Today Hans took me on a tour of pipe organs and churches in Hamburg. We call it an “organ crawl” which can refer to our climbing through the organ chambers to more closely examine the insides of the pipe organ.

Our first stop was in Blankenese, where Hans and Christiane attend at the Blankeneser Kirche am Markt. We first looked at their continuo organ built by Klaus Grüble, the same builder as my home organ.

It is remarkable for having two 8′ stops, 4′ and 2′, and people have been amazed at how good it sounds especially for continuo playing. The double 8′ stops help bring out the right hand parts.

We then went upstairs to see the Beckerath organ (1991) in the gallery. I actually played this beautiful organ 22 years ago when we visited Hamburg back then. Hans added a 32′ stop in 2010 making the organ 43 stops in all.

Our next stop was at St. Paulus in Buchholz where there is a Plum (pronounced “ploom”) organ. Hans drew up the tonal design, specification, scaling, pre-voicing and voicing while Peter Plum did the wooden pipework, façade design and technical drawings.

Lunch was at Lim’s, a restaurant by a small pond, where I had a delicious shrimp salad.

We then went to the Christus Kirche in Wandsbek, the first organ I’ve seen with Hans’ nameplate on it. Now here is where we did a real organ crawl and got inside the pipe chamber.

At St. Katharinen there was a new Flentrop organ (2013) in a church that was heavily damaged during the war. There was also an art exhibit in the church with some unusual items—a sculpture made of bicycle wheels and a rotating mirror display which reflected the building’s interior.

By now we were close to the new concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie which opened in 2017, parked the car and walked around the plaza. No concerts are being held in July and August, so enjoy this video of the interior.

We ended our day with cheese, bread, smoked meat and tomatoes in the garden.

Cheers!