On Bach, the Lübeck pipe organ & historical treasures

I was invited to conduct the Internationale Chorakademie Lübeck at the historical Lübeck in northern Germany. Its church is widely admired, especially for its pipe organ. It is said that the “Father of Music” Johann Sebastian Bach played on this organ over 200 years ago, and this organ has not been renovated since then.

It preserves the same timbres and mechanisms from 200 years ago. It is a ‘Mecca’ for experts of various fields, including music, arts, physics and humanitarian.

When just arriving here, I heard an interesting story about Bach: About 200 years ago, Bach heard that the world’s most beautiful pipe organ was in Lübeck. He came, played it, and fell in love. Hence, he asked the bishop if he could be the organ master at the church, that way he could play the instrument every day. The bishop replied: I will agree, only if you marry my daughter. Bach was delighted, it was as if killing two birds with one stone.

The next day, the bishop brought his daughter to meet Bach while he was playing the organ. Bach turned around and was shocked as the bishop’s daughter was awfully ugly.

Bach stood up and said to the bishop, apologetically: Sorry, I need to use the men’s room. Bach never came back.

Since then, the bishop has not let anyone else touch this pipe organ, saying: The father of music is just in the toilet, he’ll be back very soon. Few years later, he installed a new organ for the church’s performances, and have never let anyone touch Bach’s organ.

It’s fascinating how things work out in life, because of this incident, we have persevered the world’s only original pipe organ, a musical treasures of over 200 years old.