Organ and the monks’ choir

Leav­ing the church, one pass­es beneath the mag­nif­i­cent Wel­tenburg mar­ble gallery cre­at­ed for the organ by Pietro Francesco Gior­gi­oli. This organ, built in
1728–29), is char­ac­ter­is­tic of the famous organ builder J. K. Bran­den­stein. In its present form, it has 13 reg­is­ters, which are played from a sin­gle man­u­al and ped­al. Look­ing up to the gallery from the nave, one sens­es a light-filled room behind the organ, tied archi­tec­ton­i­cal­ly to the main space of the church by the sur­round­ing cor­nice. Reached com­fort­ably via a spi­ral stair­case, the monks’ choir is an inti­mate space ded­i­cat­ed to choral recita­tion. Beneath the ceil­ing vault of 1736, with its Asam fres­co admon­ish­ing the brethren to atten­tive prayer, the horse­shoe-shaped ranks of pol­ished oak and spruce wood choir stalls (c. 1730) are orna­ment­ed with carv­ing and inlay work.

dis­po­si­tion
man­u­al
Main (8′)
Gam­ba bas­so (8′)
Gam­ba disc. (8th’)
Echo (8′)
Copel (8′)
Dol­drums (4′)
Gemshorn (4′)
Quint (3′)
For­est dol­drums (2′)
Supe­r­oc­tave (2′)
Mix­ture triple (1′)
Octave (4′)

ped­al
sub bass (16′)
octave bass (8′)

Man­u­al range: C, D, E. F, G, A — c’
Ped­al range: C, D, E, F, G, A – a°. The man­u­al reg­is­ters also sound via the ped­al, so it is “attached” and has two addi­tion­al ped­al registers.
Mechan­i­cal actions left in their his­tor­i­cal condition.
The wind tur­bine works with a fan and mag­a­zine bel­lows or with three recon­struct­ed wedge bel­lows, as they were com­mon in 1729; they are wound either by hand or by elec­tric motors, as in the past, as is the case with our recording.

Audio exam­ple: Pas­torale in F major, BWV 590 from the CD Donauk­löster Wel­tenburg, Met­ten, Nieder­al­taich, avail­able in the monastery shop.