Today Hans-Ulrich Erbsloeh and I traveled to Lübeck, about 80 km from Hamburg. Our first stop was at a music conservatory (Musikhochschule) which has a Beckerath organ in a see-through case. That is to say that there is plexiglass everywhere so you can see inside—even plexiglass swell shades! This, I assume, is for teaching purposes—what a great idea!

More importantly, it was this school that had three unused Rieger pedalboards, sitting in a closet for thirty years—two of them are now in Honolulu! One is in my apartment attached to my baby organ and the other is in the home of my student whose mother purchased a practice pipe organ.

We next walked to St Petri which is no longer being used as a church but only as a concert hall. In fact there will be a concert here tonight.

The next church was the Dom, and luckily we heard the organist practicing the Marcussen organ (1970) here. I took a quick video of his practice.

He invited some schoolchildren to come up to the organ and we tagged along so I could get a closer view of the console. There was also an ancient organ downstairs which I photographed: you pump the bellows by pulling two ropes and the pedal board is very odd.

After lunch I was eager to see the Marienkirche even though we had to pay 2 Euros each for admission. You see, this is the church of Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707), where Bach walked 200 miles to hear the famous Abendmusiken and stayed away from his church job for nearly three months.

My husband Carl and I visited here 22 years ago and I still remember how very high the ceiling is in this church. I remember thinking that the organist had to be really fit in order to walk up so many steps to the console. Apparently this organ dates from 1968 but it is going to be replaced soon because many things do not work.

Buxtehude is buried in this church.

The most overwhelming remembrance I have of this church are the Tower bells embedded in the floor as a result of Allied bombing during World War II. Although the church has been restored, they have kept the bells where they lay, as a remembrance of the war.

There is another organ in the church, the so-called Totentanz organ which used to be located in the former Totentanz chapel—the chapel of death. It used to have paintings of skeletons next to living people as a reminder that all of us die. Now there is an astronomical clock at the site of the former Totentanz chapel.

At 5:00 pm we walked over to St Jacobi for an organ recital by a Polish organist who played music by Buxtehude, Boehm, and Mendelssohn plus a forgettable contemporary composer. Half of the concert was on the historic organ (1637!) and the other was on the romantic organ. I got kind of excited when I saw the upcoming concerts in the program, because exactly one week from today, Jacob Street from America will be playing here on the historic organ. You may remember Jake is the choirmaster/director of music of St. Paul’s on the Green in Norwalk, CT where Joey Fala was the Organ Scholar two years ago! I shared this information with Joey who said that Jake did a Fulbright study here in Lübeck.

Afterwards we met with the assistant organist who demonstrated some of the stops of the historic instrument. Hans couldn’t get over that this organ is nearly 400 years old and still sounds good!

Hans noticed that some of the pipes were mounted upside-down! See below.

I do remember playing this instrument 22 years and was completely overwhelmed by the high pitch of the organ. I tried to play Bach’s Komm, heiliger Geist which is in the key of F, and I heard it coming out in the key of G! My mind was so completely blown, hearing sharps instead of flats, so I had to stop after about the first page. Although I sat on the bench, I didn’t play the organ this time because the church was being closed.

It was not until after 8:00 pm that we returned to Hamburg and look what Christiane had waiting for us! A delicious apfelkuchen she had baked from her own recipe (which is still in her head!)

Mmmmm, good! I have had three pieces already! (Two for dinner and one for breakfast!)