthetics of the sound that should, in most cases, be an important or the most important criterion for judging the value of an instrument. Therefore, the organs that are of artistic interest to us are those that are well made, have a good sound image and have historical and musicological value.

A professional, systematic and structured approach

At Organistica, the development of the organ documentation process had two main objectives, namely:

1. to develop a documentation policy and methodology
2. to collect data and information on organs that can serve as an empirical basis for later comparative studies of the instrument’s construction and manufacturing techniques

An important benefit of our development is that we have developed a documentation procedure that allows organ builders and organologists to study instruments and eventually reconstruct them directly from the documentation. The documentation also makes it possible to design a thorough professional programme for the preservation and maintenance of each instrument, thus preventing damage and breakdown.

Our documentation procedures make an important contribution to the preservation of cultural heritage by protecting the historic organ from later unprofessional and less careful interventions.