Organ of the catholic church St. Theresia in Kaiserslautern
Opus 414
21/II/P
Built in 2010 – in using the stops and the slider chests of the Zimnol-Organ from Christ König, Kaiserslautern (1970, II/P/16)
New mechanical key action and electrical stop action
Couplers: II/I, I/Ped, II/Ped
Case from ash tree, stainted dark and finally waxed with an emulsion from pigments of Gold and liquid wood wax.
The triangular parts of the case and the „Antependium“ are gilded in 24 carat gold.
Combination system with 2 x 10.000 combinations, USB-Flash drive for key access, storage and backup the registrations
4 permanent combinations: p, mf, f, Tutti
Design by Prof. Mack (performing artist), Heinrich Hartmann (Diözesanbaumeister Bischöfliches Bauamt, Speyer), Stephan Mayer (master of organ building and general manager) of Hugo Mayer Orgelbau GmbH
A Queen in New Outfit!
We were tasked to check if the Zimnol organ in the Christ König church, built in 1970, could be transferred to St. Theresia. Rather quickly all involved in the planning phase of the analysis agreed that this would be possible in a strictly technical sense, but would significantly impair the self-contained and harmonious church interior design of Prof. Mack without an optical modification of the organ prospectus. It was, therefore, agreed to build a whole new casing for the organ. The new design was created by diocesan master builder Hartmann and Mr. Müller of the Department of Planning and Building Inspection of the Diocese Speyer in cooperation with Prof. Mack. The Organ Building Shop HUGO MAYER was involved in advisory and executive roles.
The new design of the organ did not only affect its exterior, but also entailed a complete modification of the technical interior section. Through repositioning the wind chest and the pedal section we were able to create wider voice corridors. Originally, the instrument featured a free-standing keyboard table. This was discarded for optical and technical reasons and a new play section was designed and built as a central keyboard table built into the bottom casing. The entire tone section, as well, i.e. the mechanical connections between the tone valves in the wind chests and the individual keys, was renewed. For this, we used only special timbers that had been seasoned for 15 years. The roller boards are made of ash wood, the mechanical angles and roller arms of sycamore maple and the tracker action – the thin wooden connections between the keys and the tone valves – is made of cedar wood with an especially small cross-section of 0.8 x 5 mm. The entire wind section, as well, was newly designed and built of solid spruce wood. The Zimnol organ featured 5 vacant stops, i.e. these were conceptually incorporated into the wind chests but had not yet been installed. Since the reconstruction of the organ now offered the unique opportunity to realize these missing voices, those stops were now installed, which considerably enlarged the sound variety of the instrument.
The existing wind chests underwent a substantial renovation. With the intention of making the keys easier to play we calculated the air volume requirement. As a result we determined that the valve slots in keyboard section II could be reduced in size, while the valve slot sizes in keyboard I and pedal sections had to be maintained. Accordingly, the existing valve slots were closed in the bass section of the keyboard section II and smaller valve slots were milled. New valves were manufactured from fine mountain spruce and inserted. In the first keyboard section we built so-called „balanciers“ in the bass section. These are miniature bellows which, by the special way they are built in help to reduce the key pressure. Moreover, the sealing systems between the sliders and sound boards with the pipes were renewed.
Due to the higher wind demand of the organ the dimensions of the existing organ blower and the reservoir bellows were too small, which is why we built in a new special blower unit with a capacity of 14 m3/min at a maximum wind pressure power of 120 mm water column (0.12 bar) and 2800 U/min and a larger reservoir bellows. The partly defective electric spindle motors for actuating the stops at the wind chests were exchanged with modern twin lifting magnets. These have a higher longevity and only use power when actuated.
The instrument now features a new HUGO MAYER setting system consisting of an alphanumerical operating panel which was integrated into the organ bench as a drawer, a USB connection for the securing of data and for the recording and replay of saved combinations, a display to show the currently set combination as well as the central computer unit.
All organ stops were entirely adapted to the acoustic conditions of the church interior of St. Theresia, i.e. all 1326 pipes were assimilated to each other very carefully in their sound characteristics within the stop rows, with the intent that the stops would differentiate in sound as well as complement each other.