Swedish Organs from the Eighteenth Century

- A Unique Global Cultural Heritage

 

Photo: Musikanta

 

 

SWEDISH 18TH-CENTURY ORGANS IN AN OPEN DATABASE
In 2019 and 2020, the Göteborg International Organ Academy conducts a project with the aim of presenting a selection of Sweden’s best-preserved eighteenth-century organs in an open database. Each of the instruments will be presented with detailed technical information, new audio and video documentation, interviews with organ experts as well as sounding musical examples provided by the organist Sietze de Vries, Groningen, The Netherlands. The project is funded by the Swedish Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet, RAÄ).
 
BACKGROUND
Sweden possesses a unique treasure of preserved organs from the eighteenth century – an important, but relatively little known cultural heritage. The majority of the instruments were built by Johan Niclas Cahman (ca. 1680–1737), Pehr Schiörlin (1736–1815) and Olof Schwan (1744–1812). Cahman and Schwan had their workshops in Stockholm, whereas Schiörlin was a resident of Linköping.

 

In the second half of the 1990s and the first years of the new millennium, the organ research center, GOArt (Göteborg Organ Art Center), at the University of Gothenburg collaborated with the Swedish National Heritage Board on a joint nation-wide organ project with the aim of creating a plan for the preservation of the country’s historic organs. A central part of this project was a detailed technical documentation of a selection among the best-preserved instruments. It is the result of this project that constitutes the core of the material to be digitized within the present project. One-third of these documentations (Slaka, Tryserum, and Kölingared) were financed by the National Heritage Board.

 

AIM
The aim of the project is to make the material from these documentations, together with sound files and video “walk–throughs,” accessible in the GOArt database. This will enable even very detailed information, such as measurements, proofs, drawings, etc., to be stored and accessed, using an interface designed to be attractive and easy to use for members of the public with an interest in cultural history.

 

GOAL
The overarching goal of the project is to publish an open online database including documentations of a number of Swedish eighteenth-century organs, which will, in addition, be presented in recorded sound and moving pictures.