… that’s how someone in our group described our first stop this morning at the Swiss Museum of the Organ, located in Roche about an hour from Lausanne and not far from the resort town of Montreux, where my husband and I visited a few years ago.

The museum was begun forty years ago by Monsieur Jean-Jacques Gramm who started collecting organs which had been discarded by their owners, such as circus organs and others. It has grown to include all things organ, including pipe organ façades, mechanical organs, theatre organs, miniature organs, organ posters, organ toys and more.

The museum presents the whole history of organ building, including organs of all kinds including a reconstruction of a hydraulis, which used water to stabilize wind pressure.

We watched a very humorous video explaining the mechanics of the organ. Monsieur Gramm said that organ bellows used to be pumped by unreliable humans who had to be paid off with red wine!

There was even an organ made of cardboard, and an organ pipe made of toilet paper rolls.

How about an organ made of chocolate!

Monsieur Grumm created a pipe demonstration model, as shown below:

We drove to Vevey, a half-hour away, to play the organ in Église St Claire, a building which is no longer used as a church. As is the tradition of HOST tours, the local organist or our tour leader, Christophe Mantoux, demonstrates the organ for about 15-20 minutes first, either improvising or playing published pieces then tour participants have a maximum of five minutes to play a piece which would suit the organ at hand.

At Église St Claire, tour participants played about six of Brahms chorale preludes, op. 122, and I attempted to play no. 8, Herzlich tut mich verlangen. I’m afraid I was pretty zoned out since I had zero, that’s right, zero minutes of sleep following our late night at the Lausanne Cathedral. That’s right, I wrote my blog until 1:50 am then tossed and turned and did not sleep the entire night! Remember my body is still back in Hawaii, 12 time zones away. Consequently it has been difficult to navigate today.

We are now at the Temple de Lutry (Église réformée St Martin) and Christophe Mantoux has just treated us to a grand improvisation in the French Classic style. This organ is a 1791 Jean Zimmer organ, restored in 1975. Unfortunately my number didn’t come up today, so I will be playing tomorrow. It’s probably just as well—I’m definitely sleep-deprived.

Luckily we have tomorrow morning free. I’ll try to get on this time zone!