Grote Kerk, Haarlem

The Grote Kerk of St Bavo is located on the market square of the Dutch city of Haarlem. It is a truly beautiful church fit for so fine a city. I cannot say that I was familiar with Saint Bavo; he a Roman Catholic hero whose exploits must have passed me by. The internals of his church are superb and worth the fairly modest admission price. The organ in particular, below, stood out to me. It seems to be flowing down into the church from some magical source up in the roof. It lends even more beauty to an already fabulous church buiding. 

The organ was built between 1735 and 1738 and was reckoned the largest in the world with 60 voices and 32-foot pedal-towers. It even warrants a mention in Moby-Dick (1851), when Herman Melville describes the inside of a whale's mouth:

Seeing all these colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not think you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its thousand pipes?

It has been played by Mendelssohn, Händel and a young Mozart, who came in 1766. I cannot vouch for its sound, but its appearance is superb.

English reformers took a dislike to organs, thinking them popish and idolatrous. It took until the nineteenth century for dissenting protestants to fully appreciated its beauty, when even modest chapels like ours felt the need to install one. We still have it played occasionally today, with mixed results. The Authorised Version makes several references to an organs, such as in Psalm 150:4

Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.

and

They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. (Job 21:12)

Other translations use alternative words like flute, for the orginal Hebrew terms can be hard to translate. A stranger expression is used of an individual which is probably Satan in Ezekiel 28:13:

You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. (NJKV)

Some have suggested that Lucifer was a kind of heavenly worship leader, heading the angelic choirs as they gazed upon, and sang to the glory of, the Triune God for whose praise they were made. Lucifer may have been a living musical instrument, a kind of animated organ. I do not think that this explains the puritans’ dislike of the object, but it may well account for the powerful role of music in idolatrous, pagan worship throughout history.

Whatever the beauty and wonder of the Grote Kerk’s organ, we can be certain that the sound made in heaven prior to the angelic Fall was greater; the sound before the Throne on that great day when when all the redeemed gather together in one place will be better still.