Oldest organ in Christendom sounded for first time in 800 years, leaving organist speechless

JERUSALEM (OSV News) — After 800 years of silence, the pipes from the oldest organ in Christendom played again, filling the reception hall of Jerusalem’s Franciscan Monastery of St. Saviour with the unique sound of the 11th-century liturgical chant, Benedicamus Domino Flos Filius.

It was performed by Spanish researcher and organist David Catalunya, marking the highlight of a five-year international research project sparked by his rediscovery of 222 ancient bronze pipes.

Sounding unlike any other modern organ, the notes elicited from the 16 selected pipes — six of which were original — displayed on a wind-chest constructed specifically for them by master organ maker Winold van der Putten, were a rich combination of three different registers at Catalunya’s performance during a press presentation of the organ pipes on Sept. 9.

“It’s very, very like celestial music,” Catalunya said. “The emotion I felt when I heard the sound revealing itself after 800 years of silence was like … opening the tomb of a pharaoh. It came to us as a surprise indeed. The following days, myself and my team were like floating inside a dream.”

“We couldn’t really believe it. I spent the following nights without sleeping,” he added. “It is the oldest organ in Christendom, possibly the oldest musical instrument in the world maintaining its original sound.”

Dubbed the Bethlehem Organ, it is believed to have been located in the chancel of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, an area now under the jurisdiction of the Armenian Church, he said.

It consists of 18 pipes for every note, something very different from modern organs, which normally have only five or six pipes for every note, he said. To experience the full sound of the entire instrument, a replica needs to be built, which is the next stage of the project, Catalunya added.

The research project is supported by the Complutense Institute of Musical Sciences of Madrid, in collaboration with the Franciscan Terra Sancta Museum and the Custody of the Holy Land.

The organ pipes and their reconstructed organ case built by a local craftsman will be displayed at the Music Cloister of the future Terra Sancta Museum Art & History, currently under construction led by Franciscan Father Stéphane Milovitch and supported by the Belgian government. Several replicas are also planned for display in Bethlehem and in Europe.

The organ was originally built in France in the 11th century and was used for nearly a century in a church in France, possibly near Paris or the Abbey of Fleury, said Catalunya. It was transported to the Holy Land and Bethlehem by the Crusaders a century later, where it sounded in the Church of the Nativity for another century.

Then it was painstakingly dismantled and the pipes buried underground along with a set of bells to protect them on the eve of the invasion of the Muslim Khwarezmian Turks in 1244, known as the Siege of Jerusalem.

“European Christians … brought to the Basilica of Bethlehem the most avant garde musical instrument then used in worship, the organ. An instrument designed to become the emblem of sacred music,” said Álvaro Torrente, director of the Complutense Institute of Music.

“Today … virtually every Christian church has an organ. But in the 11th century, this was still a novelty. The men who carried this organ to Bethlehem were driven by the same desire for the finest voices and instruments in the world to embellish the liturgy of the Basilica Nativity,” he said.

The pipes were preserved in almost meticulous condition thanks to the dry climate and the fact they were made from copper and carefully hidden by the Franciscans, Catalunya added.

Original markings by the pipe maker 800 years ago remain visible on the pipes and provided invaluable information for the researchers about how they were made, Catalunya said, allowing them to make the reproductions in the exact same way. Despite being a thousand years old, the pipes produce a surprisingly full and authentic sound, capable of filling large architectural spaces, he added.

The researchers took over 5,000 measurements of the pipes and reconstructed the organ case.

“It’s apparent that their makers knew very well what they wanted to hear,” said Koos van de Linde, a leading organ researcher. “It was extremely moving to hear how some of these pipes became alive again after about 700 years under the earth. After 800 years of silence, the hope of the crusaders who buried them, that the moment would come when they would (sound) again … was not in vain.”

Van de Linde called it “a great honor to be a witness of this and to be involved in that resurrection.”

When reconstructing the instrument — organ maker van der Putten said he did not try to get the sound he wanted to hear from the pipes but tried to discover the sound that the old material supplied him with.

“That’s the most important way when you restore instruments, not to put yourself in front, but to put the material in front and listen to that,” he said. “It was opening new visions. You have here old pipes telling you things by its form. … I am 75 years old and I consider this the crown of my work.”

Father Eugenio Alliata, a Franciscan archaeologist from the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, said the collective memory of the hidden treasure had been kept alive for centuries but was finally discovered almost by chance in 1906 during the establishment of the Casa Nova Franciscan pilgrim hospice in Bethlehem, adjacent to the Church of the Nativity — in what was once the Catholic parish cemetery.

Excavations of the site by archaeologists from the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum uncovered the hidden 222 bronze pipes, a carillon of 13 bells and other liturgical objects. They were transferred to the Franciscan Archaeological Museum of the Convent of the Flagellation but for over a century the discovery went practically unnoticed in academic circles.

“It is a treasure hidden for eight centuries and then overlooked for more than 100 years, until my dear colleague David recognized that those pipes constitute a unique testimony to musical practice, not only here in Jerusalem, but across Europe,” noted Torrente.

“Before the discovery, there was no organ dated from the 15th century. Thus, the instruments take us four centuries back, offering a completely new perspective on medieval music.”

He said the organ also provided a unique window into medieval European music making, engineering and craftsmanship which could reshape the understanding of culture in the Middle Ages.

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