Pipe organ and barrel organs, and lace...

A very nice day in the Museum “Van Speelklok tot Pierement”, the museum with barrel organs, automatic music machines and musical clocks. It is located in what used to be the Buurkerk, a medieval church in the heart of Utrecht. The nave is still an open space where the pipe organ has pride of place. 

One of the music machines: A stuffed bird in a cage which sings and moves when the machine is playing. It sounds very real.

 My organist friend and former teacher, Sander van Marion, celebrates his 60th anniversary as a musician this year, and the museum also celebrates its 60^th anniversary. To mark the occasion a unique concert was planned with the beautiful pipe organ and four barrel organs, from a tiny one sitting on a table to very big – and loud – street organ! It was a very joyful and interesting experience. 

 Three barrel organs and one pipe organ

 A small barrel organ, but not the smallest

Detail of the larger barrel organ

and the smallest

The concert was given three times during the afternoon, and before and/or after one could join a guided tour through the museum. It is a fascinating museum, also for children, and when one joins a tour quite a lot of unique clocks and machines are demonstrated. The pipe organ, which has a wonderful warm sound, can’t compete in volume with the big barrel organ which was used, so they had to alternate. Quite a lot of work had to go into this beforehand, as special cardboard books, the “scores” for the barrel organ, had to be especially made for the occasion. The pipe organ dates from 1883 and was built by Witte, the well-known firm of organ builders.

Three organs, the pipe organ which was used when the museum still functioned as a church, a theatre organ and a very small barrel organ on the table. To the left is the big street organ, to the right the other small barrel organ, but bigger than the one on the table, both pictured above and not visible here,

 Mediaeval wall paintings now hardly visible and partly hidden behind the pipe organ.

 Some other exhibits in the museum, all still in working order

When I walked back home from the station, the sun came out after a rainy morning and made the neglected park I walked through look like a scene straight out of a fairy tale with the woodland decorated with clouds of lace. It seemed a miracle in the middle of a rather urban and built up area.

Lace

Misericords

I have been fascinated by misericords for a long time. Unfortunately in many churches it is hard to get access to the choir stalls. However, in Leuven where I spent a day it was easy to photograph them, as the main church is also a museum and after paying a fee one has access to the stalls. So here are pictures of all the misericords of the St. Peter’s Church in the Market Square, the oldest church in Leuven. The church was presumably founded in 986. The first church burnt down in 1176. A new Romanesque church was built with a crypt, an extension, at the back of the choir.

 

There is an international site with misericords, but the ones on this page are not included. Unfortunately I discovered that I have missed the most beautiful ones in Leuven, in the St. Gertrude Church. I had not found anything about that church in the guidebooks. Three churches in the Netherlands are included in the site, but Bolsward is missing, as well as Dordrecht, two churches which also have misericords as far as I know. On the website of the Martini Church in Bolsward are pictures of the woodwork and misericords.

Dordrecht has wonderful choirstalls. Here are pictures of the choirstalls and misericords.

Unfortunately iconoclasm defaced and damaged many misericords.