Organ of the Church of the Nativity in Loreto Prague

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Organ of the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord in Loreto

Organ of the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord

The whole Loreto complex consists of two main sanctuaries (the Loreto chapel Santa Casa and the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord) and six chapels connected by cloisters. Since its foundation it has undergone a difficult development, which was mainly caused by the social and cultural requirements of each era. The musical history of the place is equally rich and it is reflected in the history of the Loreto pipe organ.

The Loreto organ was first mentioned in 1648, when two positives were registered in the inventory of the sanctuary. At that time only the Loreto chapel by Orsi was built (constructed in 1626-1631).

Therefore we can assume, that only one instrument was constantly placed in the sanctuary and the other one was mobile and used during processions. Apparently there was not enough space in the chapel to install and employ a bigger instrument. (By a positive we mean a small organ today, with three to six stops and without a pedal). These instruments have not been preserved for today and we don’t know anything about their fate.

We can suppose that, due to the growing needs of the Loreto musicians, they were sold or moved into another parish after the works on extending the pilgrimage site had begun, especially after the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord was built.

After the original Church of the Nativity of Our Lord (1718 Christoph Dietzenhofer) had been completed, a new contract on construction of a new organ was made with a Prague organ maker Leopold Spiegel. The contract was signed on 25. 7. 1717 and the new instrument was handed over on 28. 8. 1718.

Leopold Spiegel was one of the most excellent organ makers of his time, but very few of his instruments have survived until now. Two most renowned of the playable instruments are still in use – in the St. Barbara church in Manětín and in the castle church in Valeč. Unfortunately both of them are in a dilapidated condition and their respectful reconstruction is essential in order to preserve them for future generations.

The next modifications of the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord’s construction in 1734-1737 by Johann Georg Aichbauer were probably a reason to

order a new organ – only 16 years after the Spiegel’s instrument was handed over. It is not probable, that Spiegel’s instrument was not good. More likely it did not meet Aichbauers architectural intensions. If the organ had been built in one cabinet, which is what Spiegel often did, it could not correspond with a system of the gallery and chancel windows, where the sunbeams are expected to light the altar and sanctuary. We do not know what happened with the still new instrument made

by Spiegel. The new instrument was ordered at Jan Bohumír Halbich jr. (also referred to as Helwig, Helbig, Helwych or Helmich) from Králíky. He is also called Josef Helwig in some sources, but that is a widespread and often used mistake many musicologists and researchers have taken from a publication “Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon” by H. Mendel (1875). One of them was the author of a significant book “Pražské varhany” (Organs of Prague) Vladimír Němec (1944).

Therefore it is not easy to correct this mistake today.

The reason why this lucrative contract was given to an organ-makers workshop from Králíky and not to one of the many Prague organ makers of that time, who were as good as him, might lie in active contacts between the aristocratic families of Lobkowicz, Czernin and Sporck.

The Sporcks were important customers of the Králíky organ-makers. But it showed up, that Jan Bohumír Halbich had not finished the construction of the Loreto organ. According to a musicologist and researcher Dr. Zdeněk Culka other organ-makers from Králíky Franz Katzer and Kaspar Weltzel finished them. An important hint considering this situation could be a record in register of deaths of St. Peter at Poříčí parish, where the death of Johann Gottfried Helwych is recorded under the date 4. 12. 1736. We cannot exclude the above mentioned person was the organ-maker himself. This information could explain vagueness in data regarding the authorship and the time of construction of the

Loreto church organ - view of the console with the keyboards in colour inverse design.

Angel playing gamba - sculptural detail of figural decoration of the Loreto organ case.

current organ of the Church of The Nativity of Our Lord.

The most logical interpretation of these sources is, that the organ-maker Jan Bohumír Halbich died in Prague and therefore F. Katzer and K. Weltzel were send for to finish the completion of the organ. The fact that there are no other known J. G. Halbich’s organs built after 1736 seems to confirm this hypothesis.

Králíky was an important centre of organmakers in the Czech lands. There were several organmaker families and workshops, which often closely collaborated (as during the construction of Loreto’s organ). The Weltzel family workshop, whose activity lasted till 19th century, probably left the most plentiful heritage of all. In addition to all the names mentioned above, Josef Straussel (sometimes also called Straissel) and his co-worker Jan Křtitel Bohák are also known as Králíky organ-makers. Since Králíky organ-makers produced so many organs, we can call them “The Králíky Organ-Maker School” today. Their instruments have many common features as far as construction, disposition and concept are concerned. We can find them in almost all parts of the Czech lands, but logically, most of the traces of their activity can be found in Northeast Bohemia and North Moravia. They attract you at the first sight with their unique, impressively ornamented artistic design of the organ cases. Even in situations where the look of the cases was influenced by an architect attempting to create the church interior as a compact complex, you can clearly recognize the features typical for the Králíky organ makers, such as a typical division of pipe towers and fields and unmistakable shaping of the prospect and crown mouldings.

The cases of the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord organ offer a typical example of the Králíky organ makers “artistic hand”. The woodcarving and figural decorations of the cases, carrying 18 singing and playing angels, are definitely worth of close and detailed

inspection. Three more little angels with kettledrums are sitting on a canopy above the window, between the cases. The angel sitting on the right case second from the left, playing the viol, is especially interesting, because the instrument in his hands might be functional – he is holding a real viola, which in comparison to his size represents a viol.

The instrumental part of the organ rather differs from the usual design of Králíky organ makers, though. The main difference is the disposition of the instrument in the cases, which is unique here and can’t be seen in any other Králíky organs. If the main instrument was divided into two cases, the first case contained all the tones C, D, E, F#, G# and B and the second one then tones C#, D#, F, G, A, and B. This solution is very effective regarding the acoustic aspect and it actually represents a prototype of “baroque stereophony”.

To the listener inside the church it seemed as if the whole rear wall was playing. The layout of two-case or three-case instruments was different, especially from the late 18th century. The complete main instrument was put in one case, the pedal into the second one (for three-case instruments with a positive in the railing) and eventually with the positive as well (for two-case instruments). The left case of the Prague Loreto organ (when looking from the altar) contains only the descant part of all the stops of both manuals in a tone range from c#1 to c3. In the right case there are all the manual stops in a bass register (C to c1). So in the left case there are only the small pipes and in the right one there are the big pipes. In order to build a symmetrically designed prospect, the organ maker had to choose a quaint division of the pedal. The prospect of the left case is set up from pipes of stops Principalbass 8 and Superoctavbass 4 (pedal) and in the prospect of the right case there are Principal 8 and Octava 4 from the main instrument. Each of the wood stops of the pedal are placed separately – Subbass 16 in the left case and Octavbass 8 in the right. Another interesting fact about the Loreto organ is that almost all the pipes, including the Copulas in the positive, are made of tin.

Only the above mentioned pedal stops Subbass 16 and Octavbass 8 and the biggest pipes of tones C of the eight feet principals – that means of the Principal 8 of the main instrument and the Principalbass 8 of the pedal - are wooden. These pipes stand right behind the prospect of the highest pipe towers, whereas the highest prospect pipes of these towers are tones D of both mentioned principal stops. Loreto organ has 1076 pipes in total, from them only 38 are wooden.

Today the instrument has these stops:

The main body (upper manual): Principal 8 (in prospect of the right case) Bifara 8 (descant - c#1 – c3, tuned as celeste) Quitadena 8 Octava 4 (in right case prospect) Quinta 2 2/3 Superoctava 2 Rauschquinta 1 1/3 2x Mixtura 1 1/3 5x Positive (lower manual): Copula major (8 – tin) Salicional 8 Viola di Gamba 8 (newer, in the place of an original stop Octava 2) Principal 4 Copula minor (4 – tin) Mixtura 1 3x Pedal: Subbass 16 (wooden, open) Octavbass 8 (wooden, open) Principalbass 8 (in the left case prospect) Superoctavbass 4 (in the left case prospect)

The organ is equipped with a connection of manuals (a shiftable upper manual), the console with the keyboards in colour inverse design stands solely in the middle between cases.

A historical pedal reed stop at 16’ pitch is mentioned in literature (V. Němec: Pražské varhany, 1944). When the organological research was made before the last renovation of the instrument, it showed up that existence of the above mentioned pedal stop is questionable, and therefore it was not restored in the renovation process. However the stop Viola di Gamba 8 from positive, which is not original, was preserved, because it has a very good sound and it is made from high quality conical tin pipes. Its employment in liturgy was taken into account as well. The Loreto organ is equipped with a so called broken bass octave, which means that the lower tones C# and D# were omitted.

In the Czech music of 18th century the bass line was mostly used only as an accompaniment and it showed up that these tones had been used only exceptionally.

That led to an idea to save material and considerable expenses on the pipes, which had almost never been used. In order to avoid gaps between keys it was necessary to reorganize them. The keys within the broken octave are arranged like this: F# G# D E B C F G A B c and so on chromatically as usual until c3.

The broken octave is relatively rare in the Czech Republic. We can find a so called short octave more often, where the two tones F# and G# are omitted.

Out of the better known instruments in the Czech lands both organs of the monastery in Kladruby near Stříbro have the broken octave (the smaller one was moved into the church in Skapce and then all the way to the All Saints Church at Prague Castle) and also in Dobřenice near Hradec Králové, in the Prague Ss. Simon and Jude Church, in Dobrá voda near České Budějovice (Budweis) and the instruments which Austrian organ makers built in our country (Drnholec, Valtice...). The application of the broken octave in a pedal of the organ in the parish church in Drnholec or in a small positive of Austrian origin in the filial church in Sedlo near Nová Bystřice are curious.

The broken octave has been recently installed into the organ of the Prague Church of the Knights of the Cross of St. Francis of Assisi, renovated by Dušan Doubek from Jihlava. The restorer was inspired by the fact, that in the wind-chests there were valves for broken octave tones. Because of the lack of space on the gallery of the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord in Prague Loreto it was necessary to choose a peculiar arrangement of the system of the bellows. Two large wedge-shaped bellows that needed to be pumped by two people, together with a reservoir, were placed in the attic of the north cloister. The air is carried into the organ by a 10-metre-long wooden duct which is lead under the floor of the upper storey of the cloister. It

„Celestial Orchestra plays for the newborn Saviour“ - left part of the organ case with a fresco by Johann Adam SchĂśpfl on the background.

emerges on the surface behind the right organ case. In its base it splits into branches and each of them leads to a particular part of the organ and windchests. Because the calcants (the pumpers of bellows) did not know what was happening in the church, the organist had to instruct them using a special bell. Its rod was located on the organ console.

The Loreto organ has been modified several times in its history. The most serious interventions were made as late as in the sixties of the last century, when pneumatic windchests with new stops were put into the window niche behind the right organ case. The whole installation was hidden behind a massive wooden divider. However, the longest pipes stuck out, so the complete look of the instrument was seriously disturbed. The aim of this modification was to extend the possibilities of the Loreto organ as a concert instrument, because at that time the church was meant to serve mainly as a concert hall. In comparison with this serious modification the previous retuning and renaming of the Bifara 8 to the Principal descant 8 can be considered relatively unimportant. This

modification probably emerged from incomprehension of the function of the celeste principal rank and can be corrected very easily. In 1993 Vladimír Šlajch finished a respectful renovation of the Loreto organ. The instrument was petrified (treated against woodworms), the new modifications were removed and the disposition has been brought back to the historically oldest known form (with the exception of the preservation of the Viola di Gamba 8 stop in positive). The organ was tuned to the historical unequal temperament Werkmeister III. Because of that it fully meets the requirements of the interpretation of 17th and 18th century music. It is also a fully adequate liturgical instrument with the precondition that the organist is able to accept the particularity of the historical instrument and adapt his playing during liturgy to it (by choosing appropriate keys for accompaniment of songs, etc.).

Today the Loreto organ is used for both liturgy and concerts. Its sound was captured several times on recordings of Český rozhlas (Czech Radio) and CDs of various musical publishers. The instrument has gradually and increasingly been in the centre of attention of foreign organ players and belongs to highly valued and rightly admired relics of the Czech organ making.

Lately it has been used for study and educational purposes by the department of keyboard instruments of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

St. Cecilia, the patroness of organists - engraving from the old print: P. Josephus Bilinensis, Lauretanischer BlumenGarten, Prag 1700.