The front of the organ. Architects: Inger and Johannes Exner.
The acoustics of Jørlunde church are generally excellent for music and the reverberation period is almost 3 seconds (when empty) - quite long for a small church. However, when the church is full the reverberation becomes less than 1 second, so both scenarios had to be considered in the planning and not least the voicing process. Obviously the organ sounds its very best when the church is empty, or less than half full, but even with the church filled to the last seat, the sound is carried through the entire church, without the tone itself being diminished. Only in the pauses after, say, a large chord is the lack of reverberation noticed.
A limit of 19 voices (plus a few extensions/duplicates) was set from the start, and within that limit the goal was to create an instrument that could fulfill all the liturgic requirements as well as function as a concert instrument.
Almost 5 months was spend on voicing after the pipes had been installed in the church, with two voicers - Ole Høyer and his assistant - working full time five - sometimes six - days a week exclusively on this organ. The attention to detail is uncompromising. Only the best materials has been used in the construction from inside to outside. For example, the white keys are all made of 10,000+ years old mammoth tooth found in Siberia!
Inaugurated: October 25th, 2009
Organ builders: Th. Frobenius and Sons
Chief-voicer: Ole Høyer
Architects: Inger and Johannes Exner
Advisers to the church council: Gunnar Svensson and Frederik Magle
List of stops and tonal design created by Frederik Magle
A look inside the Swell Organ. The Oboe (on the left) is capped.
The Aetheria-Cornet is mounted above the rest of the voices.
Excluding the Vox Angelica 8' (which is not meant to be used in full organ registrations), the Swell organ has four flue ranks strengthening the 8-feet pitch; Rørfløjte 8', Fugara 8', and 2 2/3' and 1 3/5' in the Aetheria-Cornet. Three ranks strengthens the 4-feet pitch; Gemshorn 4', Nasat 1 1/3', and the 4' rank from the Aetheria Cornet. Two ranks strengthens 2-feet; Schweizerfløjte 2' and the 2'-rank in the Aetheria-Cornet. Finally, the Oboe blends perfectly together with the harmonic spectrum of the flue voices. Carefully voiced, the result is an almost perfect balance, and a richness in tone giving the impression of a much larger instrument.
The Schweizerfløjte (Swiss Flute) is an inverted conical flute, with a most delightful tone. It works very well both alone and together with the rest of the Swell organ flutes. Nasat 1 1/3', is a conical flute, and provides a delicate top to the Swell. It can of course also be used as a 2 2/3' for soloist purposes if played an octave lower.
Chief-voicer Ole Høyer from Frobenius next to the pedal Trombone 16'
The longest pipe is 5 meters (16 feet) tall. It's the largest organ pipes ever installed in a Danish village church. Behind the Trombone a few Subbas 16' pipes can be seen.
During the 5-month voicing process of the organ-construction I would come to the church most days and improvise on the newly voiced pipes. Sometimes a whole voice, sometimes just a few pipes. The voicer, and often also the organist, would be present, listening, and when I had improvised for a while we would then discuss the sound in detail and finally agree on what changes to the sound of the pipes, if any, should be made. We would then repeat the process the next day and so forth.
The improvisations on Like a Flame represents the consequence and culmination, so to speak, of the improvisations that had a role in the shaping of the organ's sound.
The music range from the very melodic ("Dreams of Childhood Dreams", "Lament", "Destiny") to the almost fully atonal ("Fleeting Glimpses", "Truth") and everything in-between. The 12 excerpts below represents a sample of the 23 pieces - two hours and twelve minutes of music - on the album:
