Baroque Organs in the Cluj-Napoca Area

The positive organ is a small instrument, usually with six registers (pipe ranks), amounting to approximately 300 pipes in total. Its façade faces the congregation, while the keyboard is located at the back, making the organist invisible. The positive usually has one manual covering a short octave (from which the notes C-sharp, D-sharp, F-sharp and G-sharp were missing), and even the larger ones do not have a pedalboard.

Until the 1870s, the structure of the mechanical-action positive organ with a built-in console followed the typical design of small village organs. This was a simple but effective construction. The tracker rods under the keys directly activated the valves, making the blowing very sensitive and direct. The air supply was provided by two wedge-shaped bellows, usually located at the bottom of the organ case and operated by a belt. Such positives typically had four to eight registers and a tremolo stop.

Instruments of this type were built, for example, by Hahn in Sibiu, Kestner, Eitel and Konnert in Cluj-Napoca, and Szabó in Târgu Mureș. Although they were all based on the same technical design, each master craftsman created his own unique version with recognisable stylistic features.

Around 1800, larger organs began to be equipped with a chromatic grand octave, and in the second half of the 19th century the keyboard was increasingly separated from the back of the organ case, allowing the organist to see the pastor and the congregation. However, this required a longer and therefore heavier action. In older instruments, a separate console was often placed in front of the case, which was then moved further back from the gallery railing; acoustically, this was highly disadvantageous, as the sound became less present. At the same time, wedge-shaped bellows were replaced by reservoir bellows operated by a blower, which provided a more stable air flow. Reservoir bellows required more space, leading to larger organ cases. In older organs, the case was either extended at the back or the bellows were housed in a separate case.

Although these modifications offered some practical advantages, they also had negative consequences. From both a qualitative and aesthetic perspective, such interventions often resulted in a loss, as they disrupted the stylistic unity of the instrument. For this reason, the few surviving organs that remain unaltered are of great historical and artistic value, and restorations generally aim to return organs to their original form.

Erich Türk