A low organ note, then a high one. And another deep one: yesterday the “Schorgel” invited people to play an acoustic ping-pong game in front of the “Tower 9 – Leonding City Museum” for the first time. As a commissioned work for Anton-Bruckner-2024, the organ playground by the Linz architect Clemens Bauder pays homage to Anton Bruckner, the improvising organ player in the truest sense of the word. “The Bruckner organ in the Old Cathedral was operated with human power, the Kalkanten,” he recalls Bruckner’s years as Linz cathedral organist (1856–1868). A powerful task that was usually given to Brother Ignaz.
Enjoy playing together
This time it’s a playful experience for anyone who catapults themselves to lofty heights on the rocking seesaw. The bellows are filled with air, which is fed via a hose into organ pipes – discarded originals or replacement pipes that Bauder has collected from all over the place: “We found one in the attic of St. Florian Abbey.”
He was advised by Bernhard Prammer, Bruckner’s successor at the Bruckner organ in the Old Cathedral since 2007. The frequencies are coordinated with each other, and pipes can be switched on or off using a lever, like the registers of an organ. From Leonding, the TÜV-tested prototype travels to Brucknerland to “encourage people to play together in a fun and playful way,” says Norbert Trawöger, artistic director of Anton-Bruckner-2024.
- Next Schorgel station:
April 30, Hörsching, KUSZ parking lot, 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., all stations: anton-bruckner-2024.at
Image: Günther Gröger, groximages, culture & press photographer
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Image: Günther Gröger, groximages, culture & press photographer
Everything in Tower 9 is also geared towards Bruckner’s 200th birthday. Before the special exhibition “Anton Between the Worlds” opens on April 26th, the workshop days at the KUVA art symposium today and tomorrow invite you to exchange ideas with eight artists who selected Bibiana Weber and Michaela Reisenberger as curators from 60 submissions. Bruckner’s motet “Locus iste” can be found spectrally microscoped by Tibor Kovács in a sounding weaving from magnetic tape by Judith Musil. With “Anton Bruckner Bus Station – 9 Changes,” Edith Stauber graphically dedicates himself to the commute to work in a time without buses. A visit with a scorgel playing is worth it!
