Gerhard Grenzing, born in Insterburg in 1942, learned organ building with Rudolf von Beckerath in Hamburg. From 1967 to 1972 he restored historic organs on Mallorca, and in 1972 he founded his workshop in El Papiol near Barcelona, which has built or restored more than 220 organs in cathedrals, churches, palaces, concert halls and conservatories. From 2006 to 2010 he was president of the International Society of Organ Builders (ISO); he has published several studies on Jordi Bosch and wrote the booklet texts on the Spanish organ and the three instruments for this edition.
The first conversation was recorded in the workshop on 1 August 2011. Grenzing tells how he asked Rudolf von Beckerath to let him train with him, of slow years of apprenticeship and humility before the old masters, and of the reasons that took him from northern Germany to Spain. He talks about the historic organs of Mallorca – to restore them, he says, means to live with them –, about the restoration in Campos and the tuning of the Santanyi organ with the largest mixture in the world. Further chapters address why the organ sounds different in every country, clients then and now, the organ audience in Barcelona and the healing effect he attributes to instruments and works of art.
Mirjam Wiesemann held the second conversation with Martin Schmeding on 29 April 2011 at the console of the Jordi Bosch organ in Sant Andreu, Santanyi. Schmeding describes how the edition came about and was prepared, characterises the three organs and explains why tuning is so demanding. He talks about the composers of the Siglo de Oro, the organ builder Jordi Bosch and the interplay between an organ’s personality and the character of the compositions, but also about his own beginnings: at eleven his legs were at last long enough. Sound examples on the organ complement the conversation.
Mirjam Wiesemann, artistic director of Cybele Records’ audiobook series Wort&Musik and of the Edition Künstler im Gespräch, edited the conversations together with Ingo Schmidt-Lucas. In the foreword she writes that the exchange with Grenzing and the post-production gave her an entirely new relationship with the organ. Grenzing first restored the Santanyi organ in 1982 and, together with his son Daniel, tunes its 2,472 pipes, 1,128 of them in the mixture alone. Irmgard Schörghuber’s generosity made possible the cleaning and tuning as well as the reconstruction of the large pedal pipes; without this work, Grenzing writes, the edition could not have been made.