Flentrop Orgelbouw Zaandam: pipe organ building, pipe organ restoration
philosophy - maintenance & optimisation
An important part of our activities concerns the maintenance
of organs.
The tuners - who live all over the country - are on our pay-roll staff.
It may seem a less spectacular job than restoration or building, but
the questions that arise are in principle
the same as in large restoration projects: what are the essential
characteristics of the instrument, and how do
we respect them with the greatest integrity?
Especially in such finishing touches the expertise of the details is a
major influence on the tonal result.
An interesting mixture of restoration and building anew comes to the
fore in the optimisation of more recent
instruments. In the last few years we have been invited to do this in
many parts of the world.
Sometimes such instruments were built on good principles, but they're
simply not happy with themselves.
Rather than getting rid of them, it is a sign of craftsmanship to
recognise the qualities of the instruments
and expand them. There is an additional thrill if the instrument was
originally built by Flentrop.
In the last years of his life, Dirk Flentrop was quite decided on the
subject: "That was what we intended, but we
just couldn't do it at the time."
tel. +31 (0)75-6168651