Smecno, 1587 [Haupwerk]

Smecno - history of the organ (ca. 1587)

The renaissance instrument of the Holy Trinity church in Smecno is the oldest preserved and playable organ in the Czech Republic.

The instrument was built around the year 1587. The date of construction may be easily recognized by the heraldry of the donors depicted on the organ chest and from extant archive materials. The organ builder is unknown. It is known that the instrument was damaged during the thirty years war in 1631 when the soldiers of the Swedish army stole the Regal - the only reed stop. There has been one major rebuild during its history: in the late Baroque era, in 1775, a small Rückpositiv was added by Jan Rusch from Litomerice and some stops were changed.

A partial reconstruction of the organ to the renaissance state was done by Dusan Doubek before 1999. During the years 2009-2010, the reconstruction of the organ continued. In our virtual model of the organ, we feature the state of the organ before and after the last restoration. The instrument was recorded before the organbuilders touched it, and after they completed their work. This is where the primary goal our project is achieved: the sound documentation of the given organ in various moments of its history.

This absolutely unique and innovative way of the sound documentation is allowed thanks to the Hauptwerk technology.