Brian Ebie -- The Aebi Organ in St. Georg, Switzerland -- Kirche St. Georg, Ernen, Schweiz

 Brian Ebie Pipe Organ Service

The Aebi Organ in St. Georg, Switzerland

Aebi Organ in Ernen-Schweiz

It's hard to imagine a 335 year old mechanical music instrument.  Harder still is imagining that this music instrument still works.  But that's exactly the case with the historic Christoph Aebi organ in the church of St. Georg in Ernen, Switzerland.  First built in 1680 and repaired only minimally, and with very few modifications over the years, Aebi's pipe organ looks and sounds much as it did when he built and installed it in the beautiful town church.

Pfarrkirche, St. George, Ernen

The church can trace it's origins back to medieval times, with mention first made around the 11th century.  The building as it sits today was built between 1510 and 1518, with the first mention of a pipe organ and an organist serving there around 1648.

Aebi Organ Keydesk

Christoph Aebi, organbuilder from Solothurn, was contracted to build an instrument for the church in 1680, with the first delivery of parts occurring that year. The table or tablet of the organ where the pipes would eventually stand was delivered first.  We might today call that the windchest.  Eventually an instrument of one manual and pedal with 11 ranks, and in a beautifully painted gothic case would take shape.

The organ plays regularly for church services and programs.  A seminal 2011 recording by Hungarian composer Zsigmond Szathmáry on the Ars Musici label, entitled Die Historische Aebi-Orgel in Ernen-Schweiz, highlights the beautiful sound of theChristoph Aebi pipe organ.  Featuring works by Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Sweelinck, and Frescobaldi, the instrument beautifully renders each piece with a sweet sound, from the softest 8' Coppel flute; but with enough power to support even the largest passages.

The organ has mechanical slider chests and a mechanical stop action, with one pull-down manual to pedal coupler.  



The organ stoplist as it is today:    

Manual I, C - d''' 
Prinzipal 8 ' 
Coppel 8 '
Oktave 4 '       
Flöte 4 '       
Quintflöte 2 2/3 ' (addition)
Superoktave 2 '      
Hörnli   2 ' + 1 3/5 ' (addition)
Mixtur  III 2 ' 
Quinte 1 1/2 ' 
Cymbel  II 1/2 '

Pedal, C - d'      
Subbass 16 '     (addition)
Flötbass 8 '  
Posaune 8  

 
I hope someday to play this organ built by my great, great, great, great, great, great, great uncle, Christoph Aebi.  I own the recording and have studied as much history on the instrument as I can find, and know this to be a beautiful example of his work. 

This page will give, in German, a fantastic history of some of the modifications over the years.

The Basilique Notre-Dame de Valère Sion Pipe Organ -- Oldest Pipe Organ in the World

I will never forget the day that I first discovered a pipe organ builder in my lineage.  I'd purchased Guy Bovet's recording of "The Oldest Playable Organ in the World" in the Basilique de Valere, in Sion, Switzerland, and like the geek I am, was reading the CD notes.  Many historical facts about the organ in the fortress cathedral atop the hill were presented in the program notes.  

The organ, builder unknown, first appears in the late 14th century or early 15th century.  The date has long been c. 1390, but recently has been moved ahead to c. 1430, based on historical records in the church.  This organ has only one keyboard of three octaves and the keys are each hand cut and carved of hardwood.  It's original tracker-action mechanism and stop action remain largely intact, and reports of it's original pipework vary from as few as 12 to as many as 180 original pipes remain from the original installation.  These pipes would have very high lead content and would likely be mostly in the treble range, in keeping with the practices of the time. Lower pitches, in the 8' range would not be added until much later.

The organ was originally hand-pumped to supply wind to the bellows.  These mechanisms still remain. 

The painted folding doors on the case were painted by the Freiburg artist Peter Maggenberg who provided frescoes for the cathedral.  The so-called "swallow's nest" enclosure that sort of resembles a ship's hull around the organ was added in the 1630's. 

Well, it was the first major rebuild of the organ, when it was already over 200 years old, that got my attention.  I learned, while reading my program notes, that one Christoph Aebi, an organbuilder from Solothurn, Switzerland, was contracted to renovate and enlarge the old organ.  Aebi enlarged the organ, adding four ranks of pipes, including principals at 8' and 4', a flute at 4' and a mutation.  These additions would have made the organ much more versatile for the music of that epoch, although still with a limited compass. 

Christoph Aebi (1642-1693) and his father Hans Jacob Aebi (1612-1688) were organ builders in Alsace near the Swiss border.  They built many fine pipe organs together and restored a number of instruments during their career. 

I knew, from extensive study of my genealogy, that the original spelling of my last name, EBIE was AEBI, and that upon arrival in the American colonies from Switzerland, my first ancestor Theodorus Aebi had his name misspelled EBY.  It wasn't long and there were some nine different spellings of the orignal AEBI. 

So here I was... an organist, an organ technician, and a person with an unending love of the pipe organ, and now I read that there was an organ builder in Switzerland--from where my family originated!  It was life-changing for me.  The short version is that Christoph was the uncle of my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather Theodorus.

In the coming weeks, I will continue to post more about the Aebi organ builders from Solothurn, their work, and my back story of finding a long-lost uncle (with a bunch of "Great's" in front)!

The Aebi Pipe Organ Builders --Brian Ebie

This blog is dedicated to the life and work of the Aebi organ builders of Solothurn, Switzerland, active from c. 1640-1692.  Hans Jacob Aebi and Christoph Aebi built many important pipe organs, some of which still exist over 300 years later.  Postings will encompass their life and work and will highlight extant instruments in Switzerland.