Organ factory in El Papiol

Most tourists visiting Barcelona wouldn’t think to visit a pipe organ factory but that’s what we did today!

What a treat Bill Potter and I experienced this morning when we visited the factory of Gerhard Grenzing Orgelbau, who has been building pipe organs since 1963. This morning we were picked up by Natalie, his daughter, and we drove to El Papiol, on the outskirts of Barcelona, about half an hour from the city center.

I was most impressed with the number of finished instruments there were in the workshop in addition to works in progress. Gerhard Grenzing has built 170 organs all over the world, including Spain, Portugal, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Japan, Brazil, Canda, Colombia, South Korea, and Mexico. The company also does organ restorations.

Click here for a gallery of completed instruments on the company’s website. Plus, I took nearly 100 photos and video of his beautiful and elegantly voiced instruments. I think any church, concert hall, or private owner would not go wrong to select one of Grenzing’s instruments, being of the highest quality and tonal finishing. I especially liked hearing him talk about his philosophy of organ building; he strives to make the pipe speak as naturally and effortlessly as human speech. I loved playing his instruments!

One of the instruments they have had finished in the shop is a 90 rank, 4 manual organ for Prague Cathedral, but delays at the Cathedral have prevented them from delivering it. One of the most unusual features are the façade pipes which do not sit in a wind chest but are “floating” while winding is supplied through a channel. How cool is that!

The first piece I played was “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein,” and Gerhard remarked that this piece was exactly the same one he had been thinking about this morning: and now I had just played it for him! What a coincidence!

I was smitten with Grenzing’s claviorgan, which he copied from a 16th century instrument which is a combination of an organ and a harpsichord. The top manual is a harpsichord and the bottom manual is an organ with four stops, 4′, 2′, 1′ and a regal. Grenzing also electrified the bellows so someone can play the organ without having someone else pump the bellows manually. The harpsichord part may be removed and played independently, and it’s also possible to couple the organ and harpsichord together. What a unique instrument!

Gerhard was very excited to receive our gifts of chocolate macadamias and chocolate dipped macadamia shortbread cookies from Hawaii, so I’m glad we brought them as omiyage.

He drove us to the train station only to find out that the ticket machine was broken. “Not to worry, just explain the situation when you arrive and they will take your payment.”

When we arrived back in Barcelona we found an agent, and fortunately I was able to explain the situation (all in Spanish!) and he let us go through free—without paying a cent! So my Spanish has come in handy after all. Either that, or broken ticket machines are a common occurrence!

We were able to figure out the Metro system to take the subway to La Sagrada Familia, the most famous structure in Barcelona where we had tickets for a guided tour at 2:30 pm.

Suffice it to say we were not disappointed and the colorful stained glass windows were like eye candy. There originally were supposed to have been three pipe organs in the cathedral, but our guide said that after building one (of only 1400+ pipes), they felt that was sufficient and that they wouldn’t need the other two organs. (Not in my opinion!)

At the end of the tour we took an elevator to the top of the tower, but had to take the 400 stairs down, along with everyone else. My feet were hurting before we even started, but when we finally reached the bottom my knees were shaking, my back was in moderate pain and I was very unsteady on my feet. So sorry to be getting older and this kind of activity is not so easy anymore!