It almost sounds like tinnitus: a high, penetrating tone fills the room in the Catholic parish church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Rottenbuch. He stands for a few seconds, then the next one follows. This is what it sounds like when Markus Linden tunes the organ. If you want to watch him at work, you have to climb up the ladder on the side of the instrument. There Linden sits amidst the 2647 pipes he tunes one by one. A strenuous procedure for hands and ears. “Intonateur” is his job title, which only specialists can do anything with.
The intonation is the last step in the restoration of the historic “Freywis organ”. The work took four years and cost 800,000 euros. From the gallery, on which Linden works, there is an impressive view of the former monastery church of the Augustinian canons. The Romanesque and Gothic building was renovated in the 18th century in the Rococo style and since then, together with the Wieskirche and the Steingaden Minster, has been one of the outstanding sacred buildings in the Pfaffenwinkel.
Intonator Markus Linden has to tune each whistle.
(Photo: Jasinta Then)
The Freywis organ, named after its builder Baltasar Freywis in 1747, is also one of the most important baroque organs in southern Bavaria. The smallest of their 2647 pipes is just 1.2 centimeters long, the largest 4.45 meters. Overall, the organ is ten meters high, eight meters wide and weighs around eleven tons. It was extensively rebuilt in 1783 and repaired several times afterwards – not always for the better, however. The most serious was the intervention in 1963, which greatly changed the sound of the organ. Almost half of the baroque original parts fell victim to the brutal renovation. The organ had become “pretty ugly”, is how Matthias Wagner, head of the restoration department at the Klais company, describes the condition at that time.
Ten years ago, however, there was a surprise: the Munich City Museum owned two windchests that were to be sorted out. They were stored in a garage. It is important to know that windchests distribute the air to the pipes and are therefore of great importance for the sound. It turned out that the Munich components were the original manual drawers of the main Rottenbuch organ. However, they could not be easily reinstalled.
A real heap of rubble
After years of discussions, the church administration decided in 2012 to have the organ renovated and to give it back the voice of the 18th century. But where should the necessary 800,000 euros come from? It was a fortunate circumstance that the federal government had launched a program for the renovation of organs at the time. A large part of the expenses could be financed from this pot. The rest was shared by the Free State of Bavaria and the community of Rottenbuch, the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising and many other private donors. This was the starting signal for the comprehensive restoration in 2017, with which the company Orgelbau Klais from Bonn was commissioned – one of the largest projects of its kind in Bavaria, as Nikolaus Könner, organ specialist of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation, explains.
A particular difficulty was the veritable heap of rubble, which consisted of 1,000 historical pipes that had been randomly installed in 1963. They all had to be identified and sorted first, “tracking” as Matthias Wagner calls it. It was an extremely difficult “giant puzzle”, says Könner. At least the respective tone was handwritten on each pipe. The missing half of the pipe work was recreated as true to the original as possible. But doubts remained as to whether everything “maybe was completely different,” admits Wagner. Who knows for sure how an organ sounded in the 18th century?
“A Departure”
Wagner says that one tries to understand the feelings and experiences of a musician in the Baroque era. A journey into the world of sound 300 years ago. The aim was to bring a total work of art back to life and “to rediscover the sound of the church with the organ”. Or to put it another way: the room in the church must harmonize with the sound of the instrument. Matthias Wagner notes, however, that the organ is always the boss and “itself has to speak”. The striking, filigree sound of the past should come back. And indeed, the restored instrument sounds very dynamic and differentiated, sometimes loud and penetrating, sometimes quiet and muffled.
On Pentecost Sunday, June 5th, the Freywis organ will be inaugurated with a festive mass in C major by BernhardHaltenberger. The organist Norbert Düchtel from Regensburg will have the honor of playing the completely overhauled historical instrument. The inauguration is also the start of the Rottenbuch Summer Festival 2022. A further seven organ concerts will follow until September 11th.
Pastor Josef Fegg is already full of anticipation. “We pull out all the stops in every respect,” he says. Florian Löffler, who has been working as a church musician in the Rottenbuch Parish Association since 2021, also agrees: “The restored organ should give new impetus to the church community and the region.” Accordingly, the motto of the pontifical mass on Pentecost Sunday is “Awakening”.
A pontifical mass is celebrated in the church of Rottenbuch on Sunday.
(Photo: Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments)
Organ specialist Könner takes a more sober view of things. First and foremost, the organ is a “technical monument,” he says. In order to get the perfect sound of the instrument, all components must be preserved. Project manager Wagner compares the organ to a steam locomotive, you always have to repair and care for something here and there, it is not a “perfect” instrument. An organ has to be retuned after just one year. Since the temperature in the unheated church in Rottenbuch can sometimes fall below zero, the organ has to be readjusted regularly.
The conclusion of the restoration: “There is more afterwards than before,” says conservationist Könner, both in terms of sound and history. On Sunday, churchgoers can see for themselves.