Kilgen Organ - St. John Nepomuk Church, St. Louis, Missouri

Brent Johnson and Horst Buchholz visit the Kilgen organ of St. John Nepomuk Church, the oldest Czech congregation west of the Mississippi.
Specification of the organ: www.stlouisorg...
Music heard in this video:
from Rheinberger 10 Trios, op. 49
No. 1 in G minor: ks.imslp.net/fi...
No. 3 in A minor: ks.imslp.net/fi...
Guilmant, L'Organist Pratique
Vol 3 op. 46, No. 4 Mélodie: ks.imslp.net/fi...
Vol 2 op. 41, No. 5 Processional March: ks.imslp.net/fi...
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[@speedstick77]

What a musical treasure to be in good shape and tune! These old organs have a silvery dulcet tone that screechy baroque instruments lack. Thank you for sharing.

[@raywillard8859]

I,m thrilled to learn about this Kilgen. As usual, Kilgen does so much with small instrument, keeping quality at the front!

[@wurlic300]

Love all these videos but this one might be my favorite - so far. I have relocated 3 Kilgen trackers and the tonal pallet of those are quite different but still wonderful. Keep the videos coming!!

[@2008truckman]

There are a few Kilgen Organs here. The more I play them, the more I like them.

[@kontrahylian]

I agree with Horst the 8' Open Diapason is Majestic, but the stop that makes this instrument so amazing is that Melodia on the Great so smooth and very lyrical.

[@robertramsay5963]

That 4' Octave in the Great is to die for.

[@dragonpullman23]

I'm 3/8 Czech, which is where most of my ancestry comes from. This church would be worth visiting if I am in St. Louis.

[@PaulA-dy5be]

Nice to see churches that haven't been destroyed!

[@mr.booker9263]

A beautiful demonstration of a remarkable instrument. I'm not sure whether Mario Salvatore's son still maintains the organ or is even still living, but I'm sure he could answer most questions about relocation of pipes, the new trumpet, changes in the organ chambers, etc. Personally, I wouldn't change a thing, except perhaps adjust the tremolo which is not uncommon over the passage of years.

[@Velostigmat]

The 1927 Kilgen at St. Aloysius, Spokane, WA has coat hooks screwed to the case in the same place as at 19:50 in the video. It must have been a Kilgen thing. This 13 rank instrument has a nice, beefy sound.

[@caseyflorida]

I'm not that familiar with Kilgen organs, except for the huge one at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York (which has been altered), but I love the sound of the diapasons, flutes, and strings on this organ. I could have fun accompanying services here.

[@thebog11]

There is a large Kilgen at the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, MI. A 76 rank main organ with a 20 rank antiphonal organ.

[@petenielsen6683]

Czeching this out of course....

[@johnhenryholiday4964]

Chris Soar.... Chris Soar organs has the complete history of the Kilgen organ company.... to my knowledge he purchased all of the paperwork for the company.... Doc

[@patricksaxon3983]

What is so sad, is the organ has been replaced by black grand piano in many of the catholic churches in Texas. But for conservative traditional hyms, these songs do not sound as good on the piano as does on the organ.

[@caseyflorida]

I agree. I like the piano when it is played in things like piano concertos with orchestra accompaniment where the piano is the focus, but for accompanying congregational hymns or choir anthems, it does not do the job in my opinion. When I look at KZbin thumbnails showing huge choirs standing in front of a magnificent organ case, I click on the video, and then when it plays the choir is accompanied by a piano down in the front instead of the magnificent organ, I say nope, and click away.

[@ryangiraldi5722]

On that note, I did go to see a Kilgen down in Fredericksburg. It was in great disrepair(missing ivories, etc.) and there were no mixtures or reeds and one 16’ Bourdon that was barely audible. That instrument was worth something upwards of 60 Million dollars.

[@thebog11]

@@ryangiraldi5722 Is that at St. Mary's? I think you are overestimating its value just a bit...

[@ryangiraldi5722]

J C I certainly agree, that’s not the value I’d give, but it’s the one that was given to me by the resident music director and organ student(Former Pianist).

[@zachattack83]

Piano > guitar

[@peterwarner358]

Brent, you should check the akirk of of Dunedin Pipe Organ in Dunedin, Florida (I believe 4 manual/100 rank) and National Lutheran Church N Street Village and their 4/85 Mollr Organ)

[@bachtehude2437]

Just goes to show that a well scaled well voiced small organ can be better than a much larger instrument

[@ZestyLemonBoi]

Блестящий!

[@bobh5087]

A great demo. Some very lovely stops here. Thanks to everyone. About the only things missing are a 2' Superoctave and Mixture IV on the Great, and a 16' extension of the Swell Trompete in the Pedal division. And maybe a nice Oboe and Sesquialtera on the Swell. Looks like there's enough room!

[@pierrelauwers8719]

During centuries past, nearly every organ has been "bettered" by people who believed they could do "better". But organs are work of art, not appliances; it's time we keep them as they were done.

[@karlrovey]

@@pierrelauwers8719 A lot of smaller instruments (and some larger ones) were mass produced off of a standard spec, especially during the early to mid 20th century. Most instruments in this category never even received proper tonal finishing. That said, a reasonably complete instrument should remain relatively unaltered.

[@pierrelauwers8719]

@@karlrovey , again, who will decide what a "mass production" is ? One could say that for Silbermann already, who used production standards. And who will decide what a "complete" specifications is ? Can I decide we need at least six eight-foot foundation stops on each manual ? Not that simple. But we can be sure of one thing: 99% of the "betterings" of previous organs were nothing short of disastrous, and many an organ builder is active today putting things back in order. We'd better stop to play we know better than the others.

[@karlrovey]

@@pierrelauwers8719 The "boxcar" organs of the late 18th and early 20th centuries are certainly mass produced. In the care of the right congregation and technician, some became great instruments. Most never received voicing for their location and remained mediocre until replaced. Then you have the stock model instruments such as the Holtkamp Martini or the Möller Artiste, something good as a practice instrument but nothing more. Yes, there are some stock model instruments today that are actually good and weren't originally conceived as a stock model. I play a 2/11 Wicks that appears to have been designed with later additions in mind (there are several blank stop tabs layed out in a way that suggests these were intended as later additions, they also activate the switching system in the organ case, but are currently not tied to any pipes). Even so, my first change (if ever possible) would be to eliminate the unification of the Great 8' and 4' Principal.

[@thebog11]

Bob is just listing the things that are expected on a basic organ of our time, but of course were not part of your average small romantic organ (except the 2' Principal and the Oboe).

[@HobbyOrganist]

Hard to imagine it only has 15 ranks! that introduction piece in the video from the start, sounded pretty heroic! but where is an organ score for it? I didnt find anything in Google and it's amazing how much unreadable junk comes up with a search for "Raduj se nebes Královno nebes" and how everything else using " Rejoyce Queen of Heaven" for the search all points to "Hail queen..." which is a different piece. I added a Kilgen Doppleflute to my moller organ, though the congregation was allowed to take souvenir pipes from the Kilgen before I removed the rest, so 17 pipes were missing which I re-created from the existing. I also added a Moller flute triangulare which I like a lot.

[@OrganMediaFoundation]

The music is a Czech hymn. He was playing from a two-part handwritten score found in the choir loft: organ.media/images/raduj_se.jpg

[@HobbyOrganist]

​@@OrganMediaFoundation Neat thanks for that Brent! I searched for "raduj se nebes kralovno" and not much for a full organ score like it sounds when Horst is playing it, he must be improvising on the bass and pedal since the hand written score he used only has the melody lines, that's not something I can do! This score came up though if anyone else wants it; www.psgloria.cz/sbor/noty/rihovsky/rihovsky_raduj_se.pdf

[@HobbyOrganist]

Well, you've done it now Brent with this Czech music! looking for the full score of this piece I found two things, one was the Czech hymn book "Jednotny Katolicky Spevnik" (JKS) (Unified Catholic songbook) and the other was a organist in Slovakia who has been recording organ videos of music out of that book, with a goal to record the entire book's songs- it's 620 pages thick and Ive never heard ANY of the music in it, it's all new to me! So after a lot of trouble I was finally able to find and order the book on a bookshop' web site, turns out there's two versions- the pew version and the specific organist version, so I had to figure out how to order off a Slovak only web site, so I used Google translate to ask in Slovak if they ship to the US, they wrote back in Slovak, in a followup email I mentioned I was using Google translate and they responded back in English so that helped a lot! In case someone else wants this book it is; ISBN 9788071629092 www.martinus.sk/?uItem=311200 Price for goods is 61,98 € + postage 31,00 €, totalling 92,98 €. (About $102 US) The organist is great, there is a Wikipedia page on him, he is Slovak but he does read/write in English, he plays the organ at a number of places in Slovakia and the videos are always extremely good, some of the consoles are very different than those in the states, some include a 1901 Rieger Testiverik (Bros) - Budapest, a 3 M I think Rieger organ at St Elizabeth Cathedral, (Dóm sv. Alžbety) and others, his JKS playlist has over 500 organ videos from that book so far, he has asked congregants to stay after service specifically to record a few obscure pieces from the book for his videos- about 20 people of all ages did so and they sing well. I started listening to the videos in his playlist at #1 and so far I'm up to about #210, one of the organs dates to 1665, so if pipe organs in Slovakia and congregational singing with organ appeals to you here's his playlist for that book, he has others but I have not explored those yet; kzbin.info/aero/PLCHrxi2J1yG7JLc-KxyQSdAuqleSFvyCN

[@kalurider7680]

I find it sad that it is no longer a church.

[@jrzzrj]

Is this church of the Tridentine rite? (Latin mass)

[@grubbymuffin]

no one: huge churches: 2 manuals tiny churches: 947263859367 manuals

[@patricksaxon3983]

What is so sad that the young generation of today do not know how to play an organ. Even if piano players gets on the organ, they know nothing about separating their hands to play two keyboards at the same time and the pedalboard.

[@karlrovey]

That's a problem with a large group of organists in each generation. Trained organists in each generation know how to do this.

[@patricksaxon3983]

Karl Rovey I was always told to learn the piano first and then it is easier to learn the organ. But I disagree with that as I learned the other way around. I went from the organ to synthesizer and then the piano.

[@renfredclowes4297]

Ja Ja