Usually, pipe organs are only found within churches and cathedrals. If you want to create authentic pipe organ sound within your own four walls, you need to build your own pipe organ – which Peter Puschner set out to do.
As indispensible to authentic sound the basic instrument has to be a mechanical pipe organ small enough for a private residence while allowing the proper performance of a wide repertoire of mostly romantic music. Hofbauer provided such an instrument based on an 8’ principal with two manuals, independent pedal and fifteen stops. The construction kit allowed building a pipe organ comprising Hauptwerk (Prinzipal 8', Metallgedackt 8', Oktave 4', Gemshorn 2', Mixtur 2-fach 1 1/3'), Brust- or Schwellwerk (Holzgedackt 8', Rohrflöte 4', Oktave 2', Terz 1 3/5', Schalmei-Regal 8') and Pedalwerk (Subbaß 16', Pommer 16', Gedacktbaß 8', Choralbaß 4') with mechanical tracking action and the possibility to mechanically couple each manual to the Pedalwerk and the Schwellwerk to the Hauptwerk, each Werk using its own slider chest. Altogether there are 744 pipes; the wind pressure is 50 mm WC.
In order to achieve the best results some small adaptations were made. Tremulants varying the wind supply were installed into Hauptwerk and Brustwerk. The wind chests were equipped with a leaf-type spring to help regulating air pressure with no or low influence of the numbers of activated registers. Fitting the planned site the casing was constructed taking advantage of the distinct arrangement of pipes and the inclination of the wall. Because it is often used in the romantic music that Peter likes to play, the casing was built as a swell box, allowing the dampening of tones. The largest pipes were positioned horizontally behind the organ and the whole casing was painted white. Placed in an average church this instrument would sound like a classical church organ.
That being impracticable, how can a reverberating room be recreated artificially? To achieve maximum sound fidelity and out of professional plaisier the initial idea was to install something like fifty separate microphone-speaker systems into each wall, capturing the sound waves and replaying them almost instantly – a wall that reflects sound with the desired delay.
Being a little too laborious another option was implemented. Microphones were installed at the top of the pipes, channeling the sound signal to a processor driven reverberation system with multi channel power amplifiers. Adjustable to up to five seconds reverberation time the signal is then emitted by loudspeakers in every corner of the room, thus simulating a diffuse sound field. Of course the damping behavior of the (living) room also plays a role, limiting the authentic recreation of that part of original organ sound that is created by the unique diffuse wall reflections of a certain building.
References
- Interview and Documentation with Dr. Peter Puschner
