I opened my eyes, looked at my phone and could not believe what I saw—9:33 am! Aaaaurgh! I was supposed to have been on the bus at 8:00!

I quickly showered, dressed and walked four blocks to the train station. The next train to Geneva was at 10:12 am and it was already 10:10! I ran to platform 8, got on the train and scarcely had found a seat when the train pulled away.

After arrival in Geneva, I took a taxi to the Temple des Eaux Vives and our tour bus pulled up not thirty seconds later. People came up and were concerned that I was okay. Some thought news of the hurricane Lane hitting Hawaii made me stay back at the hotel. No, I just didn’t set my alarm and I crashed!

Having only a short night on the morning I left, absolutely no sleep on the plane, then having only 2-1/2 hours of sleep on my first night in Switzerland and staying up all day to see four organs just did me in!

I missed going to the first church, but the Temple des Eaux Vives organ was certainly worth seeing, a two manual Metzler organ with 30 stops, very colorful reeds and mutations. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to play since this organ was very similar to the Beckerath which I am used to. What made this visit memorable, though, was that the Metzler organ was only one of thirteen (count ’em!) keyboard instruments in a church not bigger than the Lutheran Church of Honolulu! There were harpsichords of all sizes, a harmonium, an upright piano, historic Pleyel pianos and even a pedal piano which I have never seen before!

We next visited the 1965 Metzler organ at Geneva’s Cathédrale St Pierre, where John Calvin called his home church. In 1562 the organ was dismantled and destroyed and for 200 years following Calvin’s ministry there was no organ in the church. As congregational singing suffered with a lack of accompaniment, gradually the idea of putting an organ in the building became more accepted. It was not until 1757 that the first organ was installed after the Reformation.

What is absolutely astounding was that in 107 years between 1887-1994 there were only two organists: Otto Barblan who served from 1887-1942 (55 years) and Pierre Segond who served from 1942-1994 (52 years). That is truly remarkable!

I played Bach’s lovely chorale prelude on Schmücke dich o liebe Seele, which worked very well with a Cornet solo. I really really liked this instrument!

We drove back to Lausanne for an organ concert in the Lausanne Cathedral, with the first American pipe organ—by C.B. Fisk, in a European cathedral. The organist was from Poland, Wojciech Rozak, who unfortunately played too many loud selections and as a result, people had their hands over their ears! Including me!

Only a few people from our group stayed back after the recital to meet with the church’s organist but I am so glad I did. Not only did we hear more about the organ’s history, we got a tour of the organ chambers, with a visit to the console upstairs, plus we had a chance to play the organ for ourselves. No one in our group played loudly! I chose to play Marcel Dupré’s Antiphon III I am black but comely, on the gorgeous harmonic flute.

The organ is really four instruments in one, French classic style of Cliquot, north German, French symphonic colors after Cavaillé-Coll and German Romantic in the style of Ladegast. Where else could you compare the different trumpets of different styles all on the same division? It would be a great instrument for teaching students the different musical styles and registration.

The organ weighs 40 tons and took 9 months to install and 3 months to voice. At a cost of 6 million francs, the Church came up with half (3 million) and the government paid the rest. The case of the organ was designed by an Italian car designer (!) who worked closely with Fisk.

In addition to having 5 manuals and pedal attached to a mechanical console, the trackers can also be electronically controlled by a remote console downstairs. There is even a MIDI component, allowing one to record and play back a tracker action organ. Amazing!