'Pipedreams' fans explore the pipe organs of Switzerland

There was that time the participant got lost in Oxford, England. There was another time a trip attendee was left wandering the Central Square in Prague. Both incidents ended well, thankfully. And for Michael Barone, it's all worth it.

"It's fun!" Barone enthuses about his annual Pipedreams tours. "You share this interest in the pipe organ and its music, and then you share these experiences together … that makes it fun and kind of familial, too."

Right now, Barone and his extended pipe-organ family are taking a whirlwind tour of Switzerland — a destination that turned out to be a treasure trove of instruments. "I had the mistaken notion that because it seemed like a small country, it would be possible to get around easily," Barone admits. "I forget the fact that because Switzerland is so prosperous, there are organs, organs, organs everywhere. It proved to be problematic determining what not to see as opposed to what to see."

The itinerary is chock-a-block: Inside two weeks, Barone — together with Pipedreams producer Joe Trucano and Belgian organist Els Biesemans, who's currently in residency in Switzerland — and the group of 44 travelers are visiting more than 50 organs and two museums in a circuit of the Alpine nation.

Among the pipe-organ treasures the group will encounter is the organ in the Valère Basilica in Sion. It dates from the year 1435, making it arguably the oldest continuously functioning pipe organ. "It's of extraordinary rarity in terms of, 'They don't make them like this anymore'," Barone says. "The evolution of the organ as we know it today — with intricate keyboard and a variety of stops that you can draw individually — is represented by this organ, and this is the earliest extant representation of that."

In the city of Seewen at the Museum of Musical Automatons, the group will see an organ that once entertained passengers aboard the Cunard liner, Britannic, sister ship to the ill-fated Titanic. When Britannic was commissioned by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of World War I, the organ was surplus to requirements and dry-docked for decades before finding its home in the museum in Seewen. What's even more curious about this instrument is that it can play itself with scrolls, just like a player piano. "It represents sort of the ultimate home sound system back in 1914," Barone says. "Although there were recordings, they were acoustic and rather primitive in their musical potential. If you wanted really high-quality music, you either had a reproducing piano or you had a reproducing organ, which was even posher."

Not that the tour participants need an automated organ. Barone, Trucano and Biesemans are accomplished organists, and there are several organists the group will meet and hear perform along the way. Moreover, there are numerous musicians within the tour group itself. "This year, there are 15 people who claim interest in wanting to play organs, and of those, there are probably 7 or 8 who would qualify as professional grade," Barone marvels. "It's going to be a challenge because we hadn't really planned to have that many people wanting to get their hands on things, so we'll figure out some kind of equitable process whereby people will get to play, but they might not get to play every instrument."

A special playing opportunity awaits those performers in the town of Romainmôntier. There, the group will find an organ Albert Alain built in the early 20th century in his home in a Parisian suburb. Albert's two children were Marie-Claire (who would become a famous recitalist and teacher) and Jehan (who would go on to compose what are considered standard repertoire pieces for the organ). With the outbreak of World War II, Jehan became a motorcyclist in the Eighth Motorised Armour Division of the French Army. He was killed in battle in 1940.

The Alain family organ resurfaced in the early 1970s and was fully restored in a former granary in Romainmôntier, Switzerland, in 1991. "You can't go to Leipzig and play the organ that Bach played, you can't even go to Paris and play the organ at Saint-Gervais were François Couperin played," Barone says. "But we can go to Romainmôntier and play the organ that Jehan and Marie-Claire Alain played."

Such an encounter may give performers and listeners alike a chance to experience music as timeless as the surrounding Alps.

Follow the Pipedreams tour on this Facebook page (note: Facebook login required to view).

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