The organs have returned to the church of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Jablonec

Jablonec nad Nisou – The organs have returned to the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Jablonec, restored by the family company Hermann Eule Orgelbau from the German town of Bautzen, which is a partner city of Jablonec. However, everything was complicated by the coronavirus, which prolonged the work. The public will hear the organs at the beginning of September when they will be consecrated again, said Irena Kreiselová, chairwoman of the Jablonec Organ Foundation, which collects money for the restoration of this valuable instrument.

The organ, like the church itself, was designed by local architect Josef Zasche, and it was built in 1932 by the company Rieger-Kloss. The three-manual pneumatic instrument with 43 main registers is equipped with 2,862 pipes ranging from a few centimeters to several meters. The organs desperately needed a restoration as the mechanism inside and the structural case were heavily infested with woodworm, and there were even places where one could stick a finger through the wood. According to Kreiselová, the restoration of the organ cost approximately 6.6 million crowns.

According to organologist Radek Rejšek, the organs of the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus rank among the richest-sounding instruments in the Litoměřice diocese, and their return to the choir was preceded by complicated maneuvers. Jiří Kreisel from the foundation stated that it was necessary to dismantle part of the pews and also the entrance doors to allow a crane to reach the main nave. "We sweated the most with the doors because even after removing the wings, the crane had only one and a half to two centimeters on each side, so it was really tight," said Kreisel.

The heaviest piece that the crane lifted to a height of 14 meters to the choir today was the console, which, according to the crane operator, weighed nearly 700 kilograms. The crane also lifted the bellows and the largest wooden pipes. The metal ones remained stored in the church throughout the restoration. "In the company, there were only those that had been infested with woodworm; the metal ones will be cleaned and repaired on-site," said Kreisel. He added that work on assembling the organ will continue for another two months. "Then two tuners will come from Bautzen to tune the instrument," he added.

A foundation was established five years ago to save the organs, which collects money for the costly restoration. In two years, nearly two million crowns have been raised from small donors thanks to the popular pipe adoption program, with an additional million contributed by the city of Jablonec nad Nisou and half a million from the Liberec region. According to Kreiselová, it is still possible to contribute to the restoration of the organs, for example, through the adoption of pipes. More information can be found on the website www.jabloneckevarhany.cz.