Perlen der Klassik - aus 450 Drehorgelpfeifen

In the organizer's words:

Benefit concert in aid of the modernization of the town church organ

Works by Beethoven, Haydn, Pachelbel, Rossini and others.

Darmstadt barrel organ orchestra
Peter Suchantke
Sabine Thoma
Anne Trapp
K.-H. (Kalle)Trapp

Works by 12 composers will be performed, including symphonies, operas, operettas, musicals ... - works that everyone has heard many times before, but presented today in the sound of a barrel organ.

In the benefit concert for the modernization of the large city church organ, respectfully referred to as the "queen of instruments", the little barrel organ "princesses" want to show that they too can fill the room with impressive sound, e.g. with soulfully gentle music by Bach and Vivaldi, with rhythmic pieces by Grieg and Mozart, with a powerful bass and brisk runs in Bach's D minor Toccata right up to the grand finale when the Vltava rushes through the rapids, bringing the percussion elements on the organs, the splashing water and the muffled thunder of the rocks to life.

The Darmstadt barrel organ orchestra has existed since 1998.
In 1997, Sabine Thoma and Peter Suchantke, fascinated by the polyphonic interplay of a barrel organ formation and the wide repertoire possibilities ranging from great classical music to contemporary modern music, laid the foundation stone with the purchase of two organs that could be played synchronously as a duo. A few months later, a complete barrel organ orchestra was formed with the purchase of a second-hand two-manual trumpet organ.

In the barrel organ scene, one speaks of a real orchestra when three or more coordinated instruments play specially arranged polyphonic music together. The organs themselves are, even more important than the players, with a range of up to four octaves and equipped with up to five sound registers, the real "experts" of the orchestra. But most important of all is the person who literally "teaches the instruments the flute notes": the arrangements are by A-organist Christian Möller from Hannoversch Münden.