Saturday, May 23, 2009

So we started off bright and early again today. Our first matter of business was to go to the Katherinekirche in Hamburg for a master class with Prof. Peter van Dijk. This church was built in 1250. Yup, 1250. It’s amazing how they could build such a great building like that w/out the help of machines and stuff. Anyway, this is a very important church… first of all, it’s Lutheran and has a big picture of Luther on the wall. Also, several famous organists were here. It was bombed during WWII, and the organ was destroyed. This is a real shame, because it was an amazing organ and J.S. Bach himself played there. Stupid war. Anyway, the building survived the bombings (the walls and pillars remained intact) and 16 ranks were saved. 5 disappeared and we don’t know where they are, but 11 are accounted for. They are reconstructing the organ and currently have the ruckpostiv in. They wisely added this because it is small (hardly small.. This thing is huge!) so that people will think it looks incomplete and continue to donate to get the rest of the organ. The reverb is amazing, and the ruckpositiv is so big you can do quite a lot with it. I did not play in the master class, but here are some pics from that church.

LUTHER!!! This guy is all over. He's my hero.

Church


Close up of altar


Organ




Our next stop was to St. Jakobi Kirche where we saw this amazing Arp Schnitger Organ. This organ was pretty amazing. First off, THE J.S. Bach applied for a job here and was rejected. What a stupid thing for the church to reject him. Imagine what his music may have looked like if he had gotten to work on these Schnitger organs!!! WOW. They took the fascade pipes out in WWI for the war. Then in WWII they took the insides of the organ and hid it. The case was destroyed, but the guts of the organ were safe. How cool is that? Numerous adjustments and changes have been made to this organ over time.
Church

Organ

Heaven on Earth
:)

Also went to a music school to see some organs and to an organ concert and dinner after which was AMAZING.
Tomorrow we head out of Hamburg, so not sure if I'll have internet at the next hotel or not.





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