Last night I had the occasion and the pleasure to participate in an organ concert, organized in a medieval church. I must admit, it feels like I'm the luckiest person on earth as my dream came true. I had my eye on a concert like this for a long time, but somehow I've never been at the right place at the right time. This year I had the pleasure to enjoy two concerts in medieval churches, one of which was this extraordinary organ concert.
The organ for me is the God of all instruments and not only because of the size and the construction of the instrument, but because of what this amazing creature can do, but before I go into more details, let's see where the concert took place.
The Lutheran Church of Reghin
The concert took place in the Lutheran Church of Reghin, which is a historical building and a historical piece of the city.
The Reghin Lutheran church is a Lutheran church located at 1 Călărașilor Street in Reghin, itself situated in Mureș County, in the Transylvania region of Romania. The church was built by the ethnic German Transylvanian Saxon community at a time when the area belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary. Initially Roman Catholic, it became Lutheran following the Reformation.
The oldest building in the city, it was completed in 1330, as attested by a stone inscription in Latin, the earliest such carving on a medieval Transylvanian church. Valuable architectural elements include a Gothic window frame from 1400 decorated with human figures; corbels unique to the region that describe a treasure hidden inside; and the city’s first coat of arms, inscribed O.P.R. (Oppidum Privilegiatum Regun), confirming its privilege to hold fairs. The tower, 47 meters high and flanked by four smaller towers, attests Reghin’s power to pass judgment. source
Last year I had the pleasure to visit the church and also to take photographs. You can read my post here.
This year I only took a few photos of the exterior of the church, to show you how amazing the building is.
I was standing at the entrance and looking at this arched part, thinking that is similar to the Notre-Dame de Paris but checking it out, there's very little similarity.
The windows are something to specially pay attention to. These church windows are usually painted glass, some have real artworks painted on them, but not these ones.
This is the side entrance...
... and the lovely door.
I did one year of Latin in school, because it was mandatory. We had some basic knowledge, of which most of it is long forgotten. However, the numbers are not. I took this photo with the purpose of teasing you. There's a number at the bottom, the year in which this stone plate was carved. Let's see how many of you know what year was that :)
And finally one of the lovely windows. As I said before, it's not the usual window you see everywhere and maybe that's why I like it, It's more simple, more elegant.
Another interesting thing is this sundial, that was created in 1630. There are only a few left in Transylvania, so this is valuable. However, the sundial is not working properly as the time when I took the photo was 9:30 am.
The Concert
The reason I wanted to attend this concert was because it was an organ concert. Unfortunately there are not many concert halls in Romania, I mean proper concert halls and even less have a proper organ. This is why medieval churches are important and many are hosting concerts during summer. The acoustic of these churches is absolutely fantastic, therefore are perfect for concerts.
I'm not sure if photographing is allowed, but as we entered, I snapped a few photos quickly. Last year we were the only two visitors and when i asked about it, the woman said she did not see anything :)
And here's the beautiful beast! The organ, an instrument that can't be compared to any other instrument.
Basically these are just the pipes as the organ itself was up in the first floor, where we were not allowed.
Yesterday we had the pleasure the listen to Peter Kleinert's organ performance, a cantor and an organ artist from Germany (in the middle on the photo above).
The entrance was free and this was the program of the concert.
Before the concert started, the maestro addressed the audience, explained what he's going to play and also warned us about the organ having a couple of faulty key, due to which he almost dropped the third piece, but then decided it to keep it.
This was kind of funny as the majority, if not all the audience had no musical studies and I doubt anyone could tell in the end, which were those few notes that sounded funny. I tried to figure out, but obviously couldn't.
So what was the concert like? For me it was an hour of traveling to another world, to another dimension through the sound of music. There were moments, when I thought those pipes will blow the roof off, that's how powerful the sound was, which makes me love this instrument.
Each musical piece had a different intensity. I'm really sorry for not having the proper vocabulary to explain this, but I'm trying. So there were louder pieces, then more quiet ones.
While I was listening to the sound of the organ, I had the impression that a whole orchestra is playing for us, although it was one single person.
Luckily, we live in the 21st century and we have smart devices, so I audio recorded the whole performance and can listen to it whenever I want. I'm not sure if I can upload it to Hive, or if I'm allowed, but at leas I have it. Unfortunately not many are fan of this genre of music though.
There's another organ concert in another medieval church that I have my eye on, let's see if i can attend as I'd love to.
This is the second Transylvanian church I'm pinning to the map of Pinmapple for musical reasons.
If you're planning to visit the church and have time to stay the night, you can pick a day in which there's a concert and enjoy the unique experience. There's one more concert this year, in September, after which the season is over.
