Organ concert provides experience in Bach’s home church

By Amy Eckert

It was only fitting that an organ concert for the General Council on Monday would be held in Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, where organ master Johann Sebastian Bach served as cantor from 1723-1750. The beloved composer premiered many of his sacred works here and his grave lies within the church walls.

It was also fitting that this WCRC gathering would feature a program revolving around five psalms taken from the Geneva Psalter. But neither Bach nor John Calvin would have recognized many of the pieces played at the concert, which included Renaissance-era interpretations and contemporary jazz improvisations of the original works.

Throughout the evening, each of five Calvin-era psalms was paired with a Renaissance-era interpretation of the original as well as a contemporary improvisation on the musical theme. Organist Winfried Dahlke played the evening’s older pieces on a Baldachin organ brought in specifically for the concert. The small organ was built in 1994 to resemble a 16th century instrument, the very sort of instrument that would have been common in John Calvin’s day.

The Baldachin organ attracted a lot of interest among audience members. About the size of a large travel trunk, the organ was outfitted with large bellows that were repeatedly pumped up and down by assistant Albert Kretzmer.

Acclaimed organist David Timm, music director of the University of Leipzig, performed the evening’s jazz improvisations on St. Thomas’s two permanent organs. The oldest of the two, an instrument built by Wilhelm Sauer in 1889, was fully restored in 2005. The newer organ, which the Thomaskirche typically features in its Bach concerts, was constructed by Gerald Woehl in 2000 and resembles Middle German organs of the 18th century. According to Timm, St. Thomas’s newest organ is not only well-suited to playing Bach, but also to playing jazz.

Delegate Pastor Regine Lehner from France thoroughly enjoyed the evening. “I’ve been to many organ concerts,” she said, “but this concert surprised me. I’ve never heard anything like this before!” She was particularly impressed by Timm’s interpretation of Psalm 116, which sounded like a violent thunderstorm moving steadily through the church.

Steward Ahee Kim, a student in the U.S. originally from South Korea, found similarities between the evening’s musical themes and the day’s plenary sessions.

“I tried to read the lyrics of the psalms in the program, but it was all in German and I could only understand a little bit,” she said. “Still, I felt I could sense the meaning of the psalms through the music. It was kind of like that with the General Council. Even if you don’t understand everything, even if the day’s languages or processes seem hard to understand, you trust the Spirit will help you sense a deeper meaning in it all.”