Lviv Organ Art: History, churches, music, and personalities

Gunther Martin Göttsche, translation from German by Valerie E. Hess

Gunther Martin Göttsche is a German composer and organist. After completing master’s degrees in Mannheim and Berlin he worked as organist and choir conductor in Aalen/Württemberg and Braunschweig. From 1992 until 2013 he was director of the Church Music Academy in Schlüchtern, Germany (near Frankfurt). From 2008 until 2013 he also worked as a teacher of organ improvisation at the Hochschule für Kirchenmusik Heidelberg. From 2013 until 2018 he lived in Israel, serving as organist and choir director of the German Lutheran Church in the Old City of Jerusalem. Göttsche is known as a composer, especially in sacred music, and has published numerous works. Visit: www.gunther-goettsche.com.

On the shelves in our music room in Sinntal, Hessen State, Germany, there is a very special relic near the grand piano and the house organ: a heavy 30 cm (nearly 12 inches) long, squared timber cut from the trunk of an ancient olive tree that once stood in the lower part of the garden of Gethsemane. When the new, small Golgotha organ for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built in 2016, the keyboards were made from this wood. Not all of the wood was needed, and so Brother Peter, at that time still vice-bursar for the Franciscans, led me a few days after the dedication of the organ to a plastic sack with the sacred wood remnants, and I was allowed to choose the most beautiful piece of wood! The Gethsemane wood traveled with us back to Germany in 2018, reminding me time and again of my five years in the Holy Land and, of course, of the extremely interesting organ world that I was gradually able to get to know.

The fact that there are organs in Israel and Palestine, in the center of the Middle East, astonishes many people. If I then tell them that the number of instruments is about sixty, their astonishment grows even larger. Where are these many organs, and who uses them?

Some people think of Jewish worship first. In fact, since the nineteenth century in Germany and the United States, the synagogues of Reform Judaism have been home to the “synagogue organs.” In Germany, most of them were destroyed in the Reichs-Kristallnacht (November 9–10, 1938); today only a few of them are left. There are around fifty such instruments in the United States. In Israel, however, where Orthodox Judaism prevails, there are no synagogue organs. Rather, the vast majority of organs in the Holy Land are in Christian churches, especially in the Jerusalem and Bethlehem region, but also in the north (Nazareth). However, not all Christian churches have organs. For example, the Eastern Orthodox churches do not have organs because they have unaccompanied musical traditions, such as the magnificent polyphonic male choirs of the Armenian Orthodox Church, which can be heard in Saint James Cathedral in Jerusalem. 

It is mainly the Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and Anglican churches that, as in their homelands or countries of origin, use an organ in worship, and so the organ landscape in Israel and Palestine offers a very interesting variety. Because each church does not want to miss the familiar organ style of its homeland and the instruments are usually imported, the organ scene of the Holy Land is a reflection of the world’s pipe organs from several centuries. We find German, American, French, and Danish organs from more recent times as well as historical organs from France, Austria, and Italy. 

When did organs first come to the Holy Land? The earliest known instrument is only documented from the remaining 221 organ pipes that were found in 1906 during excavations next to Saint Catherine’s Church in Bethlehem. The pipes date back to the fourteenth century, a time when the organ was established as a church instrument in many European countries, but they may be even older. After being exhibited for a long time in the Museum of Biblical Studies at the Church of the Flagellation in Jerusalem, these pipes will soon find a new place in the museum section of Custodia Terrae Sanctae (The Custody in the Holy Land) on the site of the Monastery of Saint Salvatore. Proof for the presence of organs can only be firmly established from the seventeenth century as documents from the archives of the Franciscans’ Custodia Terrae Sanctae list instruments from about 1630 for Saint Salvatore in Jerusalem and 1640 for Bethlehem.

In the first half of the eighteenth century (1724–1744), the German Franciscan P. Elzear Horn wrote his Ichnographiae monumentarum terrae sanctae (Iconographic Monument to the Holy Land), a kind of “atlas” in which he (in Latin) minutely described the Franciscan churches of the Holy Land and their inventory. Among other things, he preserved a wonderful drawing of the organ of Saint Salvatore Church in Jerusalem at that time, obviously an instrument in the Italian style. The meticulous drawing (Figure 1) reveals many details, such as the range of the two manuals (with the so-called “short octave” in the bass typical of the time), the pedal that has only a one octave range, some register names such as “Principals” or “Contrabasso in Pedals” divided into bass and treble registers, and three leather straps on the right side panel to raise the bellows. 

At the beginning of the second half of the eighteenth century, a permanent organbuilding workshop was established in the convent of Saint Salvatore. Delfín Fernandez, OFM, reports in a 2002 essay that two Franciscan organbuilders from Spain came with the order in 1754 to build a new organ for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

But when the work was completed and the organ was to be installed in the choir of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Greek Orthodox strongly opposed the installation.¹ In view of this difficult situation, it was decided to set up the organ in the church of St. Salvatore. But given the small size of this church, the instrument had to be downsized and only a part was installed.

In a document from 1793, the organbuilding workshop of the Franciscans was called “Officina sacris exstruendis organis” (workshop for the construction of sacred organs) (Figure 2).

An impressive photograph, published in 1882 in the Palestino-Seraphicum Album by the Custodia Terrae Sanctae, shows the organbuilding workshop toward the end of the nineteenth century. We see a small organ with two registers (or is it a voicing windchest needed in the workshop?). In front of it stands a bearded religious, the director of the Officina Constructorio Organorum, who shows the viewer a large pipe grid. An Arab aide holds something on the right side of the image that could be the bellows lever for pumping the wind. Two Arab apprentices sit in front of the picture, one has a reed pipe in his hands. Also on the windchest of the small instrument are reed pipes.

Of all the organs mentioned so far, apart from the archival documents, there is nothing physically remaining. It was only in the nineteenth century that an instrument was created that we can still see, touch, and hear. It is a small Italian organ from 1847 built by the brothers Agati (Nicomede and Giovanni) of Pistoia (Figure 3). It has nine stops and a small “appended” pedal and belonged to the Franciscan monastery in Tyros, Lebanon. At some point, it was moved to the Christian Information Center at Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate. (The instrument was there in 2001, but may have moved there even earlier.) In June 2014, the organ found a new home in Saint Peter’s Church in the picturesque old town of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, high above the beach of the Mediterranean. 

1847 Agati organ, Saint Peter’s Church, Tel Aviv-Jaffa

8′ Principale Bassi

8′ Principale Soprani

8′ Voce Angelica

4′ Ottava

4′ Flauto a Fuso

2-2⁄3′ Nazardo

2′ Decimaquinta

1-1⁄3′ Decimanona

1′ Flagioletto (or 1⁄2′?)

1′ Vigesimaseconda

Timpani (pedal at far right)

Manual compass (C, D, E, F, G, A–f3) 50 notes, short octave

Pull-down pedal (8 notes from the first octave)

Ripieno lever, adds 4′ Ottave, 2′ Decimaquinta, 11⁄3′ Decimanona, and 1′ Vigesimaseconda. 

 

By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Christian churches, monasteries, and branches of the most important European religious orders were found almost everywhere in the Holy Land. From this time period, a number of extraordinary historical organs are dated, playable to some extent today or preserved only in part. Each has its own story. In 1893, an organ was obtained for the church of Saint John the Baptist, located in the picturesque Jerusalem suburb of Ein Kerem (Figure 4). It had two manuals and 14 stops and was built by Matthäus Mauracher of Austria. The organ remains and, despite numerous shortcomings, was still playable until recently. Currently, it is in storage due to renovation work in the church, and a restoration is planned. 

1893 MatthКus Mauracher organ, Church of Saint John the Baptist, Ein Kerem

MANUAL I (C–f3)

8′ Principal

8′ Gedackt

8′ Gemshorn

4′ Octav

4′ Spitzflöte

2′ Flautino (originally 8′ Gamba)

2-2⁄3′ Mixture

8′ Trompete

MANUAL II (C–f3)

8′ Geigen-Principal

8′ Philomela (open wood flute)

8′ Dolce

4′ Salicet

PEDAL (C-d1)

16′ Subbass

8′ Octav-Bass

Couplers

Manual Coppel

Pedal-Coppel z. I. Manual

Pedal-Coppel z. II. Manual

Piston presets: Fortissimo, Mezzoforte, Piano

“Corno Vi piace” (draws 8′ Philomela, 4′ Spitzflöte, 16′ Subbass)

Mechanical key action

Pneumatic stop action

 

In 1893, the organbuilder François Mader from Marseille, France, built an organ with two manuals and sixteen stops in the Church (Convent of the Sisters of Zion) on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem (Figure 5). Even after a modification by Rieger in 1935, the organ retained its extraordinary French-symphonic character, but today, despite a 1998 overhaul by the Canadian builder, Dubay, Ltd., it is in poor condition and barely playable.

1893 Mader organ, Ecce Homo Church, Jerusalem

GRAND-ORGUE (Manual I, C–g3)

16′ Bourdon

8′ Montre

8′ Flûte harmonique

4′ Prestant

2-2⁄3′ Quinte (originally 8′ Violoncello)

2′ Doublette

Plein jeu

RÉCIT (Manual II, enclosed, C–g3)

8′ Bourdon

8′ Salicional

4′ Flûte à cheminée (originally 8′ Voix humaine)

2′ Quarte de nasard (originally 8′ Voix céleste)

8′ Trompette

8′ Basson-Hautbois

PÉDALE (C–d1)

16′ Soubasse

8′ Basse ouverte

 

Tremulant

Couplers 

Coupler II–I

Coupler I–Pédale

Coupler II–Pédale

Mechanical key and stop action

 

In 1893 the organ firm of Dinse from Berlin, Germany, built an organ with two manuals and eight stops in Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. This was the first organ by a German organbuilder in Palestine. In 2000, the organ was still intact and more or less playable. It was then completely rebuilt by the American organbuilder Roland Rutz of Morristown, Minnesota. Although the beautiful design was kept and some pipes were used again, the character and the entire sound and technical system were rebuilt. Now, the organ has electric action, multiplex windchests, and a MIDI device.

Of the few pipe organs in Tel Aviv, the oldest is the organ built in 1896 by Rieger. Located in the Franciscan Church of Saint Anthony, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, it is still standing, but after various modifications, it is no longer in original condition.

In 1898, the Weigle organbuilding firm from Stuttgart, Germany, constructed a two-manual organ with twelve stops for the German-operated Syrian orphanage in Jerusalem. It was damaged in a fire in 1910 and subsequently rebuilt by the builders. After World War II, the orphanage became part of the State of Israel. The organ was removed at some point, its whereabouts unknown since the 1960s. 

In 1898, the newly built Church of the Redeemer of Jerusalem received an organ from the Berlin company Dinse. It stood at ground level north of the main aisle, where the baptismal font stands today (Figure 6). In 1938 it was rebuilt by Weigle, of Stuttgart, in the style of the Organ Reform Movement (Orgelbewegung). In 1970, when the Schuke organ firm from Berlin installed a new instrument, the organ case and façade were not reused.²

In 1899, a Walcker organ with seven stops was built for the church hall of the German Templars in the Refaim plain just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Today this is the street corner that marks the beginning of the “German Colony” in the Jerusalem suburbs. The pretty garden around the church is now wedged between huge hotel buildings. In the small church, which after World War II first fell to the State of Israel and was then passed on to the Armenian community, the sad ruins of the Walcker organ still stand in the gallery (Figure 7). In the aftermath of the war, all usable wood and metal parts were appropriated. The Armenians do not need the organ in worship, but they honor its remains. 

A parallel instrument to the organ in the Ecce Homo Church is the organ built in 1900 by the same organbuilder (F. Mader) for the Church of Saint Peter of Zion, part of the Ratisbonne Abbey in West Jerusalem. It has ten stops and was completely overhauled in 2007. 

Also in 1900, the organ of the Dominican Church of Saint Stephen, which is outside the city wall in the immediate vicinity of the Damascus Gate, was installed. With fourteen stops on two manuals, it was built by Matthäus Mauracher of Austria. Since 2005, the organ has been thoroughly rebuilt and has an electric console from which the modernized pipework is operated on a new windchest. The old Mauracher console is still held in honor and is in the entrance hall of the church.

In 1904, Bevington & Sons of London, England, built a new organ for the Anglican Saint George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem. It was replaced by a new Rieger installation in 1984, but its wonderful façade (including pipes) was moved elsewhere in the church.³

Another English late-Romantic organ from 1904, built by the British organbuilder Thomas Casson, stood until 2001 in Willington, England, and was moved the following year at the instigation of the Israeli organbuilder Gideon Shamir to the church of the Trappist monastery Latrun (near Highway 1, about halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv). It seems unplayable for now, as during my last visit to the church (2017) an electronic organ had been put in front of the Casson console.

Around 1910, the Austrian Hospice Chapel in Jerusalem received an organ from Rieger of Jägerndorf (formerly in Austrian Silesia, now the Czech Republic), with seven stops on one manual and pedal. It is untouched—only the front pipes had to be renewed in 1999 as some were damaged by missiles.⁴ With its late-Romantic, warm sound, based almost entirely on 8′ registers, it is similar to its “big sister” instrument at Church of the Ascension (Figure 8), the latter being an important organ in the Holy Land.

Also in 1910, an organ by Wilhelm Sauer was erected in the newly built Church of the Ascension of the Augusta-Victoria Foundation, a German hospital complex on the Mount of Olives. With twenty-four stops on two manuals and pedal, including five 16′ registers, it is a perfectly harmonized synthesis of space and sound. It may certainly be considered the most beautiful among the historical organs of Israel, because it is completely preserved to the last pipe. It has never undergone any change apart from the installation of an electric blower and repair work, but remains in the same tonal state and appearance as it did in its year of construction.

This organ, as well as the organ of the Church of the Redeemer, has been looked after and maintained for decades by the organbuilder Rainer Nass (formerly with Schuke, Berlin) and is in very good condition. This is one reason it is regularly used for concerts. 

1910 Wilhelm Sauer organ, Church of the Ascension, Jerusalem

MANUAL I (C–f3)

16′ Bordun

8′ Prinzipal

8′ Gemshorn

8′ Flûte

8′ Gedeckt

4′ Oktave

4′ Rorhflöte

2-2⁄3′ Cornet III–IV

8′ Schalmei

Koppel II–I

MANUAL II (C–f3)

16′ Gedeckt

8′ Principal

8′ Lieblich Gedeckt

8′ Fernflöte

8′ Aeoline

8′ Voix Céleste

4′ Fugara

4′ Flauto dolce

2′ Flautino

PEDAL (C–d1)

16′ Prinzipal

16′ Violon

16′ Subbaß

8′ Oktave

8′ Cello

8′ Gedacktflöte

Koppel II–Ped.

Koppel I–Ped.

Mezzoforte–Forte–Tutti

 

The third instrument built in 1910 is the organ of Saint Salvatore’s Church, Jerusalem. The organbuilder Vegessi-Bossi of Turin, Italy, built a large instrument with forty-four stops in the Italian style. This organ was rebuilt in 1977 by Delfino Taboada. It remained intact until 2008 before being rebuilt by the Rieger organ company. Only the case of 1910 remains. 

This is a summary of how more than a dozen new organs were built in just seventeen years! After this prolific period of organbuilding came the years of the two world wars, the time between them, and the time after that until the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. In all these years with one exception (the YMCA organ, discussed below), no significant new organs were installed in the Holy Land.

In addition, there were some major alterations to Jerusalem organs in the 1930s:

• the reconstruction of the organ in the church of the Latin Patriarchate in 1933 by Gebrüder Späth from Mengen-Ennetach;

• the reconstruction of the organ of the Church of the Redeemer in 1938 by Weigle of Stuttgart;

• the reconstruction of the organ in the Ecce Homo Church in 1935 (see above) by Rieger of Jägerndorf;

• the reconstruction of the Mauracher organ of Saint Stephan (by Rieger?) in 1933. 

The only major organ to be built in this politically troubled time was a concert hall organ. For the YMCA building, one of the most striking buildings in West Jerusalem, in the immediate vicinity of the King David Hotel, the American Austin Organ Company built in 1932 a large instrument with forty-eight stops, the only organ with four manuals ever in Israel! 

Because of the limited space available on the stage of the concert hall, the pipework was distributed to several small chambers adjacent to the hall, creating numerous acoustic problems and tonal issues. Nevertheless, the organ has been heard in many concerts and recordings for Israeli radio over the years. Most of these were played by the Israeli organist Max Lampel (1900–1987), who was also an organ teacher at the Jerusalem Music Academy. The instrument was disassembled in 2000, originally with the aim of rebuilding it elsewhere, but this did not happen for financial reasons. The location of the organ is currently unknown.

In the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the activity of two organbuilders based in the Holy Land made a commendable contribution to the preservation and care of many organs in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Given the limited technical capabilities of their workshops and the tight budgets provided by their clients, the indefatigable activity of these two pioneers of organbuilding cannot be overestimated.

Brother Delfino Fernandez Taboada, OFM, 1924–2002, of Spanish descent, had been the director of the organbuilding workshop of the Franciscans in Jerusalem since the 1950s. In his approximately fifty years of activity for the Custodia Terrae Sanctae, he built, repaired, and restored numerous organs. 

His organ workshop also served as a supply house for organ pipes and other parts that were left over when dismantling other organs, some of which were then reused in other projects. For example, when the organ of the Church of the Redeemer was rebuilt in 1971, the Franciscans purchased from the German community all usable parts of the old organ for 15,000 shekels.⁵ Br. Delfino Fernandez mostly built electric key and stop actions. Most of the instruments that he built or converted were replaced by new instruments by the end of the century. For example, he had dedicated many years of his life to the organ of the Church of Saint Catherine in Bethlehem, but he had to disassemble it in 2000 to make room for a new organ that he was not selected to build. 

Gideon Shamir (Figure 9), born in 1939, is to date the only Israeli organbuilder. Trained as a pianist and organist, he came to Israel in 1963 and, during a stay with the German organbuilder Walcker, had his first contact with organbuilding. He first worked as a director of a music school, but then in 1977 founded a workshop in which he initially built positiv organs. After a masterclass at the vocational school in Ludwigsburg, Germany, he has devoted himself exclusively since 1990 to organbuilding in his workshop in Asseret (northern Israel).

He has built a number of home and practice organs (including for the conservatories in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv) and carried out numerous repairs, maintenance, rebuilding, and expansions of existing organs. Like the Franciscan organbuilder Br. Delfino, Gideon Shamir repeatedly used parts of older organs for new instruments. His greatest work is the organ with thirty-three stops in the hall of the University of Haifa (Figure 10). He worked on the project for a total of seven years, completing it in 1998, using parts of three different historical organs, namely the Bevington organ of Saint George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem, from 1904, an Italian organ from 1868, and the old organ of the Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem, from 1898/1934. The dedication concert was played by the Russian-Israeli organist, Roman Krasnovsky. Today, recitals on this organ are an integral part of the concert series of the Israel Organ Association and are enthusiastically received by audiences.

The Israel Organ Association, founded in 2003 by Gerard Levi in collaboration with Gideon Shamir, strives to make the organ popular as a concert instrument in Israel. This is primarily done by organizing concerts with international artists, many of whom are not Israeli. Concert attendees come from all over Israel to Jerusalem or Haifa for these events. 

Gerard Levi (1936–2020), an Israeli with French roots, was a retired businessman and organ lover. In addition to his work with the Israel Organ Association, he wrote a book in English in 2005 about all the organs of Israel (Organ Culture in Israel and Palestine; see bibliography at the end of this article) that contains information on and photos of the organs. It is an important source for the organ scene throughout the Holy Land. In addition, the Israel Organ Association operates the website www.organ.org.il, which publishes not only the current concert dates of the association and other organizers, but also provides continual updates to the above-mentioned book by Levi by listing the current status with photos of all the organs in the country. The website is trilingual: English, Russian, and Hebrew. Yuval Rabin (b. 1973 in Haifa) is now musical director of the Israel International Organ Festival.

The construction of the sixteen-stop organ for Bethlehem University by the Alsatian organbuilder Max Roethinger in 1961 (Figure 11) marked the beginning of a new construction period in the Holy Land after years of organbuilding stagnation due to the political situation. This organ shows the style of the Organ Reform Movement, whose return to Baroque ideals at that time shaped almost every new organ, especially in Germany. The Roethinger organ has electric action and includes bright mixtures and mutation stops. The instrument has been preserved unchanged and was cleaned and overhauled in 2014 by the organbuilder Rainer Nass of Berlin. The organist is the music teacher at the university, Sister Patricia Crockford.

1961 Max Roethinger organ, Bethlehem University

GRAND-ORGUE (Manual I, C–g3)

8′ Montre

8′ Bourdon

4′ Prestant

2′ Doublette

Fourniture VI

8′ Cromorne

Coupler II–I

Coupler II–I 4′

RÉCIT (Manual II, enclosed, C–g3)

8′ Principal

8′ Cor de nuit

8′ Voix céleste

4′ Flûte conique

2′ Quarte de nasard

Sesquialtera II

Cymbale III

8′ Trompette

Tremulant

PÉDALE (C–d1)

16′ Soubasse

8′ Principal

Coupler I–Ped.

Coupler II–Ped.

Coupler II–Ped. 4′

Pistons: pp, p, mf, Tutti

Electric key and stop action

 

This was followed by a series of other new instruments, mostly constructed by organbuilders from the respective home countries of the commissioning churches. In 1971, the Berlin organ workshop Karl Schuke GmbH built the new organ for the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. It was expanded by three stops in 1984, bringing it to twenty-one stops on two manuals and pedal. Not without reason it is considered one of the best-preserved organs of Israel and is often heard in concerts.

The history of the Church of the Redeemer organ is inextricably linked to the person of its longtime organist Elisabeth Roloff (1937–2008), who played there from 1982 until her death. The organbuilder Rainer Nass of Berlin has been associated with this organ and the German Lutheran community since 1984. He comes to Israel every year to look after the organs of the Church of the Redeemer and the Church of the Ascension. In addition, he has worked on many other organs in the country, such as Immanuel Church in Jaffa (Figure 12), the University of Bethlehem, the Arab-Lutheran Church in Jaffa, and others. On the website of the Israel Organ Association, he has been honored as the “Santa Claus of the Israeli organs.” 

As early as 1960, the Church of the Redeemer received an additional small organ built by the Führer company of Wilhelmshaven, Germany. It has five stops and pedal and was originally in the gallery of Saint John’s Chapel. In 2015, it was moved to the sanctuary of the Church of the Redeemer and made portable, serving now as a choir organ (Figure 13). 

In 1977, Paul Ott built a two-manual organ with seventeen stops for Immanuel Church (formerly German, now managed by the Norwegian Church) in Tel Aviv. Under the direction of the organist Arin Maisky, there is a well-established concert series in which organ concerts are an integral part. Arin is the successor of her father, Valery Maisky (1942–1981), a well-known organist in Israel and Europe.

Continuing in the series of new instruments, a three-manual organ by Oberlinger of Windesheim, Germany, was built in 1980 for the German Benedictine Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion next to the Old City of Jerusalem (Figure 14). This instrument was very often played in concerts, but will now be replaced by a new instrument at some future time. The Oberlinger organ was bought by a Russian investor in 2020 and is to be used as a concert organ in a former Orthodox church near Jekaterinburg, Russia. P. Ralph Greis, who had been active as organist of the Dormition Abbey for a long time, left Jerusalem in 2017; his successor is Brother Simeon Gloger. The Dormition Abbey as well as the Church of the Redeemer and the Church of the Ascension play an important role in the international organ concerts organized regularly by the Israel Organ Association. 

In 1984, the Austrian company Rieger built a new organ with thirty-one registers for the Anglican Saint George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem (Figure 15). The organist is Inna Dudakova.

In 1987, the Concert Hall of the Mormon-built Brigham Young University on the Mount of Olives received a three-manual organ with thirty-nine stops, built by the Danish company Marcussen & Søn (Figure 16). The organ is maintained and heard on weekly tours and in regular concerts. Various American organists carry out yearly residencies here.

In 1994, in the Franciscan church “Emmaus” in Qbeibeh, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, a new organ from Inzoli, Crema (North Italy), was built in the Italian-historical style with six stops and a short pedal (Figure 17).

In 2002, a large concert hall organ with three manuals by Eule of Bautzen, Germany, was built for the campus of the Music Academy in Tel Aviv. Alexander Gorin supervises organ students there.

The aforementioned Austrian company Rieger, which had already built a new main organ (two manuals, thirty-nine registers) in 1982 in the gallery of the rotunda in the Jerusalem Church of the Holy Sepulchre, became the exclusive organ supplier for the churches of the Franciscan Custodia Terrae Sanctae and built a number of organs of outstanding quality in the ensuing decades. In 2002 in the Church of Saint Catherine in Bethlehem, a new organ was built by Rieger that gained notoriety, because during the final phase of the construction fighting took place between Israelis and Palestinians. As a result of fire damage, many of the pipes became unusable, so the organ could not be finished until 2003. The organist is Fr. Jago Soce. 

In 2008 in Saint Salvatore’s Church in Jerusalem, an instrument with forty-four stops on three manuals and pedal was installed by Rieger. It can be played by a mechanical-action main console as well as an additional electric-action console behind the altar. The design of this organ, as well as most of the other organs of the Custodia Terrae Sanctae, was the responsibility of P. Armando Pierucci. Born in 1935, he was the long-time organist of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and of the Church of Saint Salvatore. He is now retired.

2008 Rieger Orgelbau organ, Franciscan Church of Saint Salvatore, Old City, Jerusalem

Grand Organo (Manual I, C–a3)

16′ Bordone

8′ Principale

8′ Flauto armonico

8′ Voce humana

8′ Bordone camino

4′ Ottava

4′ Flauto

2-2⁄3′ Duodecima

2′ Decimaquinta

2′ Ripieno grave IV

1′ Ripieno acuto

16′ Tromba

8′ Tromba

Coupler II–I

Coupler III–I

Positivo (Manual II, C–a3)

8′ Principalino

8′ Bordone

4′ Ottava

4′ Flauto camino

2′ Flauto

1-1⁄3′ Decimanona

1′ Piccolo

2-2⁄3′ Sesquialtera

1′ Cimbalo III–IV

8′ Cromorne

Tremolo

Coupler III–II

Recitativo (Manual III, enclosed, C–a3)

16′ Quintatön

8′ Flauto

8′ Bordone

8′ Viola da Gamba

8′ Viola Celeste

4′ Ottavina

4′ Flauto traverso

2-2⁄3′ Nazardo

2′ Flauto ottava

1-3⁄5′ Terza

2′ Pienino III–IV

16′ Bassone

8′ Tromba

8′ Oboe

4′ Clarino

Tremolo

Pedale (C–f1)

16′ Principale

16′ Subbasso

8′ Ottava

8′ Violoncello

8′ Bordone

4′ Flauto concerto

16′ Bombarda

8′ Trombone

Coupler I–P

Coupler II–P

Coupler III–P

Consoles: main console, mechanical; remote console, electric

Roller crescendo shoe

Rieger Tuning System/Rieger Replay System  

Select accessories: Rieger Combination System (10 users with 1,000 combinations with 3 inserts each); archive for 250 tracks with 250 combinations each; Sequencer; Copy functions; Repeat functions

 

In 2012 in Nazareth, three instruments were installed. Two were in the Church of the Annunciation. In the upper church, a three-manual instrument with forty-nine stops was installed, and in the crypt of the lower church an instrument with sixteen stops. The nearby Church of Saint Joseph received a small organ with ten stops. The organist in Nazareth is Fr. George Lewett, an American.

In 2014 in the Church of All Nations, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, an instrument with two manuals, twelve stops was installed. 

In 2015 in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, there is the new Magdalene organ (two manuals, fifteen stops) near Christ’s grave (the Edicule), which is connected to the main organ and its electric console from the gallery above. The following year, again in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre near the Golgotha Rock (Figure 18), there was installed a very small organ with two manuals and five stops. It is completely enclosed in a cabinet. 

2016 Rieger organ near the Golgotha Rock, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

Manual I (C–d3)

8′ Principale

4′ Ottava

2′ Quintadecima

Manual II (C–d3)

8′ Bordone

4′ Flauto

Koppel

No pedal

 

As a tireless promoter, sponsor, and organizer of the Franciscan organ constructions, Br. Peter Schüler, OFM (now editor-in-chief of the Franciscan magazine In the Land of the Bible located in Munich, Germany) also helped out as an organist at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre when he worked in Jerusalem.

The organs of the Custodia Terrae Sanctae have also been featured in a new series of concerts for several years, namely the “Terra Sancta Organ Festival,” which also takes place in Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus, and Greece (www.tsorganfestival.org). The festival is a very well organized and widely promoted concert series in which organists from all over the world perform. The artistic director is Fr. Riccardo Ceriani.

Another current organ installation in Israel is in the north, not in a church, but in a concert hall. The Elma Arts Center is a spacious, architecturally interesting hotel and conference center in Zichron Ya’akov. It offers a rich cultural program of events in a concert hall seating 450 people. In 2014, the organbuilder Klais of Bonn, Germany, built an organ with twenty-four stops on two manuals and pedal for this center.

The status of organs in the churches of the Arab Lutheran Churches of the “ELCJHL” (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land) should not go unmentioned. Not all of their churches have pipe organs, but Arab Lutherans also have a tradition of organ-accompanied congregational singing. The organ in the Christmas Church in Bethlehem has already been mentioned. Next to the organ of the Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem, which is also used by the Arab Lutheran congregation that meets there, it is the largest instrument the ELCJHL has. There are also small pipe organs in the Arab-Lutheran churches in Ramallah and Beit Sahour. The ELCJHL also includes the pilgrimage center Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan in Jordan, whose church in 2013 received a large electronic organ by the Content company with three manuals, numerous stops, and a pipe façade. 

Finally, in Israel there are many small organs, including a number of private house organs. The largest, with seventeen stops, belongs to Gerard Levi, former chairman of the Israel Organ Association, and is located in his home in Youvalim in northern Israel (Figure 19). The instrument was built in 1992 by Gideon Shamir and contains a number of pipes from historic organs. In addition, some orchestras, private families, churches, and other associations have house organs, positiv organs, and/or portable chest organs. On the campus of the Tel Aviv Music Academy, there is the above-mentioned concert hall organ as well as a smaller practice instrument with seventeen stops, built by Gideon Shamir in 1996.⁶ In the Jerusalem music school of the Franciscans, called Magnificat, stands a small, older practice organ by the German company Walcker. 

Thus, all in all, the Holy Land offers a very multifaceted, colorful picture with organs of various stylistic characteristics, different ages, different qualities, and in different states of preservation. It would be worthwhile, though not the subject of this article, to report on the current status of organ playing in Israel. The number of organists is easy to tally. For the approximately sixty instruments, there are (in my estimation) at most thirty organists, of which only about half have a qualified education. Many of the organs mentioned in this article are not played regularly, some only occasionally in concerts, some not at all anymore.

Moreover, it would be desirable for a young organbuilder to settle permanently in Israel in order to continue the commendable work of Gideon Shamir. Enough work would be available! During my five years in Israel, despite my rudimentary organbuilding skills, I was called repeatedly to fix minor problems or to adjust individual registers, and my successor in office, Hartmut Rohmeyer, has as well.

I hope that the network of organs in the Holy Land, across all denominations, in the next few years and decades remains a fascination for all who are involved, whether they listen to the organs, sing with them, play them, or even build or repair them. And in the spirit of Psalm 122 (“Wish Jerusalem happiness”), I join in the Psalmist’s prayer, but expand it to include the entire Holy Land: “May there be peace in your walls!”

Notes

1. Translator’s note: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is administered by six Christian traditions under rules known as “The Status Quo.” Some carry more weight than others in the decision making process. 

2. Parts of the Weigle organ were incorporated into the newly built organ of the concert hall of the University of Haifa by Gideon Shamir (see Figure 13).

3. In the same manner, parts of the old Bevington organ were reused in Haifa. 

4. When that was is unclear, possibly during the Six Days War of 1967.

5. Translator’s note: approximately $4,200.

6. A similar instrument, also built by Gideon Shamir, standing in the Jerusalem Music Academy, was dismantled there a few years ago. The parts are in Gideon Shamir’s workshop in Asseret; whether it is to be rebuilt in the academy is uncertain. Currently there are no organ students.

Bibliography

Fernandez, Delfín, OFM. “Eine kleine Geschichte der Orgeln im Heiligen Land,” Im Lande des Herrn, Jg. 2002, No. 1.

Jauch, Robert, OFM. “Lauda Sion Salvatorem” (Bericht über die Orgeleinweihung der Rieger-Orgel der Kirche St. Salvator Jerusalem), Im Lande des Herrn, Jg. 2008, No. 2.

Leach, Brenda Lynn. “Organs of Israel,” The American Organist, April 1991, 62–64.

Levi, Gerard. Organ Culture in Israel and Palestine, 2005, published by BookSurge, LLC, ISBN I-4196-1034-1, available at www.amazon.de.

Orgel International, issue 1/2001 with emphasis “Israel.” In it are interviews with Elisabeth Roloff and the Israeli organist Yuval Rabin as well as articles by Oskar Gottlieb Blarr, Achim Seip, and others, besides a detailed description of some organs and an overview of the entire organ inventory of Israel (Gerard Levi).

“Pipework,” The American Organist, February 2015, 26, 28. Report on the new organs in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of All Nations.

Schüler Petrus, “Orgeln in der Grabeskirche,” Im Lande des Herrn, Jg. 2017, No. 1.

Schulten, Klaus. Die Sauerorgel in der Himmelfahrtkirche und andere deutsche Orgeln in Jerusalem, Series Edition Auguste Victoria, Volume 2, Jerusalem, 2010.

 

For detailed, up-to-date information on all organs in Israel, visit the website of the Israel Organ Association, www.organ.org.il.

This article was first published in Jerusalem–Gemeindebrief–Stiftungsjournal 2/2019 (quarterly magazine of the German Lutheran Church in Jerusalem) and is reprinted here with permission.

Photo caption: Shamir organ in the concert hall of the University of Haifa (photo credit: the author)

Michał Szostak

Michał Szostak, Polish organist, researcher, and author, completed a doctorate degree in organ performance in February 2019. He studied organ performance at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw with Andrzej Chorosiński, as well as organ improvisation at the Pontificio Istituto Ambrosiano di Musica Sacra in Milan with Davide Paleari. He regularly performs organ recitals in Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States, and has recorded three CDs. His organological research is regularly published by Polish and international organ magazines. From 2011–2018 he was the music director and principal organist of the Basilica in Licheń Stary. For further information: www.michalszostak.org.

Between 2002 and 2007, in Licheń Stary, near the geographical center of Poland, the Polish organbuilder Zakłady Organowe Zych built a monumental instrument of 157 stops. Designed by Andrzej Chorosiński, the instrument is now the largest organ in Poland and is controlled by a six-manual console.

Licheń Stary has a population of approximately 1,500 people. After World War II, priests of the order of the Marian Fathers promoted the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary here, centered around a small seventeenth-century oil painting of the Blessed Virgin. The ever-increasing number of pilgrims visiting the village could not be accommodated in the small local church housing the painting.

The Marian Fathers decided to build a new and larger church for the painting and pilgrims, an edifice that would become a minor basilica and consequently the largest church edifice in Poland. Construction began in 1992, and Pope Saint John Paul II blessed the building in 1999, though construction continued into 2002. The size of the basilica is 3,237,000 cubic feet, and the usable area is 247,600 square feet. The length of the nave is approximately 456 feet, while the width of the transept with uneven shoulder lengths is approximately 472 feet.¹ With the completion of construction there was a need to equip the interior with liturgical elements, including a pipe organ.

The motivator of the pipe organ project was Reverend Eugeniusz Makulski, MIC, a great lover of organ music and the person most responsible for the construction of the shrine. In mid-2002, when construction of the basilica was nearly complete, Father Makulski finalized the plans that would lead to the construction of a pipe organ to adorn the monumental interior. He decided the organ must be exceptional and worthy of the largest church in Poland; it would have at least 100 stops with a beautiful and noble sound and visual appearance. The other stipulation was that at least some of the instrument had to be playable by June 14, 2003.²

After analyzing various organbuilders’ bids, the Marian Fathers entrusted the project to the firm of Zakłady Organowe Zych. The signing of the contract for the construction of the first part of the organ, the instrument for the west gallery, took place on August 21, 2002.

The organ firm, headed by Dariusz Zych, had to rely on acoustical plans for the instrument concept to avoid disappointments and surprises at the final stage of this work. The starting point for the development of the whole specification by Andrzej Chorosiński was the unrealized project by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll for Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City.³ Based on the measured analysis of the acoustic parameters of the basilica, Chorosiński began to develop the specification of the organ and the composition of stops. The fact that the Licheń Basilica has five galleries (one in the main nave, two in the west and east aisles, and two galleries in the sanctuary), gave rise to the concept of creating a spatial sound unit composed of five elements. The great organ of the basilica has been placed in the southern, western, and eastern parts of the church. The project was completed with two Chancel Positives on two small balconies at both presbytery gables, where the apse connects to the main nave. The scales of the stops, as well as the compositions of composite stops (mixtures, etc.), were individually developed by Chorosiński.

Zakłady Organowe Zych accomplished all design work, construction of organ cases, windchests, key and stop actions, wooden ranks and wooden resonators of reeds, as well as assembly of all elements, voicing, and tuning. Subcontractor companies that were commissioned to carry out specific assignments included: KOART Krzysztof Cieplak (structures made of stainless steel), Otto Heuss GmbH from Lich, Germany (consoles, electronics, Zimbelstern, tubular bells), Aug. Laukhuff GmbH & Co. KG from Weikersheim, Germany (West Organ façade pipes), Jacques Stinkens
Orgelpijpenmakers BV from Zeist, the Netherlands (façade pipes for the South Organ), Süddeutsche Orgelpfeifenfabrik Roland Killinger GmbH from Freiberg on the River Neckar, Germany (reeds for West Organ, East and West Positives), Orguian Lda. from Avidos, Portugal (reeds for the South Organ), and Ryszard Chacinski from Kobylka near Warsaw (metal labial stops). Decorative elements adorning the organ cases were carved in wood by Janusz Regulski and Tomasz Kusnierz from Sochaczew near Warsaw, and then gilded in the goldsmith’s workshop of Henryk Kwiatkowski from Poznań.

All assembly, voicing, and tuning were completed before July 2, 2006, so that during the solemn Mass that day, when the famous painting of Our Lady of Licheń was introduced to the basilica, a fully prepared instrument could be heard. Thousands of pilgrims from all over the world took part in the ceremony of transferring the image to its new home.

One month later, on August 1, 2006, there was a technical and artistic reception of the completed organ made by a commission consisting of representatives of the Marian Fathers, organbuilders, organists, and musicologists, who were all very pleased with the work. The acceptance protocol was signed by members of the commission composed of Rev. Wiktor Gumienny, MIC, Father Superior of the Licheń Shrine; Professor Urlich Grosser, German conductor and organist; Professor Roberto Padoin, organist and professor at the Conservatory B. Marcello in Venice; Reverend Dr. Jacek Paczkowski, chairman of the church music committee of the Diocese of Kalisz; Reverend Dr. Mariusz Klimek, director of the Church Music Study of the Diocese of Torun; Siegfried Sauer, organbuilder from Germany; Adam Klarecki, organist of the Wloclawek cathedral; Jacek Łukasik and Robert Grudzien, organists; and Jaroslaw Adamiak, then organist of the Licheń Shrine. Artistic decoration of the cases took nearly another year, and the dedication of the organ took place on the first anniversary of the transfer to the basilica of the famous painting of Our Lady of Licheń on July 2, 2007, during a Mass celebrated by Bishop Wieslaw Alojzy Mering.

Description of the organ

The organ of the Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń comprises 157 stops, 12,323 pipes, and five “organs” (in the chronology of construction): the West Organ, the South Organ (located in three organ cases on the same gallery above the main entrance), the East Organ, the East Chancel Positive, and the West Chancel Positive. The South Organ and the West Organ are fully independent instruments and have their own consoles. The East Organ and both Chancel Positives do not have their own consoles and can be played only from the main console. An organist playing from the main console has eleven independent divisions from which to choose. The key action is mechanical-electric, while the stop action is electric; windchests are slider and pallet, and the alloys of pipe metals contain tin up to 85–90%. All divisions of the instrument have a manual compass of C–c4 and pedal compass of C–g1. The layout of all parts of the organ throughout the basilica is presented in Figure 1.

The South Organ

The core of the whole organ of the Licheń Basilica is the South Organ, which contains the principal divisions of the instrument. The South Organ is the second in chronological order of construction, built between mid-2003 and 2005. This eighty-one-stop instrument with four manuals has a typical sound arrangement for the nineteenth-century French Romantic period: Grand-Orgue, Positif, Récit-expressif, and Pédale. In addition there is a high-pressure Solo division placed on Manual IV. In each division one finds a full set of basic stops (Jeux de Fonds) in the form of principals, flutes, and strings, as well as stops—according to Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s nomenclature—available (Jeux de Combinaisons) in the form of mutations, mixtures, cornets, and reeds.

The console is placed centrally in the organ case and on a multi-stage elevation. Registers are placed on either side of the keydesk: on the left side for the Pédale and Grand-Orgue, on the right side for the Positif, Récit-expressif, and the Solo division. The stop action is electric, while the key action is mechanical (for the majority of the Grand-Orgue, Positif, Récit-expressif, and Pédale windchests) and electric (for the entire Solo division, as well as selected portions of the Grand-Orgue, Positif, Récit-expressif, Pédale windchests, and double pallets for bass notes). The Récit-expressif section is enclosed in a swell box controlled by a balanced shoe with electric action; next to the expression shoe is a crescendo roller, which allows seamless dynamic changes. The player sits with his back to the main altar, and the console has a solid-state combination action system with an extensive storage capacity.

The South Organ consists of three separate organ cases placed on the same gallery on the axes of the main and side naves and is anchored on a twenty-ton steel structure. Architecturally, the cases are inspired by the organ case built between 1999 and 2003 by Schoenstein & Co. for the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the United States. A great majority of the façade pipes are speaking pipes. The main case contains the Grand-Orgue, Positif, Récit-expressif, Solo, and most of the Pédale division. In the side cases there are windchests for several Pédale stops (divided on C and C-sharp sides).

Each side case has its own small blower and a separate wind system. The wind system of the main South Organ’s section is fed by three electric blowers: the first blower feeds the Grand-Orgue, Positif, and Pédale, the second feeds the Récit-expressif, and the third feeds the high-pressure Solo division.

The South Organ contains the tallest open wood pipes of the whole organ, which belong to the Pédale 32′ Subcontrabasse, a principal stop. In this section there is also a second 32′ stop, the Contrabombard, the tallest reed resonators in the organ. The instrument also contains the largest tin pipes of the Licheń organ, located in the central organ case. The largest has a length of 25-1⁄2 feet, a diameter of one foot, and weighs 330 pounds.

The West Organ

The West Organ, placed on the gallery above the left transept of the basilica above the Pieta Porch, was built between August 2002 and June 2003. This two-manual instrument includes 51 stops enhanced with Zimbelstern and Tympan imitating the sound of a storm (Pédale d’Orage). Registers are placed at either side of the keydesk: on the left for the Pedal and the Hauptwerk sections, on the right side for the Schwellwerk division and additional devices. The instrument contains both mechanical and electric-action chests, double pallets for low keys, and electric stop action. All couplers are electric. As in the South Organ, the Schwellwerk is enclosed in a box managed by a balanced expression shoe with electric action, in addition to a crescendo roller. The console, slightly elevated, is centrally integrated into the organ case. The player sits with his back to the main altar, and the console features an extensive solid-state combination action.

The specification of the West Organ is slightly non-standard, divided between two manuals and pedal. Initially, it was planned that this instrument would have three manuals, however, due to the constraints imposed by basilica architect, Barbara Bielecka, on the dimensions of the organ case, it was decided to limit the number of manual divisions while maintaining a wealth of stops. In each section there is a full range of principals (in the Hauptwerk based at 16′, in the Schwellwerk at 8′, in the Pedal at 16′), enriched with flute stops of all types, strings, and reeds. In the Pedal section there is one 32′ stop, a stopped wood Bourdon. All divisions have mutation stops (2-2⁄3′, 1-3⁄5′, 1-1⁄3′, 8⁄9′) and at least one mixture (in the Hauptwerk there are two mixtures and a cornet). This instrument was conceived for performing Baroque pieces; however, thanks to a large number of foundation stops (as many as eleven manual stops, i.e., 30%, are at 8′), Romantic and symphonic pieces also work well. In the West Organ are also placed tubular bells with a compass from g to g2.

The placement of pipe flats in the organ case reflects the arrangement of the divisions inside the instrument. In the central part of the case (three double flats, each crowned with a group of small pipes) we see the Hauptwerk, the Schwellwerk above it (another three double flats, each crowned with a group of small pipes, the wooden shutters of the swell box located just behind the façade), and two symmetrical pedal towers—left side C, right side C-sharp. The façade pipes belong to the 16′ Principal from the Hauptwerk and the independent 16′ Principal from the Pedal. The organ weighs a total of thirty tons.

The blessing and dedication of the West Organ took place on June 14, 2003, by Bishop Roman Andrzejewski, while the inaugural concert was performed by Andrzej Chorosiński. The event, which was very popular with the media, attracted many outstanding guests from around the world.

The East Organ

The East Organ, built between September 2005 and 2006, is housed in twin towers with trapezoidal bases placed between high windows on the east gallery, which crowns the right transept of the basilica over the Four Evangelists’ Porch. The instrument has eight stops; the key and stop action are electric, and the windchests are slider and pallet. Looking from the center of the basilica, the left tower contains two windchests, placed one above the other, with C side pipes, while the right tower is similar with C-sharp side pipes.

The external structure of the organ cases reflects the internal arrangement of windchests for flue pipes. Each case has two main pipe flats separated by horizontal resonators of the Trumpets (16′, 8′, and 4′) and one small set of pipes at the very top, which are dummy pipes. Both towers are supplied by one blower that is placed in the left tower; the channel supplying air to the right tower runs along the gallery floor. The whole instrument is supplied with air under high pressure. As a result of this treatment, the volume of the eight stops of the East Organ is equivalent to the sound of fifty-one stops along with the super-octave couplers of the West Organ. This instrument can only be played from the main console and may be assigned to any of the six keyboards and pedalboard.

The West Chancel Positive

Built in 2006, the West Chancel Positive, with seven stops (plus Nachtigall), has electric key and stop action. Everything, including the blower, is enclosed in a single case, a mirror image of the East Chancel Positive. This instrument does not have a separate console, but rather is played from the main console only, as a floating division. This section, richly equipped with string stops, perfectly matches the ethereal voices of the Récit-expressif section of the South Organ. With proper registration, it surrounds the listener with the impression of “heavenly voices” (Vox Coelestis).

The East Chancel Positive

The East Chancel Positive was completed in 2006 and features eight stops constructed with early Baroque scaling and electric key and stop action. The whole instrument is enclosed in a single case like the West Chancel Positive. This division also does not have a separate console, but is a floating division of the main console. The disposition of this instrument was inspired by early Baroque Flemish organs and pairs well with the West Organ. With proper registration and manual changes, the East Chancel Positive and the West Organ can produce dialogue effects, concertino and tutti, in a manner characteristic of instrumental concertos of the Baroque era.

Where are the largest pipe organs in Europe?

On the basis of the criterion of organ classification in terms of size (i.e., number of ranks and auxiliary devices managed from one console) published by the author in 2017 in Polish⁴ and English⁵ literature on the subject, the organ of the Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń is the largest instrument in Poland, the fourth largest in Europe, and the thirteenth largest in the world. Among ecclesiastical organs, it is the tenth largest instrument and has one of the largest consoles in the world. The console of the Licheń organ is also the largest console among Polish organs and is one of the largest consoles in Europe.

The organist playing from the main console has a total of eleven fully independent divisions: nine manual divisions and two pedal divisions. Most divisions can be assigned at will on the six manuals and pedalboard, allowing ultimate flexibility.

The monumental main console is located in the sanctuary of the basilica. The lowest manual keyboard has the deepest key movement, while the top keyboard, the shallowest. The manual keyboards, moving from the lowest to the highest, are inclined at increasing angles. The main console is connected to all sections by a wired computer network and MIDI system. For each of the main console’s keyboards and pedalboard, it is possible to assign each section of the West Organ, the East Organ, the West Chancel Positive, the East Chancel Positive, and Manual IV of the South Organ. The Grand-Orgue, Positif, Récit-expressif, and Pédale from the South Organ can be assigned only to manuals I, II, III, and pedalboard on the main console (plus standard section couplers within the South Organ).

The console is equipped with two balanced expression pedals to control two swell boxes (right, Schwellwerk of the West Organ; left, Récit-expressif of the South Organ). On the left side of the expressive pedals, there is a crescendo roller with two pre-programmed crescendos (smooth or stepwise). The console is equipped with a separate solid-state memory system; it has a cut-out switch for all reeds, as well as Tutti and General Tutti switches and General Cancel. The console was made in the workshop of Otto Heuss GmbH and is a work of art.

Conclusion

The course of history is surprising when considering a proposal for a project in 1875 by one of the greatest organbuilders of all times intended for the largest Catholic church in the world inspires the creation of a new organ 130 years later in the largest basilica of Poland, a country that did not even exist on the maps of Europe when Aristide Cavaillé-Coll lived. Though Cavaillé-Coll invited many great personalities from the world of politics, the Vatican authorities did not manage to materialize the project at Saint Peter’s Basilica; yet a priest in a relatively poor country with the support of countless pilgrims offering their small donations for this purpose did. Really, history can be amazing!

Several compact discs of organ music have been recorded so far on the organ of the Licheń Basilica. In 2003, Andrzej Chorosiński recorded organ literature, which was the first recording of the West Organ. In 2007, a Belgian organist of Polish descent, Karol Golebiowski, recorded a second album with the entire organ. In September 2017 the author recorded the third album, Ave Regina Caelorum, including improvisations on Gregorian and Polish Marian themes in two Romantic cyclic forms: organ symphony and symphonic poem on the South Organ. In June 2018 he recorded the fourth album, French Inspirations: the Second Half of the 19th Century, including literature of Franck, Lefébure-Wély, Lemmens, Guilmant, and an improvised five-movement organ symphony. (These last two discs can be found on eBay.)

I cordially invite you to Licheń Stary, where one can hear and see the largest organ in the largest ecclesiastical interior of Poland.

Notes

1. Krzysztof Jedrzejewski, Przewodnik po Sanktuarium Lichenskimm (Licheń Stary, Zaklad Gospodarczy “Dom Pielgrzyma,” 2014), p. 181.

2. Organy Licheński (Licheń Stary, Zaklad Gospodarczy “Dom Pielgrzyma,” 2007), p. 22.

3. For more information on this organ proposal, see Ronald Ebrecht’s book, Cavaillé-Coll’s Monumental Organ Project for Saint Peter’s, Rome: Bigger than Them All (Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books, 2011).

4. Michal Szostak, “Wielkie organy Bazyliki w Licheniu w zestawieniu z najwiekszymi organami swiata,” Wokol nowych organow w kosciele NSPJ w Tarnowie, ed. Pawl Pasternak (Tarnów, Poland, Biblos, 2017, ISBN 978-83-7793-504-0), and Michal Szostak, Lichenskie organy na tle najwiekszych instrumentow Polski, Europy i swiata (Licheń Stary, Zaklad Gospodarczy “Dom Pielgrzyma,” 2017, ISBN 978-83-64126-14-7).

5. Michal Szostak, “The World’s Largest Organs,” The Organ, No. 382, November 2017–January 2018, ISSN 0030-4883, pp. 12–28.

Specification of the organ:

South Organ

GRAND-ORGUE (Manual I)

16′ Montre

16′ Bourdon

8′ Montre

8′ Flûte Harmonique

8′ Gamba

8′ Kopula

8′ Dolce

5-1⁄3′ Quinte

4′ Prestant

4′ Flute

4′ Salicet

2-2⁄3′ Quinte

2′ Doublette

1-3⁄5′ Tierce

IV Gr. Fourniture

IV Mixtur

V Gr. Cymbel

IV Cymbel

16′ Bombarde

16′ Fagot

8′ Trompet

8′ Hautbois

4′ Clairon

IV–I

III–I

II–I

POSITIF (Manual II)

16′ Violon

8′ Diapason

8′ Flûte Harmonique

8′ Salicional

4′ Prestant

4′ Flûte

4′ Viole

2-2⁄3′ Quinte

2′ Piccolo

III Sesquialtera

V Plein Jeu

III Scharf

16′ Dulcjan

8′ Cromorne

8′ Clarinette

8′ Jannhorn

Tremolo

IV–II

III–II

Recit-expressif (Manual III, enclosed)

16′ Bourdon

8′ Montre

8′ Flûte Traversiere

8′ Rurflet

8′ Gamba

8′ Voix Celeste

4′ Prestant

4′ Flûte Traversiere

4′ Viola

2-2⁄3′ Nazard

2′ Doublette

V Cornet

IV–V Fourniture

16′ Basson

8′ Trompet

8′ Hautbois

8′ Vox Humana

4′ Clairon Harm.

Tremolo

IV–III

SOLO (Manual IV, enclosed)

8′ Flauto Major

8′ Gamba

8′ Keraulophon

V Cornet

8′ Tuba Mirabilis

Pedale

32′ Subcontrabasse

16′ Contrabasse

16′ Violonbasse

16′ Subbass

10-2⁄3′ Quintbass

8′ Octavbass

8′ Flûte

8′ Flûtebass

8′ Cello

4′ Choral

2′ Ocarina

III Sesquialtera

V Hintersatz

IV Mixtur

32′ Contrabombard

16′ Bombard

10-2⁄3′ Quinttrompet

8′ Trompet

4′ Clairon

IV–P

III–P

II–P

I–P

West Organ

HAUPTWERK (Manual I)

16′ Prinzipal

8′ Octave

8′ Holzflöte

8′ Bourdon

8′ Gamba

8′ Gemshorn

4′ Oktave

4′ Szpicflet

4′ Viola

2-2⁄3′ Quinte

2′ Superoctave

1′ Flageolet

V Cornet

V Mixtur

IV Mixtur

16′ Trompet

8′ Trompet

4′ Trompet

II–I

Super I

SCHWELLWERK (Manual II, enclosed)

16′ Quintadena

8′ Prinzipal

8′ Rohrflöte

8′ Salicet

4′ Prestant

4′ Traversflöte

4′ Gemshorn

2-2⁄3′ Nazard

2′ Oktave

2′ Piccolo

1-3⁄5′ Terz

1-1⁄3′ Larigot

8⁄9′ None

V Scharf

16′ Dulcian

8′ Krummhorn

8′ Clarinette

Tremolo

Tubular Bells

PEDAL

32′ Bourdon

16′ Prinzipal

16′ Subbass

16′ Violonbass

8′ Oktavbass

8′ Fletbass

8′ Cello

4′ Choral

4′ Bourdon

II Sesquialtera

IV Mixtur

16′ Bombard

16′ Fagott

8′ Trompet

4′ Clairon

II–P

Super I–P

I–P

Zimbelstern

Tympan

East Organ

8′ Diapason

8′ Gedeckt

4′ Prestant

2′ Oktave

III–IV Cymbel

16′ Tuba Magna

8′ Tuba Mirabilis

4′ Clairon

West Chancel Positive

8′ Vox Humana (labial, 2 ranks)

8′ Gamba

8′ Aeolina

8′ Vox coelestis

4′ Prinzipal

4′ Fugara

III Harmonia Aeth.

Nachtigall (nightingale)

Tremolo

East Chancel Positive

8′ Gedeckt

4′ Prinzipal

4′ Hohlfloete

4′ Quintade

2′ Dezchen

III Zimbel

8′ Regal

4′ Zink

Tremolo

Thomas Fielding

Organist and composer Thomas Fielding is director of music for the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist and music coordinator for the Office of Worship, Diocese of Cleveland, Ohio. He is a 2007 doctoral degree graduate of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where his principal teacher was Christopher Young. Previous studies were with Martin Jean and Robert A. Hobby. Fielding has taken first prize in the national Arthur Poister (Syracuse, New York) and San Marino (California) performance competitions, has won several national composition prizes, has been the recipient of several full-tuition scholarship awards at Indiana University and, as an undergraduate, won several music prizes offered by his alma mater Valparaiso University. He has played recitals on some of the world’s finest instruments, including two appearances at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, England. His scholarly work has been featured in The American Organist and The Tracker magazines. He was for four years the dean of the Central North Carolina Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

As an active and commissioned composer, Dr. Fielding’s works appear in the catalogs of Choristers’ Guild, GIA Publications, Selah, E. C. Schirmer, and Paraclete Press. His works have been performed by soloists, choirs, and orchestras throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia in addition to the 2016 American Guild of Organists national convention in Houston, Texas. His compositions also have been broadcast on National Public Radio on both Weekend Edition and Pipedreams. For more information, visit thomasfielding.com.

Introduction

Esquisses Byzantines and Carillon-Sortie are the two most frequently performed works by the enigmatic French composer Henri Mulet (1878–1967). A dedication printed on the front page of the score of Esquisses Byzantines refers to the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur perched high on Montmartre in Paris. The typical interpretation of this cycle views Esquisses Byzantines as an external tribute to the empirical structure of the basilica; however, only the first five of the suite’s ten movements illustrate the architectural features of the building. The final five allude to different aspects of customs and rituals at the basilica. Curiously, the last two movements have Latin rather than French titles.

Mulet added four inscriptions referred to as “mottos” that strongly suggest a philosophical agenda. He finished the composition in 1908, but for no recorded or anecdotal reason did not publish the work until 1920. The first motto contains the dates 1914–1919. This suggests that the mottos were added at the time of publication.

From 1894 until 1940, a time when art and politics were entwined, ideologies and music in France were inseparable.¹ Jane Fulcher notes that composers “were indeed intellectuals, deeply engaged with public issues, symbols, and ideologies, and their evolution in this period cannot be explained by ‘pure’ stylistic development, or sporadic influence from other arts.”² Mulet was just such an intellectual, and his Esquisses Byzantines is a product of this movement.

The Archdiocese of Paris built Sacré-Coeur Basilica for specific theological and political reasons that are embodied in the towering motto that dominates the apse of the building. Because of their magnitude, two words stand out: Gallia Poenitens (France repents). Ideologically, the construction of Sacré-Coeur was an act of reparation for the sins of France committed during the 1789 Revolution and the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. Even though Mulet composed Esquisses Byzantines in 1908, he may have published it in 1920 to celebrate both the dedication of the basilica and the Allied victory in World War I. To fully understand the ideology of Esquisses Byzantines, an examination of the history of France’s love affair with the Sacred Heart of Jesus is called for.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in France

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is rooted in the concept of Christ’s humanity and the five glorious wounds of his Passion. Minor rituals dedicated to the Sacred Heart were found in late Medieval monastic writings. These became widely popular as a result of the visions of Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (1648–1690), a French nun and mystic. At age 23, Alacoque entered Visitation Convent at Paray-le-Monial. Early in her novitiate, she had visions of the Sacred Heart pierced by a lance for the world’s sins and surmounted by a flame of love. Replete with the drama of Baroque piety, God’s message, sent to the world through Alacoque, was that of a vengeful deity seeking reparation and atonement for the numerous sins of France. These transgressions included material extravagance, moral decadence, and the apostasy of Protestantism. At one point, Alacoque received a vision of three demands of the Sacred Heart that needed to be fulfilled before France could receive abundant blessings from the Lord:
• France, through its king, should be consecrated to the Sacred Heart;
• an edifice should be built for this purpose;
• this historic compact should be recorded on the royal insignia.3

The first test of her prophecy occurred in June 1720, when the merchant ship Grand Saint-Antoine arrived in the port at Marseille. Despite the standard forty-day quarantine imposed on foreign ships, the bubonic plague spread from the ship and ravaged the city. By December, 50,000 people had died. The diocesan bishop, Henri François Xavier de Belsunce de Castelmoron (1671–1755), was well known for his love of public religious spectacles such as large-scale pilgrimages and massive processions. In the plague’s arrival, he saw God’s displeasure with the people of Marseille. In November and December Belsunce staged several penitential cortèges, and by spring 1721 deaths had fallen dramatically.

The plague was an invitation to penitence sent by an angry God whose patience with crime, heresy, and sin had been tested and exceeded. The Sacred Heart of Jesus was the best recourse, according to Belsunce, and his consecration of the city of Marseille to the Sacred Heart was the correct spiritual initiative to take in the face of the plague. The Sacré-Coeur had driven the plague from Marseille.⁴

When the plague returned in 1722 Belsunce cited ongoing moral corruption as its cause. The city’s principal governors again consecrated Marseille to the Sacred Heart on May 28. By autumn the plague had disappeared from the city. Marseille became the paragon for Catholic France of the power found in devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The French Church experienced a far greater trial in the Revolution of 1789. Revolutionaries slaughtered scores of Catholic clergy and religious. For the Catholic Counter-Revolution, this civil disturbance was nothing less than another chapter in the ongoing war between good and evil.

For some, the religious policy of the Revolution was sure to bring down divine chastisement, for others, the Revolution was itself a chastisement. Profanations and wicked exaltations were the signs by which they recognized in the Revolution an evil of terrifying and unsurpassed strength.⁵

The demands made by God to Alacoque had not yet been fulfilled, and Catholic France was suffering for it. Meanwhile, the Catholic Counter-Revolution, fueled largely by rural conservatives, embraced the Sacred Heart of Jesus as its symbol. Convents and pious families churned out embroidered Sacred Heart emblems by the tens of thousands, and several militant priestly orders dedicated to the Sacred Heart were formed. “. . . The Sacré-Coeur emerged as the devotion and the image of Catholic resistance to the scourge of the Revolution.”⁶

Once the Revolution was over, nineteenth-century France struggled to determine which political system would best serve it. Political regimes and forms of government changed repeatedly. The brief restoration of the Bourbon monarchy between 1814 and 1830 created the opportunity to consecrate the nation to the Sacred Heart. Louis XVI had done so privately before the Revolution, but Louis XVIII, who ruled from 1814 until 1824, was too savvy a politician to engage in an act that could be so divisive to the nation. Another surge of fervor to fulfill Alacoque’s prophecy ensued when France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The pious French believed that these two wars were a divine condemnation of a nation fallen from grace. Bishop Félix Fournier (1803–1877) of Nantes proclaimed, “Defeat . . . was a punishment from God; it was the consequence of moral failure on a national scale.”⁷ Catholic France recognized these disasters as a call from God to repent and atone for its sins.

The National Vow and the construction of the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur

In 1870 Alexandre Félix Legentil (1821–1889) became a refugee in Poitiers after the Franco-Prussian defeat, the patriotic trauma of the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, and the devastation of the Paris Commune. While there, inspired by similar building projects in Lyon and Marseille, he vowed to build a national church dedicated to the Sacred Heart. He quickly won the enthusiasm of Hubert Rohault de Fleury (1828–1910), his brother-in-law, and the support of Cardinal Pie, Bishop of Poitiers. Legentil and de Fleury were able to convince Parisian Archbishop Joseph Hyppolyte Guibert (1802–1886) to support their National Vow to the Sacred Heart and the construction of Sacré-Coeur. Guibert wanted to keep its text as apolitical as possible for fear of the Republicans. After some correspondence and negotiation on the exact wording of the vow, Legentil, Hubert Rohault de Fleury, and Cardinal Guibert opted for the following:

In spite of the misfortunes that ravage France, and perhaps of even greater woes that threaten it; in spite of the sacrilegious attacks committed in Rome against the laws of the Church and the Holy See, and against the sacred person of the Vicar of Jesus Christ; We humble ourselves before God, and, bringing together in our love the Church and our homeland, we recognize that we have been guilty and rightly punished. And to make appropriate amends for our sins and to obtain from the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ the forgiveness of our transgressions as well as the extraordinary relief that alone can deliver the Sovereign Pontiff from his captivity, and put an end to France’s misfortunes, we promise to contribute to the erection in Paris of a sanctuary dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.⁸

In fulfillment of the prophecy of Alacoque, multiple consecrations were made to the Sacred Heart. Along with its widely disseminated emblem, France only needed a church, and the National Vow ensured that this would happen.

After the far-left socialist Paris Commune was suppressed on May 28, 1871, the Third French Republic was quickly formed. Conservative royalist Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers (1797–1877) was elected president. The following year, Archbishop Guibert formally approved the Sacré-Coeur building project on January 18. The endorsement of the National Vow by Pope Pius IX quickly followed in July 1872. Guibert wrote the following to Legentil and Fleury: “This temple, erected as a public act of contrition and reparation . . . will stand among us as a protest against other monuments and works of art erected for the glorification of vice and impiety.”⁹ These “monuments” refer to the massive rebuilding of Paris undertaken by Georges-Eugène Haussmann (1809–1891) by order of Emperor Napoleon III during the Second Empire (1852–1870).

Guibert was keenly interested in choosing the right place for the new church. He considered consecrating several existing buildings, including the Paris Opéra and the Trocadéro. Both were constructed during Haussman’s renovation of Paris. The debate lasted for some time until Guibert visited the summit of Montmartre, the “Hill of the Martyrs,” and was overwhelmed by the magnificent view of Paris. During Roman Emperor Decius’s persecution of Christians in 250 A.D., Saint Denis, the first evangelist of Gall, was martyred on Montmartre. Saint Joan of Arc and other saints made pilgrimages to the site, and Saint Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuit order there. During the Commune, two royalist generals who were defending Montmartre from the Republican mob were also martyred there. The site had been used for various purposes throughout the centuries but was not for sale.

To secure Montmartre, Guibert made a petition to the National Assembly concerning the construction of the church. On July 23, 1873, the National Assembly passed a law that proclaimed the construction of Sacré Coeur a public utility (Paris). Meanwhile, the Republic appointed a new president, Patrice de MacMahon (1808–1893), Marshall of France and Duke of Magenta, whose main ambition was to establish a constitutional monarchy. Catholic sympathizers held the majority in the National Assembly, and the land was seized by the government by expropriation (“eminent domain”) and sold to the Archdiocese of Paris.

Although declared an act of public utility, the project received no tax funding. Rather, donations poured in from across the country from private “subscribers” who purchased construction stones that would bear their names. During the nineteenth century, Gothic architecture was considered the quintessential style; however, the Works Committee of 1872 chose a Byzantine concept proposed by Paul Abadie (1812–1884) from among the seventy-eight entries in a competition held for the design of the building. The style of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and San Marco Basilica in Venice inspired Abadie’s plan. Workers laid the cornerstone of the basilica on June 16, 1875, in the presence of President MacMahon, who donated a statue of the Sacred Heart that stands in the apsidal chapel in the crypt. Subsequent Republican regimes regarded the construction of the basilica as an incitement to civil war. They considered halting progress on the building in 1873, 1897, and 1899; but because the government would have had to reimburse the eight million subscribers some thirty million francs, work continued. Sacré Coeur was ready for consecration in 1914, but the outbreak of World War I delayed this until October 24, 1919.

Henri Mulet and the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur

On October 17, 1878, three years after work began with laying the cornerstone of the new church, Henri Mulet was born. Sacré-Coeur was a constant presence throughout his childhood, as he was reared in its shadows. Henri’s entire family was musical. Gabriel, his father, was a celebrated choirmaster of Sacré-Coeur from 1886 to 1903. Blanche Victorie Patin Gatin, his mother, played the harmonium both in the provisional chapel erected on the site and later in the unfinished great church.¹⁰ From her, Henri learned to play the organ and piano.¹¹

In his day, Gabriel Mulet received widespread acclaim as the master of the choir of Sacré-Coeur and as a composer of liturgical music. Although forgotten today, his works include the 1894 Cantata à Jeanne d’Arc and a Tantum ergo for choir and large orchestra composed in 1900. He also composed the text and music for a “Chant Populaire” for the dedication of the great bell of Sacré-Coeur, simply titled The Savoyarde.
The Bulletin de l’Oeuvre du Vœu national notes that the hymn’s “music constitutes a model of imitative harmony.”¹² Sacré-Coeur historian Father Jacques Benoist further opines that this influence is obvious in Mulet’s Esquisses Byzantines.¹³ In Gabriel’s hymn, the choir sings the pious text, while a recurring “strike” on low C of the organ pedals marked “Savoyarde” represents the tolling of the massive bell. This tolling bell effect is somewhat akin to the oscillating octaves heard in Henri’s “Campanile” movement, thus suggesting that Henri may have learned something about musical composition from his father. Additionally, father and son collaborated on a pious “Cantique pour la Communion,” O Mon Jésus, with a text by Gabriel and music by Henri. The work was published in 1900 by Le Beau, a small religious publishing house that Leduc assimilated in 1905.

In 1889 Henri Mulet enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied organ and composition with Charles-Marie Widor. Mulet was generally a musical conservative, and because of his birthdate, he is considered a Middle-Impressionist composer.¹⁴ Although he only composed for fifteen years, 1896–1911, one can group his compositional output into three broad stylistic periods. In 1911 he appears to have stopped composing abruptly. “He was hostile to the changes and innovations of the twentieth century, and his style remained strongly rooted in the symphonic organ of Cavaillé-Coll of the nineteenth century.”¹⁵ In 1937 he retired from his final church position at Saint Philippe-du-Roule and the Paris musical scene because his colleagues and even the church’s authorities preferred “modern” music to Franck and his contemporaries.¹⁶

In 1924 Mulet’s colleague and friend Vincent d’Indy (1851–1931) offered Henri the position of professor of organ at the Schola Cantorum where he taught until 1931. The Schola, founded as a foil to the Conservatoire’s emphasis on theatrical music, emphasized formal technique over originality. The Schola’s sacred music curriculum was an exemplar of the principles for church music dictated in the 1903 Motu Proprio by Pope Pius X. This explicitly ultramontane document idealized Gregorian chant and Roman-style polyphony as best suited to the Catholic liturgy. The Schola implemented the papal agenda.

Especially significant here is that the Schola Cantorum did not just define musical values that it considered to be “national,” it established a “code” that associated them with genres, styles, repertoires, and techniques. . . . French nationalist leagues taught the Republic that music could be invariable as a form of "representation”—that it could help shape perceptions when surrounded by a discourse that imbued it with ideological meaning.¹⁷

Mulet seems to have been a papal sympathizer. Aware of the demands that Pope Pius X made of Catholic musicians, he acquiesced. Many like Messiaen did not. In 1921 Mulet presented a lecture to the General Congress of Sacred Music in Strasbourg titled, “The Harmful and Anti-religious Tendencies of the Modern Organ.” The article, published in 1922, critiques the Hope-Jones cinema organ and its use in church. Mulet called it the “Antichrist.” Although Mulet played the cinema organ during his time at Draguignan, his distaste for its liturgical use comes from the papal dictum: “They are also anti-religious because the orchestral organ leads to the performance of transcriptions of orchestral music and even of music for the theatre, which is formally condemned by our Holy Father Pope Pius X.”¹⁸

Eventually Mulet withdrew from public life. He spent his last years at the convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Draguignan. He died there on September 20, 1967, elusive, secretive, and largely forgotten. No obituary was published, and the location of his grave has been forgotten.

Esquisses Byzantines as Mulet’s spiritual testament

Esquisses Byzantines is a programmatic set of pieces. Its first five movements describe the physical structure of the basilica, and the second five relate aspects of its ideology, customs, and rituals. Three programmatic “mottos” that Mulet added to the piece at the time of publication hint at this ideological schema. Together, these mottos strongly suggest that Mulet’s work is a kind of sermon on the power of the devotion of the victorious French to the Sacred Heart.

Mulet was reclusive and not at all interested in displaying his biography for public scrutiny. He rarely commented on his pieces or music in general. Our knowledge of Mulet, his music, and his temperament comes to us mainly in the form of anecdotes by one of his closest friends, Félix Raugel (1881–1975). The theories in this article cannot be verified in first-person writings by Mulet; likewise, the personal significance of his compositions is vague. Raugel was ignorant of the programmatic meanings of Mulet’s music. Even Henri’s wife Isabelle really did not understand him.¹⁹

Mulet completed Esquisses Byzantines in 1908 but did not add the dedication—“In memory of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre, 1914–1919”—until its 1920 publication. These dates are critical: they are of World War I. Many people believe that Mulet composed the work between 1914 and 1919. This is incorrect. He added those dates to the motto, and they refer only to the motto and not the actual years of composition.

Primed to be dedicated on October 17, 1914, the festivities for the dedication of the basilica were postponed because the previous July, war with Germany intervened. At the onset of the war, the French did not know if God would take pity on them, but many believed the spiritual reparations moved him to do so. Faced with the prospect of another humiliating defeat at the hands of Germany, the French bishops sought to fulfill God’s demands to France almost as soon as the war began. “As early as 1914, the Bulletin’s columnist recalled that France had not responded to the three main demands made of it in 1689. Therefore, the Lord can hardly cover it with glory!”²⁰ At the time, conservative Catholics were overwhelmingly monarchists. Modern secular forms of government had been condemned decades earlier in the “Syllabus of Errors” issued by Pope Pius IX in 1864. Pope Pius X reinforced this condemnation with his “Oath Against Modernism” in 1910, which was professed by all religious and many lay Catholics. The French bishops consecrated the entire country to the Sacred Heart on its feast day, June 11, 1915, and many allied banners displayed an emblem of the Sacred Heart:

In March 1917, soldiers from France, England, Italy, Japan, Poland, Romania, and Russia gathered in Paray-le-Monial with their banners on which a Sacred Heart was affixed. They met again on June 15, 1917, in Montmartre for a day of Catholic soldiers of the Allied armies, where they renewed according to the formula of Cardinal Amette [of Paris] their solemn consecration to the Sacred Heart. Montmartre is therefore naturally regarded by the allies as the center of the expansion of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus throughout 
the world.²¹

Only at the end of that bloody conflict was the Basilica finally consecrated. A victorious France—led by the fiery oratory of [George] Clemenceau [sic]—joyfully celebrated the consecration of a monument conceived of in the course of a losing war with Germany a generation before. Gallia Poenitens at last brought its rewards.²²

For Catholic France, this victory was the direct result of the intervention of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the fulfillment of the prophecies of Sainte Marguerite-Marie Alacoque. In the Savoyarde hymn, Gabriel Mulet foretells this in the ninth stanza: “You will shout the Hosanna of glory / When our soldiers, Happy Day, / Will come back with victory / Under the flag of the Sacred Heart.”²³

The basilica was finally consecrated on October 24, 1919, and the people of France recognized it as a symbol of the Allied victory in the war.

The High Altar was consecrated by Cardinal Amette, Archbishop of Paris, and thirty bishops consecrated the other thirty altars—fifteen in the Basilica, and fifteen in the crypt. At midday, the Pontifical High Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Vico, Prefect of the Congregation of Rites.²⁴

Had Mulet composed a mere tribute to the basilica’s architecture, the dates on the score’s dedication might likely be those of the entire time of construction from cornerstone to consecration (1875–1919). Instead, Mulet chose the dates from the beginning of World War I to its formal end with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. Moreover, English speakers tend to limit the meaning of the word memoîre to its cognate translation “memory.” This might suggest some nostalgia or sentimental longing for something in the distant past, perhaps a reflection on Mulet’s childhood lived in the shadow of the basilica or as if the building had been destroyed; however, memoîre can also mean a thesis or proposition needing defending.²⁵ Mulet’s proposal may have been that the Sacred Heart of Jesus and his church saved France. One may view Mulet’s work as not only a celebration of the consecration of the building but also a celebration of the Allied victory that Catholics attributed to the divine intervention of the Sacred Heart. In this light, the motto may even be a defense of the prophecies of Alacoque.

The fourth movement, “Chapelle des Morts” (“Chapel of the Dead”), bears the inscription: “In venerable memory of His Eminence Cardinal Guibert whose empty tomb in this chapel is still waiting for the fulfillment of his last will.” The Chapelle des Morts in the basilica’s crypt includes the tomb of Cardinal Guibert, surmounted by a statue of him presenting a miniature of the basilica to God. Additionally, the tomb of his successor, Cardinal Richard, is there as is an urn containing the heart of Alexandre Legentil. Despite the plural name and multiple tombs found in this chapel, Mulet singularizes Cardinal Guibert.

The son of a farmer, Guibert was born on December 13, 1802, in Aix-en-Provence. After several years at a Sulpician major seminary, he became a Missionary of Provence on January 25, 1823. On August 14, 1825, in Marseille he was ordained a priest. He received three successive bishoprics: Viviers in 1842, Tours in 1857, and Paris in 1871. He was elevated to the College of Cardinals on December 22, 1873. His appointment to Paris was hardly a “promotion,” for all three of his predecessors had been assassinated in office. Guibert initially refused the appointment, but Pope Pius IX mandated his acceptance of the post. He was installed as archbishop in Notre-Dame Cathedral on October 27, 1871. He died on July 8, 1886. According to multiple biographers, the two tremendous achievements of his tenure in Paris were the construction of the basilica and the establishment of the Catholic University (Institute) in 1875.

Guibert was the principal representative of the ultramontane movement in France. Ultramontanism, which translates “beyond the mountains (Alps),” was an unorganized movement of conservative nineteenth-century Catholics that emphasized absolute, centralized papal authority. The movement arose in the 1860s when the Italian Unification movement conquered the Papal States. The ultramontane Catholics supported the restoration of the Papal States without compromise. Concerning papal authority, Guibert writes: “The Bishops desire order; they respect authority, which is the principal foundation of society. The hand of the Church has never been seen in revolutions. You will do well to direct your attention and solicitude elsewhere.”²⁶ And again: “The republic has received neither from God nor from history any promise of immortality.”²⁷ Guibert’s writings highlight an ardent desire among conservative Catholics to restore the French monarchy and practical papal sovereignty. The Republic was the enemy.

Before his death, Guibert directed that his Requiem Mass should be simple and that the money that would have been spent on an elaborate funeral be given to the poor. At first, he was laid in state and was buried in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. His remains were later transferred to the Chapel of the Dead in Sacré-Coeur. A Latin inscription on his tomb states that he was interred there in 1922, thirty-six years later. Mulet’s motto suggests his indignation that Guibert’s remains were still missing from the Chapel of the Dead in 1919. Whether this indicates that Mulet supported Guibert’s ideology is debatable, but he seemed to admire the cardinal enough to bring attention to his empty tomb.

The fifth movement, “Campanile” (“Bell Tower”), bears the inscription “All white, it towers over the vastness of the countryside from afar.” The basilica sits on Montmartre, one of the highest points in Paris. Guibert chose this site because of the view of the city that it affords; however, Mulet chose the word “campagne” rather than “ville” or “Cité,” perhaps because he felt that the bell tower is the pinnacle point not only of Paris but of the entire country. He reinforces this by identifying the bell tower, not the basilica as a whole, as this zenith point. “Campagne” can also mean a military or political campaign. This could be Mulet’s deliberate allusion to the evangelical mission of the basilica and to call all of France to penitential conversion.

By 1912 the bell tower of Sacré-Coeur was complete and thus was not finished when Mulet wrote his work in 1908. Because of this, Mulet may have had an idealized vision of the belfry and the entire basilica in mind. The bell tower and its great drone bell, “La Savoyarde,” were sources of great pride among Parisian Catholics. Catholic churches have named, blessed, and consecrated bells for centuries in a rite known as the “baptism of bells.” The formal name of the great bell of Sacré-Coeur is Françoise Marguerite of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, colloquially known as La Savoyarde. The bell was cast at the Paccard foundry in Annecy-le-Vieux. Francis Albert Leuilleux, Archbishop of Chambery, and the bishops of Savoy initiated its creation; the clergy and upper and lower classes of the province funded it, hence the nickname La Savoyarde.

Weighing nineteen tons, La Savoyarde is the largest bell in France and the sixth largest in Europe. It arrived at Montmartre on October 16, 1895. A team of twenty-eight horses pulled it into Paris. Its arrival was a huge public spectacle attended by hundreds of thousands of Parisians. It was formally baptized on this date by Cardinal Archbishop Richard of Paris. A souvenir booklet from the occasion tells us, “The voice of the bells is the voice of God,”²⁸ and that, “It is, thank God, this terrible Savoyard, of a size and weight to resist all the attacks of the demolishers and the shock of all future revolutions.”²⁹ “It is, in all respects, the most beautiful bell that has been made to this day. It is the largest, the richest, and the most harmonious that exists in France. She is the queen of the world’s bells. We can only delight in it: it is the Bell of the Sacred Heart.”³⁰ By using the word “campagne” to include all territories outside of the city of Paris, Mulet may very well have been advancing the mission and message of the basilica for all of France and even the world.

The most interesting and vastly popular movement that suggests an ideological program for the Esquisses Byzantines is its final movement: “Tu es petra et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus te” (“You are the rock and the gates of Hell will never prevail against you”). Mulet’s manuscript that Leduc presumably used for publication, now in a private collection, shows that at the time of composition, Mulet titled the work simply “Toccata.” Mulet scribbled this out and added the “Tu es petra” title in different ink, along with a host of other changes. This points to the ideological meaning given the work at the time of publication. The Latin inscription is a quote from the Vulgate Bible that asserts that Christ established the papacy. The Greek text of Saint Matthew’s Gospel has been the subject of debate among Christians since the Western Schism. The Catholic Church’s official interpretation of the Vulgate states that the Church is founded not on a geological rock but by Christ who appointed Peter as the first pope and established the Petrine ministry as God’s eternal presence in the world. Orthodox and Protestant churches interpret the Greek differently. The full text of Matthew 16:18–19 reads: “Et ego dico tibi, quia tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam,” “And I tell you, because you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Mulet made three edits to the Biblical text.

The first edit is the change from “Petrus,” a masculine, proper noun meaning the name Peter, to “petra,” a feminine noun meaning a geological rock. Given the uniform association between Mulet’s Catholic audience with the papacy, this revision is startling. Several seminary professors of Church history found no precedent in the Catholic world for this alteration. One of them felt that the substitution was so bizarre that perhaps Mulet was writing from memory and misquoted the Vulgate!

The dominant theory to explain this change is that the “rock” is Montmartre Hill, and that “hell” is an allegory for the passage of time and erosion by the elements. This widely accepted theory does not come directly from Mulet nor anecdotally from Raugel. The Greek word “Petrus” appears sixteen times in the New Testament. If Mulet only wanted to speak of geological rocks, he could have selected any of these since the “Tu es petra” text has such a strong association with the papacy. Another theory says that “petra” refers to the smaller, Medieval church of Saint Pierre-de-Montmartre, an institution consecrated over 700 years before the basilica. Regardless, both interpretations struggle to compete with the dominant Catholic exegesis.

Significant, too, is the omission of the phrase “et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam,” the portion of the text interpreted as the source of papal authority. This omission suggests that Mulet is not arguing for the legitimacy of the Petrine office but the invincibility of “petra.” The third edit is the change of the word “eam” (“him”) to “te” (“you”) to match the feminine gender of “petra.” This change is significant because of the distance between the two agreeing words in the Latin text. A mere misquotation would not be so precise. Despite the difference in languages, Mulet may have linked the French “Montmartre” with the Latin “petra” because both are of feminine gender. Without a doubt, “petra” means “rock.” Mulet just changed the Biblical text to suit his purpose, a tactic that he frequently employed in various other pieces. Knowing that his Catholic audience would immediately associate this passage with the papacy, Mulet may have intended another double meaning of the word “petra.”

To fully understand Mulet’s use of the title and its relationship to the basilica, one needs to examine the status of the papacy by 1920. The French Revolution of 1789 effectively ended the notion of government as a divinely ordained hierarchy. This idea quickly swept across the globe. In Italy, minor revolutions in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s gave rise to the movement to unite the Italian peninsula: the Risorgimento. Because the centrally located Papal States divided Italy in half, the Italian nationalists viewed them as an obstacle to unification. The nationalists conquered them one by one, and by 1861 only Rome remained directly under papal rule. The pope’s army was weak and had never been able to defend any of its states without the military assistance of historically Catholic countries. Most of these allies withdrew their aid when the First Vatican Council (1869–1870) decreed papal infallibility. Only the French remained, and the onset of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 recalled all these troops from Rome. The pope pleaded for international assistance, but still enraged at the definition of papal infallibility, the leadership of Europe’s traditionally Catholic countries refused. King Victor Emmanuel II (1820–1878) of Italy attempted diplomatic resolutions to the problem of Rome, but Pope Pius IX would cede nothing to the Italians.

Rome, undefended, was invaded by the Italian army under the command of Raffaele Cadorna (1815–1897) in the early morning hours of September 20, 1870. It fell soon afterward. The populace of Rome was itself divided on whether Rome should be independent of the papacy. “The Catholic religion represented the hand of medieval superstition and inequality, faith in the supernatural rather than in reason.”³¹ By 1873, cries of “death to the Pope” rang in the streets, which led to the excommunication of King Victor Emmanuel II for his Law of Suppression of Religious Corporations. Unwavering, the pope insisted that his spiritual autonomy depended upon his territorial sovereignty. There was no room in Rome for two sovereigns. Pope Pius IX declared himself “Prisoner of the Vatican” and refused to leave its buildings rather than to accept the sovereignty of the King of Italy. He and his successors would remain “prisoners” until Pope Pius XI bartered the Lateran Treaty with Benito Mussolini in 1929, creating the Vatican City State.

When Rome fell, France gazed at the events in Italy with tears in its eyes. France, the Pope’s surest defender, abandoned him in his hour of greatest need. The papal nuncio to France remarked that as “. . . the French army’s catastrophe on the Rhine began, . . . the conviction is spreading and deepening that the French government’s sins toward the Holy See have provoked God’s wrath on France.”³² The French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War was God’s punishment inflicted on the nation for abandoning the pope. France needed to atone for its sins against God when it allowed Papal Rome to fall.

“To obtain the deliverance of the Sovereign Pontiff and the Salvation of France” is one of two fundamental goals of Legentil’s National Vow. The construction of Sacré-Coeur to fulfill the demands of Alacoque’s vision was a required act of reparation for the country’s sins against the papacy. To win back God’s favor, its construction was essential. Revolutions in France and Italy had ended the church’s immediate, practical, governing authority, resulting in the execution of bishops and clergy and the demolition of once-great monasteries and convents. The pope was walled up in the Vatican in the face of a secular government and a populace thirsty for his blood. The bishop of Poitiers, François Pie, noted that, “The Revolution of 1789 is the original sin of public life.”³³ Simply put: hell is the Revolution. The Savoyarde dedication booklet anticipates this explicitly, stating that its purpose is “to resist all the attacks of the demolishers and the shock of all the future revolutions” (italics added).³⁴ The precedent of this view and its likely dissemination among French Catholics suggests that Mulet’s message in this final movement of the cycle is a statement of faith in both the physical building and its ideology; and as such, “Tu es petra” is no mere circus showpiece, but the profound prayer of a fervent heart and a statement of hope and comfort to an oppressed Church.

Conclusion

While there is no doubt that Mulet’s Esquisses Byzantines is a colorful interpretation of the architecture of the Sacré-Coeur Basilica in Paris, one should not neglect its ideological program. A close reading of this text completes the understanding of the piece in a more philosophical way than the empiricists suggest. The ideology of the basilica is one of atonement—a call to France to repent for the sins of the Revolution and for failure to protect the pope from the Risorgimento. The fruit of this penance was the Allied victory in World War I. Mulet’s programmatic inscriptions seem to support this as does his otherwise unknown motivation for publishing the work at this time. Mulet never commented on the program of the Esquisses Byzantines, but this in no way dismisses this close reading.

The French victory in World War I confirmed for conservative Catholics that the final fulfillment of the prophecies of Marguerite-Marie Alacoque had been successful. France had atoned for its sins. Alacoque was canonized on May 13, 1920, the final affirmation of the victory won through the Sacred Heart of Jesus for France and the world.

Notes

1. Jane F. Fulcher, The Composer as Intellectual: Music and Ideology in France 1914–1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), page 17.

2. Ibid., page 5.

3. Raymond A. Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart: an Epic Tale for Modern Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), page 27.

4. Ibid., page 40.

5. Ibid., page 83.

6. Ibid., page 90.

7. Ibid., page 149.

8. Alfred Van den Brule, Le Sacré-Coeur De Montmartre: Hubert Rohault De Fleury (Paris: Spes, 1930), page 134.

9. David Harvey, Paris, Capital of Modernity (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2006), page 376.

10. Jacques Benoist, “Le Sacré-Coeur De Montmartre De 1870 a Nos Jours,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, volume 26, number 1 (1992), pages 355–356.

11. Felix Raugel, letter to Kenneth Saslaw, July 7, 1973. Correspondence: Saslaw archives, Donna Walters, Gautier, Mississippi, November 16, 2023.

12. Bulletin De l’Œuvre Du Vœu National, Archives Historiques De l’Archevêché De Paris (AHAP), 1895, page 924.

13. Benoist, page 608.

14. Donna Mary Walters, Steven Best, and Thomas Fielding, The Enigmatic Organist (manuscript), page 1.

15. Ibid., page 26.

16. Ibid., page 23.

17. Fulcher, op. cit., page 11.

18. “Les tendances et antireligieuses néfastes de l’orgue moderne,” Congres General de Musique Sacrée, Strasbourg, July 26–31, 1921, page 9.

19. Isabelle Mulet letter to Kenneth Saslaw, July 7, 1973. Correspondence in Saslaw archives, Donna Walters, Gautier, Mississippi, November 16, 2023.

20. Benoist, op. cit., page 586.

20. Benoist, op. cit., page 588.

21. Harvey, op. cit., page 381.

22. G. Mulet, “La Savoyarde: Cantique Populaire” (Grenoble, M. Fleurot, 1896).

23. Paul Handley, editor, “Sacre Coeur Is Consecrated,” Church Times, October 25, 2019, www.churchtimes.co.uk/.

24. Jean-Loup Truche, Concerning the Translations of the Words “Memoîre” and “Campagnes,” email to the author, January 12, 2020.

25. Quoted in R. F. O’Conner, “Cardinal Guibert.” American Catholic Quarterly Review, Volume XLII, Number 165 (January 1917), page 465.

26. Ibid., page 487.

27. Savoyarde.

28. Ibid., page 47.

29. Ibid., page 71.

30. David Kertzer, Prisoner of the Vatican (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006), page 111.

31. Ibid., page 39.

32. Kertzer, op. cit., p. 39.

33. Jonas, op. cit., page 147.

34. “Voeu national au Sacré Coeur: cérémonie du baptême de Françoise Marguerite du Sacré-Coeur [cloche dite la Savoyarde de]” (Paris: Imprimerie Devalois, 1895).