According to current knowledge, the St. Aegidius organ in Berne has the world’s only surviving pipes by the Brabant organ builder Reinhard Lampeler van Mill (1596). It also possesses a significant amount of historical substance from Harmen Kröger (1643) and Christian Vater (1714).

This organ is an important historical document of North German organ building prior to Arp Schnitger. An instrument full of power, intensity, tone colour, and “sweet sharpness.”

The aim of this Double Album of Organ Works is not to invent a new instrument for Buxtehude’s organ works, but rather to show how the sound of the late 16th and early 17th century Berne organ influences our hearing of Buxtehude’s music — his instrument in Lübeck also had registers that dated back to this period.

The use of pure meantone temperament, registrations based on 16th and 17th century sources as well as ornamentation and diminutions also play an essential role here. The meantone temperament also necessitated the transposition of some pieces, a practice also to be found in works by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Leon Berben, Organist