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La Vielle organisée - Orgelleier

Hurdy Gurdy organ

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This very unusual instrument has been commissioned by Eric Visser of Flairck somewhere in 1993. In the beginning I was very pleased to receive the order. I did not know at that time what would come over me...!

After a long search I found out that there were 2 original instruments still present:

1. Berlin at the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung: Musikinstrumenten Museum where I found out that there was another one at:
2. The Musée instrumental de Bruxelles

Both instrument have been made by César Pons who lived at the end of the 18th century and died in 1831 in Grenoble at the age of 83.

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I spent some time at both Museums for research as both Museums where kind enough to let me examine both instruments. The Berlin instrument had last been restored in 1957 by Miss Olga Alderman. I was very pleased to be able to use her documentation of the restoration for my project.

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I should have become suspicious when I talked with the curator of the Berliner Museum Mr. Schieglitz, who advised me kindly to stop and not try to built the instrument. Both instruments had been restored several times and never became in a state to be able to be played. But of course, I knew better. The result: It did take more then 6-7 months of construction time over a period of 6 years!

The instrument has been finished in 2000 and I was pleased to handle the instrument over to my client. I had finished the job and the instrument could be played, now I was able to pass the problem: Eric needs to learn to play the instrument. (Good Luck Eric)

The problem I faced was that I could not simply make a copy from the original, because of the several problems the originals incorporated (and therefore the copy). My job was to design a complete new concept for handling both the pipes of the organ as well as the hurdy-gurdy itself. Living about 100 years later, I was of course able to use materials that were not available at that time to César Pons. But that did not make it much easier. Sometimes I could only solve problems by trial and error. Changing something which I didn't draw from the beginning, often mend that I had to change a lot of other things again ( It was like the famous chain) And remember all the parts seen on the picture ( and I mean really all) have been made by hand, every single part.

About the instrument

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The big sized hurdy-gurdy organ had to be guitar shaped. It needs to have these very high sized sides to include four pairs of bellows with one reservoir bellow to be able to provide a continuous water-column of 53 mm.

The wheel is similar to a violin bow that strums continuously over the strings. The player can add more or less sympathetic strings to the melody string depending on the key the player desires to play in. In the same way the player has the choice to add one or even two rows of the complete seperated registers of pipes:

1. The flue pipes were tuned C -c' (24 pipes)
2. The stopped pipes were tuned G1-g (24 pipes), following the tuning of the melody of the hurdy-gurdy

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The spindle that is moved by the handle simultaneously provides air to the bellows as it moves the wheel to strum the strings. Because of this construction it was quite important to design a new way to pump the air into the bellows and at the same time not effect the delicate playing i.e. of the trumpet, also vital to the sound to the hurdy-gurdy. But this was just one of the many problems that needed to be solved and have been solved.

If played well, this special hurdy-gurdy sounds almost like a small orchestra within itself. Now I am able to enjoy the instrument.