Jerusalem Center Organ

For the past 14 months, I have had the pleasure to perform on this magnificent organ.  It was made in Denmark by Marcussen & Son, a family business that started in 1806. 

Jerusalem Center Auditorium. 

This beautiful instrument, donated by an anonymous donor to BYU, is installed in the auditorium on the upper level (8th floor). The design of this hall, by architect Reznik is remarkable and a feast for the eyes. The organ was inaugurated in 1987. The two organ cases are made of ash wood and white oak in an elegant yet modern style. The horizontal reed pipes on the front of the case add interest and beauty to the instrument.

Kathleen Holyoak, organist (January 2016 - August 2017)

The horizontal pipes in this photo are the Spanish trumpets.  

Jürgen Marcussen (1781-1860) founded Marcussen & Son at a small country estate in Denmark and built his first pipe organ.  It consisted of a one manual keyboard and only a few stops. 

In 1811,  Jürgen was granted permission by King Frederik VI of Denmark to build organs in the Danish state Schleswig and the German state Holstein. This license brought him the business he needed to rebuild and restore organs. In 1819, he built his first larger pipe organ for the Siseby Church near the city of Schleswig.

Our organ at the Jerusalem Center is the largest pipe organ in the Middle East and has 3,165 pipes! 

We give tours through the Jerusalem Center Wednesday - Friday and during each tour, I present a short organ recital and as many as 8 each day! I love to tell our visitors that Marcussen & Son is a family business that dates back 7 generations. Knowing that I believe it adds credibility to their organ making business.

The history of the business is fascinating. Twenty years after Jürgen Marcussen started his business, he apprenticed Andreas Reuter who eventually became his business partner in 1826. With Andreas's theory behind organ building and Jürgen's genius, they made a wonderful team and together reinvented better ways to rebuild organs.

Marcussen invented box bellows which were inspired while repairing his wife's sewing table. Box bellows are similar to the parts of a sewing table where a detachable box for small stuff is placed in a tight-fitting bigger box. Understand? In other words, the air pressure is formed when an inner piston is lowered into an outer box.  This presses air into the wind channel system of the organ. 

Cross-section of a box bellow or windchest.

As they worked together repairing organs, their work brought them into contact with well-known musicians C.E.F. Weyse (Danish composer and organist) and J.P.E. Hartman (Danish organist and authority on music).  In 1836, they were awarded the title of "Organ Builders to the Royal Court of Denmark."

Claudia Marcussen-Zachariassen

Andreas Reuter died in 1847 and shortly thereafter the son of Jürgen Marcussen, Jürgen Andreas Marcussen (1816-1900), joined the company. In 1848, the name was changed to Marussen & Son.

From the mid-19th century, the company invented new technical advances and embraced the tonal demands of Romanticism and therefore became the leading company in Europe. Besides manufacturing new organs, they rebuild and maintain existing organs. 

Today Marcussen & Son have manufactured organs for many of the European countries, for Japan, Israel, Russia, South Africa, the Philippines and the USA.  

Seven generations later, Claudia  Marcussen-Zachariassen proudly leads Marcussen & Son  which is the oldest surviving company and renown for excellence in organ building.  It has also lead the way for new organ companies to emerge in Denmark.  

You might be interested in knowing that when Marcussen & Son are in the designing stage of a new organ, it takes three to four thousand man hours.  

Blueprints are drawn for each new organ.

Another phase in planning a new organ is in the voicing shop.  The work of the "voicer" is critical because he is responsible for determining the wind pressure and pipe dimensions. He also adjusts metal and organ pipes to obtain the desired tone color and strength of the sound and uses hand tools to actually decrease or enlarge the opening in each hole as he regulates the sound of each pipe. Employees of Marcussen & Son are loyal to the company and work there until retirement. 

Marcussen & Son has a casting shop where skilled pipe makers perform the precision work of manufacturing metal pipes in various forms and sizes and if I ever get to Denmark, I would certainly love to visit the company.

Very recently, our organ has been under maintenance and repair. Bernd Lorenzen, employee of Marcussen & Son, came from Denmark and worked tirelessly all week to get the organ back in shape. However, before he started work, he asked to attend Sunday morning services at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. We had the privilege to take him to church which was all in German. The acoustics are wonderful due to the high vaulted ceilings and we enjoyed hearing the organ, even though it is 1/3 the size of our organ at the Jerusalem Center.

 German born, Bernd lives a short distance from Mucussen & Son  
with his wife and two teenage daughters. 

Entrance to Church of the Redeemer

The Church of the Redeemer has 21 ranks.  In comparison, the JC organ has 59 ranks

We loved listening to Bernd sing the hymns in German.  
He has a really nice voice.

Steps leading up to the organ loft.  Bernd was anxious to see Gunther, 
the organist, once again.  They met each other in 2014.






Bernd introduced me to Gunther after the service.

Gunther and his wife after church service.   

When I went to the auditorium early Monday morning, Bernd was already hard at work and up in the loft. A table was covered with tools and items needed to repair the organ.

For anyone not familiar with organs, let me explain that an organ is not played the same as a piano. In order for the organ to sound, there must be a continuous supply of wind to sustain the notes for as long as the keys are pressed. In contrast, the sound of keys pressed on a piano will dissipate after keys are released. Because the technique for organ playing is completely different, a musician needs a solid piano background before attempting to learn the organ. It not only takes skill, precise coordination and many hours of practice because an organist plays with not only both hands but with both feet. Organ shoes are necessary when playing the pedals!  Let me repeat myself:  ORGAN SHOES ARE NECESSARY WHEN PLAYING THE ORGAN!  Street shoes will not only damage the keys but don't allow for the feet to slide as needed on the pedals.  They are also wide and cumbersome. 

When self-taught organists come into the auditorium, I often hear, "Oh, I don't need organ shoes. . . I play in bare feet."  I suppose ignorance is bliss but when the right moment presents itself, I stress the importance of having organ shoes and some professional lessons. Nothing is more grating on my nerves than a "wanna-be" organist slaughtering church music in a religious service! Having said that, I realize I am not perfect but I do take my job seriously. Music communicates in a way that words can never speak and as I meet people from all over the world who can't speak English, it is my hope I can touch their hearts through music. My love for the Savior and a Higher Power are expressed through not only the music I perform but the music I compose.  My goal in life is to lift the hearts of others to a higher dimension as I share. OK, now I will get off my soap box. (If I have offended anyone, please forgive me.)

In the meantime, I need to get back to Bernd who had come to tune and regulate our organ. I was very curious to see the process. Remember, an organ cannot play without wind and as previously mentioned, Jürgen Marcussen invented the box bellows for organs. They were used for approximately 100 years until the electric blowers gained a footing at the start of the 20th century.   

We have a tracker organ and the diagram might help you better understand. Organ pipes sit on top of a windchest (box bellow) and sound is produced when the air vibrates. Perhaps a better way to understand that concept is to think about  the sound produced when blowing air across a soda bottle. 

The windchest and pipes are enclosed on the sides and backed by a case so that the sound projects out the front more clearly.  Our organ is located at the back of the auditorium so people can admire our fabulous backdrop of the Old City from Mount Scopus where we are located.

Jerusalem Center Auditorium.

After examining one of the bellows, Bernd decided it needed to be replaced. 

Cracks in the leather weaken the bellow.

He showed me a piece of the suede (part of the bellow) and it had some small holes which tore easily when stressed. Bellows cannot produce the proper air pressure with holes or tears and if this would happen during a performance, it would be disastrous. After some consultation, it was decided that all five bellows would be replaced as a preventive for the future.

Bernd replaced the leather on all five bellows.  

Our organ at the Jerusalem Center has 5 bellows: one for each of the three manuals (swell or top keyboard;  great or middle keyboard; positive or lowest keyboard) and two for the pedals.

The materials of the manual keys (key of C)  are reversed to ebony and ivory.    

The sounds of the organ  can be compared to an orchestra with each section having its own characteristic tone color:  Strings; Flutes; Reeds & Foundations.  When one stop is engaged (pulled out), 61 pipes from a rank will play to produce that sound so do the math:  if two stops are engaged, 122 pipes will sound, etc. Literally hundreds or thousands of pipes produce sound when stops are engaged.  

The pedal keyboard is played with the feet and is typically designed at an octave lower than the main organ, so its would likely have a 16' Principal as its main stop. Pedal boards typically have 32 keys ranging from low C to G two and one-half octaves higher. The ranks for the pedals have 53 in each rank.  

Stop #21 (Mixture IV-V) indicates that 4 or 5 ranks x's 61 pipes = (up to 305 pipes)
will produce the sound when that stop is engaged.

Tuning an organ is very laborious! Only two stops on each manual can be tuned together at one time. I sat and held the "key" beginning with the lowest C on the Swell manual until Bernd would tune the harmonics of that note from the pipes in the back.  We moved in whole steps all the way up the keyboard to the highest key then started again on the lowest C#, moving once again in whole steps. The process took two days!

Tuning tool. 

Bernd at work tuning pipes.

This photo shows Bernd with a cone-shaped instrument used for tuning. Our organ at the Jerusalem Center has thousands of pipes! The smaller and narrower the pipe, the more harmonics it will have and the higher the pitch. The wider the pipe, the fewer the harmonics. There are pipes of many different materials which also affect the change in the sounds and the harmonics. For instance, straight pipes have more harmonics that those that are tapered. Organ builders have many things they have to check when tuning the pipes. The pipes in our organ are made from white oak and various metals and come in different shapes and sizes and vary from 1" to 16' in length.

Bernd working in the loft.  

Stopped and open pipes located on both sides of the organ. They are made of white oak. A stopped pipe has a stopper or plug in the top which is turn diverts the air to return to the bottom of the pipe. As a result, it sounds one octave lower. These are the granddaddy or lowest pipes of the organ played on the foot pedals.

Looking into the chamber of pipes from the top.

These are some of the pipes for the pedals found behind a panel in the back of the organ.

Pipes for the pedal keyboard are found behind a panel in the back of the organ.

To explain further, an organ pipe has a vibrating column of air and an underlying mathematical logic in natural harmonics relating to the pitch. If we start with C, it not only makes the sound of the pitch but also the overtones in the entire series: the C one octave above; the G one and one-half octaves above (12 notes up); the C two octaves above; the E 17 notes up and so on. Of course, these harmonics are not at the same loudness and the volume relative to the main note is what creates the characteristic tone.  If I lost you, not to worry!  

The pipe Bernd is holding is a reed pipe. Look closely and you 
can see the metal reed that vibrates to produce the tone.  

Bernd holds the cap or "hood" of a reed pipe. The longest pipe on our organ is 16 feet in length and is one of the Spanish trumpets.

The row of pipes that are horizontal to the floor are the Spanish trumpets (reeds)
and are tuned differently than the other pipes. Rather, each has a
small level that can be adjusted from the side of the pipe.

These principles of sound are true of the human voice and all musical instruments, not just organ pipes.  

Bernd said that Marcussen & Son tunes and maintains anywhere from 600 to 1,000 organs in Europe every year.  I asked how often he is out of town working on organs outside of Denmark and his answer was, "Six to eight weeks every year."  He has worked for the company about 15 years and came to the Jerusalem Center in 2014 to work on our organ. We felt privileged to have the opportunity to learn more about his life and his family.  Bernd, a somewhat shy and modest man, is an expert in his field who has dedicated his life to the building of organs.  It was such a pleasure to work with him each day and show him around

our city.  

The photo below shows pipes of different sizes in the workshop at Marcussen & Son.  The pipes are made of alloys varying from a high content of lead for the flute pipes to a high content of tin for the façade pipes.  

Pipes also can be made of wood. Wooden pipes are typically square or slightly rectangular in cross-section and are most often stopped pipes. You might asked, what is a stopped pipe? A stopped pipe can be completely closed by a stopped as shown above.  Such a pipe sounds an octave lower in pitch than an open pipe of the same length.  On each side of our organ, we have stopped and open wood pipes made of white oak and most people think the wood is just part of the facade . . . not true until I point them out.

If you are getting bored with the structural side of pipe organs, let me explain a little about the history. Below is a painting of an ancient pipe organ in Greece in the 3rd century BC. Notice the woman's left hand is placed on the bellow in the back.  

Ancient organ from 400 years ago with 13 keys 

on the manual. The pipe organ has a very long

 history which spans over a period of 400 

years. Johann Sebastian Bach is the most 

famous composer for the organ but there 

were many others from the same time period

in Germany and France who wrote for organ. 

Those composers included Pachelbel, Bach, Handel, 

Mozart, Lizst, Reger, as well as Couperin,

Franck, Vierne, Widor, Dupré, Langlais and 

Messiaen.

When we first arrived in Israel (January, 2016), Brent and Marybeth Jones (organist I replaced) took us to Haifa to meet Gideon Shamir, the only active organ builder in Israel.  A child prodigy who started piano at age 6, he later studied at the Royal College of Music in London. He was awarded a prize for his piano performance by Queen Elizabeth and soon thereafter participated in a Chopin piano competition in Warsaw. However, rather than spend his life as a performing musician, he decided to become an organ builder when he worked for Walker, a Germany organ maker firm at the age of 24. 

Gideon, standing in his organ workshop.

Marybeth & Brent Jones 

Gideon at an organ console he built.

Gideon built a tiny organ for his grandchildren and it was the cutest little instrument I have ever seen!! I would have bought it in a heart beat if he would have been willing to part with it!  

The smallest portable pipe organ has only one manual with a dozen or two or pipes but the largest pipe organ in the world (in Atlantic City) has 33,114 pipes and 7 manuals.  I would venture to guess that Gideon's miniature organ is the smallest in existence powered by a generator.

The Salt Lake Tabernacle organ (Mormon Tabernacle) in Salt Lake City, Utah, has 11,623 pipes.  This organ is famous because it accompanies the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square. 

A look inside at some of the pipes.

A look inside one of the panels of the organ.

It is important to maintain all pipe organs.  They are sensitive to changes in temperature and as a rule, it takes two hours for the room temperature to be reached before the use of the organ.  However, we keep the temperature in our auditorium the same 24/7 year round.  

Because the air density influences the vibration of the pipes, the pitch rises with temperature. Also, temporary tuning differences might occur between wooden and metal pipe as they react slower to changes in temperature. The front pipes react faster than pipes inside the organ case so it is important that when the organ is turned off, the swell pedal is opened to allow the pipes to breathe and all heated air to distribute evenly in the the pipework.

I believe Bernd enjoyed his time in Jerusalem because he loved eating outside and sitting in the sun.  He said the weather was still cold in Denmark and one day it snowed back home while he was here.

Lunch on the patio off the Oasis cafeteria at the Jerusalem Center.

The Garden Tomb was a special place to visit.

A visit to the Holy Sepulchre.

Bernd enjoyed walking around the Old City and taking in the sites.

"These can't be raw almonds!" (Yes, they are.)

When is was time for Bernd to return to Denmark, we took him to the airport in Tel Aviv. That same afternoon, our #2 daughter and her husband were arriving from Utah so the trip to the airport was convenient for everyone.

Garth and Bernd at the airport prior his departure.  

After spending one week together, we became good friends. 

The next day we showed our family around the Jerusalem Center and I demonstrated the fabulous organ. It was wonderful to have it working properly and back in tune.  THANK YOU, Marcussen & Son for sending Bernd to Israel!

For anyone interested in more information about learning to play the organ, I am posting an excellent link by the American Guild of Organists.  It has educational videos about learning the organ and how to join local chapters.  https://www.agohq.org/neworganist/