Zprávy památkové péče 2019, 79(3):304-308 | DOI: 10.56112/zpp.2019.3.08

New knowledge about the sound of the musical organ of the Brno and Loket organ school and the restoration thereof

Petr Koukal

NPÚ ÚOP v Telči

The issue of heritage musical organs, due to the growing number of their restorations, has become one of the more frequent topics of contemporary monument preservation. When restoring an organ, we must use as a basis the general heritage theory (see Basic Concepts in the Care of Cultural Heritage [Základní pojmy v péči o kulturní dědictví], Pardubice 2013), whose principles also apply in this area. This applies in particular to restoration, which "must always respect the authenticity of the heritage property and must not exceed the boundaries of hypothesis." The restoration itself (including the intervention conservation method) aims to "detect, protect, and preserve the historical values of the degraded property". The definition of authenticity also applies to the organ: "Origin and authenticity of the monument. This is not to be confused with the concept of originality in the sense of uniqueness." General theory is aware of the fact that within the framework of heritage practice there exist several types of authenticity, while "in the European environment, the authenticity of the material substance prevails". This is most likely due to the prevailing type of "visually perceived" monuments in the local environment. The essence of the organ as a heritage property, however, is its audio aspect; this has been recognized by European organ heritage care for several decades. The concept of monumental authenticity must therefore be applied to the sound of the organ and must emphasize the above-mentioned requirement - the boundaries of hypothesis must not be exceeded when restoring it. This is an extremely difficult task in this case, since its interpretation is heavily burdened by subjective interpretations. The present text therefore offers a new way to at least obtain partial objectification for the assessment and methods of renewing the audio aspect of an organ. It is based on a knowledge of the possible importance of a certain type of cores with so-called "lugs" (nálitky) in metal pipes, which, as confirmed by field documentation, regularly appear in two of our most important Baroque organ schools, Brno and Loket, in contrast with other organs in the European environment. Acoustic research has objectively confirmed the effect of this type of whistle core on the resulting sound. These results should therefore become part of restoration practice.

Keywords: organ sound, Loket organ school, Brno organ school, acoustic research, cores of organ pipes, core lugs

Published: September 1, 2019  Show citation