Peter van Dijk

Flentrop revisited Het ORGEL 98 (2002), nr. 1, 5-14 [summary]

How do we deal with organs built between 1940 and 1965? Will we leave them unchanged or should we choose to ‘retouch’ them? The Dutch National Heritage Service is drafting a set of standards in order to be able to decide which organs should be protected. In practice, the need to protect an organ can of course conflict with the use that is made of the instrument. Moreover, Frits Elshout, voicer of Flentrop Orgelbouw, points out that the decades after World War II were a period of discovery. The learning process implied that organ builders did not always make the best choices; so we may have an argument to ‘retouch’ and improve their work.

This article is a report of an investigation of some recently ‘retouched’ Flentrop organs: Schoondijke, Hervormde Kerk (1951, unchanged); Doesburg, Grote Kerk (1953, voicing improved considerably in 2001); Eefde, Samen op Weg-Kerk (1956, changed and revoiced in 2000; usable, but not in all respects convincing); Klundert, Hervormde Kerk (1958, voicing reconsidered in 1999); Lingen (D), Evangelische Kreuzkirche (1959, voicing ‘retouched’ in 1999, the organ appears to be a musical entity now in the style of the mid-20th century); Vlissingen, Grote- of St-Jacobskerk (1968, revoiced in 2000)

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