A tale of deception

Tim Rishton

An organ by the Norwegian Peter Adolph Albrechtson, dating from 1840, has survived intact thanks
to some conflicting agendas. Tim Rishton sorts through the evidence

Most British organists are familiar with the venerable Danish organ builder Marcussen & Søn.
Together with its Swedish counterpart Åkerman & Lund, Marcussen represents a long tradition of
craftsmanship and fine mechanical-action instruments. A common feature of these old companies is
that their senior employees have founded their own firms over the years, further developing and
diversifying the original firms' philosophies.

One such Marcussen employee was Peter Adolph Albrechtsen, who established his own firm in
Norway in c1835.[ 1] Albrechtsen, originally from Holstein, built and restored a number of
instruments in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and in towns and villages throughout Norway. His
instruments are characterised by solid construction using the finest materials, by rounded and
singing fluework and by unreliable reeds.

One of Albrechtsen's instruments was built in 1839–40 for Mandal church near the southernmost
point of Norway. This instrument consisted of two manuals. The four stops on the second manual
were ‘borrowed’ from stops an octave lower on the first manual — an early and unusual example of
this technology, which Albrechtsen is thought to have learned from Marcussen. The organ was
sympathetically restored by Eriksen in 1864 and supplemented c1900 by a two-octave pedal board
with three stops. The instrument was dismantled in 1923 and moved to Måndalen on the west coast
of Norway three years later. Despite two further restorations the instrument is unaltered in almost
every detail: even the original foot-operated bellows is still fully operational (although an optional
electric pump has been added).

Historic instruments have often been preserved through luck and neglect rather than intervention,
but the Albrechtsen organ in Måndalen owes its survival mostly to deceit and carelessness.[ 2]

In 1925, the parochial church council of Voll Church, Måndalen, discussed whether the church should
acquire an organ. The priest justified the suggestion by referring to ‘the role of organ music in
inclining the mind to holy meditation and in elevating the church service to a higher level’. The
church council unanimously voted on 27 June to establish a committee consisting of the priest, the
cantor and one or two members to be nominated by the borough council[ 3], which voted to
nominate a small number of people to serve on the committee.[ 4]
On 20 October 1925, the priest wrote on behalf of the organ committee to the borough council
requesting an annual contribution to the organ fund. The council, pointing out that the proposal
would be unfair to some parishioners because Innfjorden chapel in the same parish had already
purchased an organ without council funding, wrote back offering moral support, while considering it
‘most correct to attempt to cover the cost by private contributions. But so that the committee is not
given the wrong impression of the Council's view on the project, the sum of 50 kroner is granted’. 50
kroner represented about 1 per cent of the projected cost.

The committee worked quickly, and the church council minutes for 20 March 1926 record the
following:

A letter was read from the committee established by the

church and borough councils to work for the acquisition of
an organ for Voll Church, represented by the Foreman and
Parish Priest, the Reverend Mr Rønning. The letter
informs us that the committee has purchased the old church
organ from Mandal church for a price of 3,000 kroner…
In addition comes transport and rebuilding in Voll church at
a calculated cost of [not noted]. In addition we are
informed that the committee in this respect has taken out a
loan of 4,000 kroner in Grytten and Voll Savings Bank after
54 members of the congregation… have stood surety.
According to the attached description of the organ, as well
as the letter to Revd Mr Rønning from H Martins,
Organist in Mandal, the organ is a magnificent and solid
instrument with extremely beautiful voicing and good
materials.

The organ is being sold purely on account of being

altogether too small for Mandal church; but for a church
seating 600 it will be eminently suitable. Mr
Høyer-Finn, diploma engineer and organist of Molde
church, who in the enclosed letter to the Revd Mr
Rønning has delivered a detailed assessment of the
organ on the basis of Organist Martin's
description, recommends the purchase of the organ and adds
that ‘the organ's price under any circumstances is
‘ridiculously cheap’.

Voll church, then, purchased the Albrechtsen organ on the basis of their consultant's ‘detailed
assessment’, which in turn was based purely on the description provided by the seller. If the
consultant had done a proper job and researched the instrument himself, there can be little doubt
that Voll would never have purchased it and the instrument would not have survived.
The local newspaper for Mandal, Lindesnes, had reported as early as 29 November 1920: ‘The organ
in Mandal Church broke down during the service yesterday and is evidently in need of major repairs’.
The Oslo organ builder who was called out made a temporary repair and reported that: ‘the organ is
in an extremely poor condition due to its age; but a large-scale repair would be a poor investment. It
would be better to buy a new instrument as soon as possible.’[ 5]

This, then, was the ‘magnificent and solid instrument’ that was ‘being sold purely on account of being
altogether too small for Mandal church’ at the same time as Mandal church was taking up a
collection for a new organ on account of the old one being ‘in extremely poor condition and
completely out of date’.[ 6] A spate of trivial complaints about the old organ — ‘A dead sparrow was
on Saturday found in the organ. It had come in between the pipes and put one of the basses out of
action’[ 7] — does suggest that Mr Martins the organist was orchestrating a campaign to buy a new
instrument, but even so the contrast with the parish's description of the organ to potential
purchasers was striking.

The organ proved difficult to sell. Lindesnes reported in 1923 that the old instrument was ‘sold to
school manager H Indseth of Oslo for 5,500 kroner’.[ 8] Indseth was intending to sell the organ on to
Hamarøy church in Northern Norway, which already had an eight-stop Albrechtsen organ from 1851.
In April 1923, however, Indseth withdrew from the agreement, and although Mandal attempted to
negotiate directly with Hamarøy the organ was not sold. Mandal church was forced to almost halve
the selling price before the organ, after three years in storage, was finally sold to Voll. As the
consultant Høyer-Finn observed, the price was ‘ridiculously cheap’.

The organ was purchased after a resolution in Voll Borough Council on 22 March 1926. The total cost,
including transport, insurance and reconstruction, was about 5,900 kroner, of which 4,500 kroner
was donated by Måndalen Ships Quay Association, 900 kroner by the local savings bank and 400
kroner donated by private individuals. The reconstructed organ seems to have worked well for 30
years, with all electric blower added in January 1928 and an electric heater for the organist in
October 1941. The latter was an understandable request, with winter temperatures often venturing
down towards −20°C, but the placement of the heater directly under the keyboard proved anything
other than beneficial to the key action.

The first restoration was planned in April 1958, when two bids were received. One, from the Bergen
firm of H Ivers, was for 6,000 kroner plus a new blowing system for 3,300 kroner, along with free
board and lodging for two men for six weeks. The other, from the west-coast firm Vestre, was for
only 2,560 kroner. At the same time, the Swedish firm of Moberg Brothers recommended a full
‘antiquarian restoration’ for some 45,000 to 50,000 Swedish kroner. The decision to employ Ivers,
despite the substantially higher cost, shows the awakening of interest in the historic significance of
the organ, at a time when historical instruments were not highly regarded in Norway. The reasoning
is explained in the Vestry Minutes[ 10], where it was pointed out that Ivers had in mind a far more
comprehensive and sympathetic restoration than Vestre, while the latter firm was more interested in
providing a new instrument. The ideal solution — a full historical restoration — was financially
unattainable, but the council felt that the best way of preserving the instrument was to correct the
immediate faults without changing the instrument so that a future generation could undertake a
proper restoration. The local authority financed the restoration[ 11], and the work was duly
completed.

That the instrument was so highly regarded and so competently preserved in 1958 did not however
guarantee its survival through the next generation. By 1975 it was in poor condition and almost
unplayable. The local authority hesitated to provide additional funding for maintenance. By 1980 it
was generally accepted that a new organ should be purchased. The Vestry Minutes noted that a new
instrument would cost in the region of 400,000 kroner, which the local authority was unlikely to
finance.[ 12] On 1 April 1980, the Vestre organ company, which during this period built rather
insubstantial neo-baroque organs in many Norwegian churches, quoted 100,000 kroner for a new
instrument.

It was in April that year that reference was first made to an ‘organ expert from Arendal’ (Stein
Johannes Kolnes) who was invited to look at the instrument. The expert was a consultant who has
done much to champion the cause of early Norwegian organs.[ 13] On 7 February the following year,
Kolnes wrote to the State Conservator of Antiquities (Riksantikvaren) in the following terms:

Both because of its age, its special construction and its solid handwork, the Voll organ must be characterised
as a historical treasure which must be taken care of, come what may. The Rauma District is fortunate to have
such a valuable musical and historical monument within its boundries. It is however clear that the organ at
the moment is very unreliable and in poor condition, and therefore is in need of a thorough restoration… The
prospects for a successful restoration should… be excellent. It is particularly fortunate in this respect that
almost nothing is lacking of the original Albrechtsen organ, despite later additions to and removal of the
instrument.

The organ builder Ernst Junker from Sandefjord on the South coast of Norway was chosen. The
greater part of the 171,960 kroner was paid by the local authority, with the church council and the
State Conservator of Antiquities contributing smaller sums.[ 14] In agreement with the consultant
(Kolnes), the general principle of the restoration was that no parts of the organ were replaced if the
originals could be repaired. Nearly 20 years later the organ still functions flawlessly.

No-one could claim that the Albrechtsen organ in Måndalen is a masterpiece of European
significance. The organ's rich, warm but yet bright flue ranks make it ideal for performance of
Rheinberger and playing Bach convincingly. The reeds, however, display all too clearly Albrechtsen's
shortcomings. As one of the half-dozen oldest playable Norwegian organs, and undoubtedly the best-
preserved of its time, the instrument is still of great historical interest.

It has been spared destruction three times: the first time through deception, the second through
good planning and, most recently, by last-minute intervention. ‘You are finished, wrote the old Rural
Dean of Mandal in his local paper in 1923, ‘they could no longer use you; you had become too old
and frail.’[ 15] The deception (that ‘the organ is a magnificent and solid instrument with extremely
beautiful voicing and good materials’) turned out to be the truth. It is just a shame that more
Scandinavian churches were not equally deceitful.
Peter Adolph Albrechtsen (1840) restored Ernst Junker (1980)

Manual I
Bordun 16
Principal 8
Viola di Gamb. 8
Gedacht 8
Octav 4
Qvinte 2 2⁄3
Octav 2
Trompet (Disk) 8

Manual II
Gedacht (from Bordun 16) 8
Fugare (from Viola di Gamb.) 4
Fløte (from Gedacht) 4
Octav (From Octav 4) 2

Pedal
Subbas 16
Violon 8
Bassun 16

Dummy stop knob for symmetry, labeled ‘Noli me Tangere’.

Manual compass C-c′”
Pedal compass C-d′
Foot-operated triple-chest bellows behind organ.
Façade pipes are dummies.

References:

1. Stein Johannes Kolnes, Norsk orgelkultur: instrument og miljø frå mellomalderen til i dag, p. 161
(Oslo, 1987).

2. Aa Wold, A Bø & T Rishton: Voll kyrkje 1896–1996 (Måndalen, 1996); T Rishton: Fugl i en Fiss, eller
katt i en sekk? Orgelkjøpet som gikk bra til slutt, pp.5–13 (Norsk kirkemusikk 1, April 1997).

3. Vestry minute book: Forhandlingsprotokol for Voll Menighetsraad 1922–1958, 27 June 1925, item
no.5. All books and papers relating to the church and borough councils are now housed in the district
archive at the Rådhus in Åndalsnes, Norway.

4. Møte Bok for Voll kommunestyret 1917–1926. Archives, see note 3.

5. Lindesnes, 6 December 1920.

6. On the church's centenary, 3 July 1921. See Lindesnes, 15 June 1921.

7. Lindesnes, 6 December 1920.

8. Lindesnes, 14 February 1923.

9. Minutes of meeting in Voll Borough Council, 10 December 1926. Møte Bok for Voll kommunestyret
1917–1926. Archives, see note 3.

10. Forhandlingsprotokol 28 June 1958 (see note 3)

11. At a meeting on 6 August, reported in the local newspaper Åndalsnes Avis on 12 August 1958.

12. Menighetsrådsprotokollen 17 January 1980 (see note 3).

13. For his book on the subject, see note 1.

14. Local authority, 124,000 kroner, church 32,000 kroner and State 30,000 kroner (Riksantikvaren
ref. 4314 A-326/82).

15. Lindesnes, 12 March 1923.

Peter Adolph Albrechtsen (1840) restored Ernst Junker (1980)

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By Tim Rishton