Local craftspeople build huge pipe organ
By Yudha Kartohadiprodjo
JAKARTA (JP): Although pipe organs are most commonly associated with the grand cathedrals of Europe, it is the hands of Sukabumi craftspeople which are responsible for creating the largest organ in Indonesia.
The organ in question is found in Paulus Church, Jl. Taman Suropati, Central Jakarta, and will be inaugurated tonight, the 62nd anniversary of the church.
Over a three year period, craftspeople from Prajawidya Instrumentalia, led by Suwandi, worked to assemble the largest organ in Indonesia using only local and salvaged materials.
The group has successfully made pipe organs out of bamboo in the past and one of their organs now has pride of place in a small Catholic chapel in a Protestant dominated area of Belgium.
The workers also manufacture bamboo harpsichords.
Paulus Church elders decided to replace the old organ because it did not properly fill the large church, which was built in 1936 to accommodate a much bigger organ.
The new organ cost the church Rp 120 million, well below what it would have cost had it been purchased from Europe.
"We were fortunate, the last shipment of used pipes for the organ was ordered from the Netherlands just before the monetary crisis hit Indonesia," said Joan Henuhilli Raturandang, chairman of the organ inauguration committee.
The pleasant acoustics of his church inspired Rev. Van Dop, an ecclesiastical music and church acoustics expert, to search high and low for a better organ.
The reverend began to salvage bits of old Indonesian organs with a view to building a bigger organ for the church, but his painstaking search eventually lead him to seek out old organs in the Netherlands.
He then put his organ project into the capable hands of Suwandi and his eager craftsman and set them to work on it.
In three years they succeeded in assembling the biggest pipe organ in Indonesia. With 22 stops and 1,392 pipes, the huge instrument now sits gracefully on top of the congregation platform in Paulus Church.
"We only planned to assemble a pipe organ with 16 stops. But when we reached 16 stops we said to ourselves: 'Why not try for some more?'" Rev. Van Dop said.
Good acoustics and correct placement are essential to get the best out of an organ. A resonant room with 3 seconds or more reverberation is desirable.
The earliest organ was made in Alexandria around the 3rd century B.C. by Ctesbius, a Greek engineer. It was called hydraulus on account of the drum partially filled with water which it used to emit sound. The hydraulus is viewed by organ enthusiasts as a prototype of today's instruments.
Organs first appeared in church services in the 8th century. It has a range unattainable by any other instrument and this helped it to create a divine atmosphere for church congregations.
Organ development is indebted to the Christian devotion to praising God. Kingdoms in Europe throughout the middle ages competed with each other over the size of their organs.
Organ music then reached a peak in the 18th century. Johann Sebastian Bach, who started his career as the organist in St. James Church, Hamburg, in 1703, wrote the most famous works for the organ during the 18th century, the best known of which is the Mass in B Minor.
However, thereafter the popularity of organ music waned and was eclipsed by orchestral and operatic music, and the rise of other keyboard instruments.