Medieval Jerusalem Organ Revives Its Sound After 1,000 Years

After a millennium of silence, a medieval organ in Jerusalem has been restored and played once again, marking a significant cultural and historical milestone. This revival not only reconnects the city with its rich musical heritage but also highlights the importance of preserving ancient instruments and traditions. The organ’s return to life after 1,000 years is both a celebration of craftsmanship and a symbolic reminder of Jerusalem’s enduring legacy across centuries.

Though most of the organs documented by scholars trace back to the 15th century, this remarkable example was crafted in France during the 11th century. The rediscovered pipes of this medieval organ, long hidden beneath the earth near Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity in the occupied West Bank, are once again echoing through a Jerusalem monastery with music from centuries past.

“This instrument opens a doorway to history… for the first time in modern times, we are able to hear an authentic medieval sound that is a thousand years old,” explained Spanish researcher David Catalunya, who dedicated over five years to restoring the instrument. “And it isn’t a modern replica or a theoretical model, we’re experiencing the genuine sound, the same tones once heard by Crusaders at the Nativity Church,” he added in an interview with AFP.

Dating back nearly to the early invention of organs, the instrument was unearthed in 1906 at the traditional birthplace of Christ. Catalunya, who lovingly calls the organ a “miracle,” demonstrates its power by pulling on small wooden tabs, producing a mighty resonance from the otherwise humble frame.

Now safeguarded within the Monastery of Saint Saviour in Jerusalem’s Old City, the organ is scheduled to be exhibited in a museum run by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. “It’s like discovering a living dinosaur, we always knew it once existed but had only fragments, like fossils, as proof,” said musicologist Alvaro Torrente, who worked on the restoration. “This isn’t a fossil, it’s the real instrument and its authentic voice,” he told AFP.

The find was “almost accidental,” recalled Father Eugenio Alliata, a Franciscan archaeologist associated with the mission overseeing key Christian holy sites, including Bethlehem’s Nativity Church. During construction of a pilgrim hostel, workers uncovered 222 copper pipes along with a bell carillon. According to Catalunya, the organ appeared to have been buried with extraordinary care, which allowed researchers to reconstruct it with meticulous precision.

Organ expert Koos van de Linde, among the world’s foremost authorities in the field, said: “The faith of the Crusaders who interred these parts, that they might one day be heard again, was not misplaced. “To take part in reviving them was an immense privilege,” he added. What sets this organ apart, specialists note, is not only its intricate design, eighteen pipes used to create a single note or what Catalunya describes as its “astonishing state of preservation,” but also its great antiquity.

Whereas the earliest organs examined by historians date from the 15th century, this particular one was constructed in 11th-century France and later carried by Crusaders to Bethlehem in the 12th century, Catalunya explained. “European Christians brought to the Nativity Church the most advanced liturgical instrument of the time: the organ, which was intended to stand as the symbol of sacred music,” Torrente said.

He hopes the revival of what the team refers to as the “Bethlehem organ” will ignite greater curiosity, as he believes the ancient instrument still has melodies left to share.

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Source: NDTV‍