Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart already knew that the organ was the queen of instruments. However, in a letter to his father in 1777, he still wrote of the “king of instruments”. But whether king or queen - we are delighted that our Jehmlich organ is now ready for concerts in even more beautiful splendor following the completion of its renovation in the Great Hall.

Built in 1983/84 by Jehmlich Orgelbau Dresden in the tradition of the famous Saxon Silbermann organs, it has 74 sounding stops spread over four manuals and one pedal. It has a total of 5,811 individual pipes. Including its supporting steel framework, it weighs a full 20 tons.

In contrast, a medium-sized church organ only has 20 to 30 stops. Incidentally, the Sauer organ in Berlin Cathedral from 1905 has the largest number of stops: a full 113!  The Philharmonie is home to the largest concert hall organ in the city, with 90 stops divided between the main organ and the two-part choir organ on the stage.

The Konzerthaus organ has a soft, blendable sound and is therefore an excellent partner for choirs and orchestras playing classical-romantic and contemporary music, but was also intended for solo use from the outset.

Since 2017, the builder's company has been tasked with the general overhaul and cleaning of the large instrument. In the process, “the console was redesigned and new setting electronics and a wind choke were installed. The specification remained unchanged, the re-tuning of the pipework was based on the sound of 1984. With the installation of several sub-octave and super-octave couplers, the “gravity” and sonority could be expanded somewhat, especially for playing with an orchestra.”