FULL LENGTH DOCUMENTARY: A new Concert Hall Organ for the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (2017-2021)

As of January 2018 the Gothenburg International Organ Academy sealed a historic agreement to build a new concert hall organ for the Gothenburg Symphony Hall of the highest international dignity.
The commission to build the new organ was won by the Austrian organ building company Rieger Orgelbau.
A preliminary study was conducted under the auspices of organ professor Hans Davidsson, artistic director of the Gothenburg International Organ Academy (GIOA), commissioned by the owner of the Concert Hall, the real estate company Higab, in collaboration with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.
The Göteborg Concert Hall Organ Reference Group was formed, comprising members of the organizational bodies concerned as well as international experts in organ building. The reference group has, in dialogue with the project management, studied the various options for the concert hall organ, also seeking advice from experts in cultural heritage.
In this film You are invited to follow the process of planning, building and catering for the Göteborg Concert Hall Organ over a period of four years, spanning 2018-2021.
You will meet a group of extremely devoted organists, organ resarchers, project leaders and organ builders and follow their research towards creating a concert hall organ for the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, with a full, embracing and shimmering whole-length tonal palettein a very wide register, from the tenderest to the most powerful of expressive sonorities.
In 2021, the vision of the architect of the Gothenburg Concert Hall, Nils Einar Eriksson, who in the 1930s drafted the concert hall with an organ right next to the orchestra, will finally be realized.
The sound of an organ merging with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra as one body, will be heard for the first time, ever.
Our heartfelt thanks to everyone involved in the wonderful process of giving birth to the Göteborg Concert Hall Organ in 2017-2021
We would like express our sincere gratitude to Higab and its presidents Stefan Lundqvist and Per-Henrik Hartmann, and the Göteborg Symphony Orchestra and its Artistic Director and President, Sten Cranner, for making it possible to build and install the new concert hall organ. Thank you for entrusting the Göteborg International Organ Academy with the leadership of the organ project and providing its international reference group with opportunities to assist in and follow the whole process. Special thanks to Wendelin Eberle and Rieger Orgelbau in Schwarzach for building a unique and wonderful organ.
Our warmest thanks also goes to the Göteborg Concert Hall Organ Reference Group
Bine Bryndorf, Karin Nelson, Paul Peeters, Joris Verdin, Nathan Laube, Hans-Ola Ericsson, Koos van de Linde, Magnus Kjellson (GSO), Hans Davidsson, Chair and Project Leader
Göteborg International Organ Academy
A World of Tactile Passion and New Sounds - for All!
www.organacademy.se

[@timothytikker3834]

The 1901 work on the Cavaillé-Coll grand orgue at l'Église de la Trinité, Paris, was done by Merklin, not Mutin -- controversial, for making such changes as slotting the trebles of the harmonic flutes.

[@bkarosi]

Does the instrument have flexible wind? It sounds wonderful, almost like a breathing, two-manual organ with wedge bellows. I can't wait to try it one day!

[@gioa]

Hi Balint, yes it has flexible wind! :)

[@zeusantony5027]

The quality and craftsmanship throughout is astounding. I am not completely convinced about the total enclosure of every division. Perhaps it brings to mind the worst excesses of Compton instruments which are truly ghastly! I hope a CD will be available when the instrument has settled down and is perfectly in tune. One should then be able to make a more informed judgment. Congratulations are of course due to the creation of such a fine instrument.

[@gioa]

Thank you for you comment. Indeed, we believe that it is first time that a general swell has been installed in a new organ, at least for musical reasons. Since the shutters open 90 degrees, the sound is distributed to the concert hall, almost without hinderance, even more direct than if there would have been a traditional façade with pipes. In addition it gives substantial dynamical possibilities. Most importantly, we believe that the possibility to adjust the volume and direction of sound while playing with an orchestra is going to be an advantage. However, that remains to be seen the coming week when we gear up for the premier performance of the new organ concerto by B Tommy Andersson, Poseidon, with the Mattias Wager, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and the Göteborg Symphony Orchestra. Stay tuned and follow the live stream. All best, Hans Davidsson

[@timothytikker3834]

An recent article by an American organ builder about a concert hall organ they had built explained their decision for the Great division to be placed under expression: there was a moment in a rehearsal with organ and orchestra with an earlier concert hall organ by this firm, in which the conductor told the organist "I like that timbre, but I need it to be softer." The organist then explained that this was not possible, because the registration chosen was on the unenclosed Great.

[@GlamRockCowboy]

@@timothytikker3834 George Ashdown Audsley for many years advocated at least a partly enclosed Great division. The Martin Foundation organ at the Schermerhorn Center in Nashville also has a partly enclosed Great, if I remember correctly. Jack Bethards, that organ's designer, discussed this very subject in an article in "The American Organist."

[@timothytikker3834]

@@GlamRockCowboy but this Great is entirely, not just partially enclosed.

[@OrganNLou]

I find many of these newer halls to be a little too flat in reverberance. However the organ here is quite nice, perhaps a little bass light.