Kuhn Organ Builders Ltd, 2010
Restoration
www.orgelbau.ch/ope=801520
II/P/23
Austria, Carinthia
Stadtpfarrkirche St. Markus
«We meet again - a renewed acquaintance from Passau»
The history of every organ is closely connected with the history of the organ builders who built, maintained, modified or dismantled it. Often they are names which we restorers come across for the first time during our journey into the past, but not infrequently we find ourselves in the company of those with whom we have already become acquainted somewhere on our travels.
In Wolfsberg, in the State of Kärnten, Austria, we met again with the organ builder Martin Hechenberger from Passau. Where had we come across him before? That's right, during the restoration of the Egedacher organ in Vornbach am Inn. There he had constructed new bellows and had carried out modifications to the action. To be honest, his work on this slider chest organ of 1732 had not particularly impressed us. His new pneumatic cone-chest organ in Wolfsberg, on the other hand, earned our great respect right from the outset. A pneumatic down current regulator, absolutely state-of-the-art for the time the instrument was built, a durable windchest construction, good pipework and beautiful detail in the craftsmanship convinced us that the instrument was, without question, worth restoring. In addition to this was the fact that the organ had undergone very few modifications during its over 100 year history. These included the front pipes made of tin, which had been replaced with zinc pipes during the World War I., and the stop Flöte travers 4 '. This had been displaced by an octave, afterwards sounding as a 2 ' stop. The time of this alteration is unknown.
Besides the new construction of the front pipes made of tin and the return of the Flöte travers to its original 4 ' (pipes of the lowest octave new), the main focus of the restoration involved work on the pneumatic action and console. In a down current pneumatic system the accessibility of the membranes is difficult and requires the complete dismantling of the transmissions. On undertaking these necessary and time-consuming measures to replace the defective leather parts it did, of course, make sense to replace all the interior membranes and the valve segments. The same applied for the membranes under the cone valves. Also completely renewed was the leather of the slider motor. These measures ensure the long-term functioning of the organ once again.
After over a hundred years, naturally a thorough overhaul of all parts of the organ was also necessary.
Since its restoration the organ now stands as a very good testimony of the work of Martin Hechenberger. It gave us great pleasure to bring the technical and tonal qualities of this instrument back to their former standing and we look forward to future opportunities of renewing our acquaintance with Martin Hechenberger!
Translation: SJR 2011