There are only a few facts available about the first organs of the church:
The Canonica visitatio from 1748 (p. 4) lists - among other objects of the church - an organ of 7 variations.
There survived an insurance policy in case of fire, taken out at the First Hungarian insurance company of Budapest . This estimates the dismantled pieces of an organ of 9 variations , packed up in the attic of the old National School , worth to 500 Austrian Fts. This organ was later sold for 300 Fts, presumably to a smaller church.
The first detailed document seems to be a contract from 1872, which mentions a brand new organ with 14 stops. It was constructed by a famous organ-builder, Sándor Országh jr. The whole of this contract has survived, describing the specification of the proposed organ as follows:
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This organ however, after a service of some decades, could not satisfy the developing demands of the local musical life - hence the construction of a new organ was decided on .
HISTORY OF THE PRESENT ORGAN
The construction of the organ coincided with a large-scale renovation of the church. Consequently, the church, which had been beautifully renovated inside and out, and the organ were consecrated together, on 23th August 1908. The instrument was constructed in Temesvár, in the organ-factory of Lipót Wegenstein and his Son . Kilián Szigeti reported its specification together with the company's 16-stop organ from 1906, installed in the downtown church of Esztergom (Régi Magyar Orgonák [Old Hungarian organs]: Szeged, Zeneműkiadó 1982) :
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According to a contemporary newspaper-article, the Wegensteins provided them with a completely built up version, instead of the 2 combinations recorded in the budget, thus they delivered 54 more pipes than expected, and the organ had 17 stops . (Nógrádi Hírlap, 23 August 1908.) However, this is an unclear and doubtful information. The Octavbass 8' stop could possibly have been built by that time.
Wegenstein's organ was constructed in an extremely romantic manner: with pneumatic action (being new and up-to-date at the time), many string-stops, stop-crescendo, manual II being not independent, only Echo-Organ, moreover, in a swell box. The Bourdon 16' is a combined stop from the stopped 8'.
The instrument was not ten years old yet when, owing to the metal-gatherings during World War I, the biggest tin-pipes had to be delivered (the 25 biggest pipes of the Principal 8' ); although they had been replaced later, the material was of poorer quality than the original one. Even today these very same zinc-pipes can be heard and seen in the front of the organ-case. Some of them occasionally resonate, they cannot be tuned and their intonation is not good. They look slightly storm-beaten already at first sight.
The 5-5 Principal pipes in the biggest flats of the front are made of zinc and are smaller than the spaces would allow.
This organ had not completely satisfied all claims, hence was rebuilt, broadened and provided with new playing board in 1928, by Ottó Rieger , an organ-maker from Budapest, with the financial support of earl Géza Mailáth . The old console of Wegenstein was transported to the church in Hugyag, where it is still in use.
Rieger's console can be found in the parish of Nógrádmarcal, out of usage.
In 1928 Rieger built in 5 (or 6) new stops and established the old and new ranks of manual II in the Super octave coupler part. As the organ-case proved to be small, due to the new ranks, it had to be extended (manual II, C-#C). Thus, the front of the organ was altered, with the addition of the part containing two lateral (mute) ranks .
Most likely it happened around that time when, owing to the extended number of stops, three pedal stops were placed behind the organ-case, under the arch beneath the tower (see next picture).
The stop-list of Rieger (* = new stop):
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In 1981 the organ was reconstructed by István Koloss and László Fehér , according to their and János Varga choir-master's design. It was converted to baroque style, as a contemporary fashion. This means the following alterations: reducing the number of 8'stops, mainly the string ones, replacing them with higher stops. To do this, there were two possible techniques, out of which the more solid one was replacing the pipes. In the case of our organ, the Harmonia aetheria IV 2 2/3' was converted into Mixture IV 1' by Koloss and his colleagues, making use of some old pipes and adding new ones. Gamba 8' was transferred from manual I to manual II, and its original place was filled with a Superoctave 2' stop, which probably comes from another organ. The pipes of Salicional 8' were stamped out and its post got occupied by the Quintadena 8' of manual II. The Mixture of manual I, starting from 2 2/3' got altered to 2' , its Discant was strengthened by some new pipes.
A rather profane way of making an organ sound baroque was cutting the redundant pipes of the string-registers into halves, and, with a slight alteration, constructing „new”, higher registers out of them. During the reconstruction of our organ in 1981, this do-it-yourself method was used to turn the Cello 8' into Choral-pipe, the Violprincipal 8' into Italian octave 4' , the Aeolin 8' into Larigot 1 1/3'. However, these „new” registers are quite far from sounding as well as they would if they had been newly made (using proper material, with proper sizing).
The pipes of Cello 8' (now: Choral-pipe 4' ), nearly halved in length, with the wooden pipes of Octavbass 8' behind them. The soldering is apparent on the closest pipes, with which the pipe-endings, containing the tuning-rolls (on the back), were fixed onto the shortened pipes.
The picture above shows the Subbass 16' stopped wooden pipes, behind the pipes of Octavbass 8' . These should constitute the most important bass-stop of the organ. Unfortunately, out of its 30 pipes 26 does not work properly, because the pipes are warped, cracked (the material being timber-quality), and obviously many of them are not original.
It is apparent that the pipes of Subbass 16' are of two different construction: the big ones have polygonal while the small ones circular stopper-handles. Moreover, the short pipes are longer than necessary, as their stopper-handles are below the rim of the pipes (which is not so in the case of the big pipes), and it makes their tuning difficult.
Some of these pipes, which were longer than necessary, had to be shortened, to be able to be tuned. One of these pipes bares some cracks and warps (it has polygonal stopper-handle).
The discant pipes of Subbass 16' were certainly not constructed for this organ, as their pitch-labelling does not match their present pitch (hence they are longer than necessary). It is unknown when these pipes were built into the organ, the most probable date is when these three stops of the pedal were moved into the back of the organ-case, due to lack of space. This is likely to have happened during the expansion-works by Rieger. The biggest problem with the Subbass 16' rank - as it has already been mentioned - is its inappropriate sound, the reason for which, apart from the poor quality of the pipes, can be the acoustically incorrect distribution.
The specification in 1981 became as follows (* = alterations):
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The pneumatic action was partly renovated, still the tunes were quite late.
In the middle of the 1980's the organ was provided with a radial and concave pedalboard, made in the neighbouring village, but it did not work, because of the special sizing and forming. After a few years the original pedal-keyboard of Rieger was installed.
The next reconstruction took place in 1991-92. This time it was after Gábor Lehotka 's suggestion that a new, electronic console was built into the organ by Béla Bánffy and his companions.
The old blower was removed, instead of which all three works (main-work, shutter-work, pedal-work) were supplied with separate blowers, probably because manual II had uneven provision of wind. However, the replacement of the blower did not solve the problem, hence it was unnecessary. Furthermore, together with the removal of the old blower the nicely floating Tremolo was gone. Although the organ was provided with a new Tremolo with controllable pace, but this - no matter how strictly controlled - cannot be finely floated, and it applies only to manual II.
The electronic console did not fulfil the expectations:
The delay of tunes remained the same as in case of the old playing board.
The settings of the adjustable combination system (2x18) sometimes get deleted when cutting off the current.
Although connection failures of the manuals are impossible in such a special, electronic console with photocell-system, sometimes electronics can cause strange disorders: wrong switches, missing tunes, accidental sounds - worshippers have ear-witnessed them several times.
The range got widened up to f' on the pedal and up to g''' on the manuals (instead of the optimal a''') with poor-quality pipes, the sound of which is in contrast with the original. The keys of the broadened manuals do not work properly
The picture shows the pipes built in so as to widen the range of the pedals. The wooden pipes are made of laminated plate (!). Their sound is even worse than that of the inappropriate Subbass-discant pipes described above.
The wind-box and pipes provided for the #f''' and g''' of manual I, which presently work just the way they want .
With manual II, the situation was easy for Bánffy, as the two new keys sound the corresponding pipes of the earlier fully constructed superoctave-coupler. The II+II sub and II+II super couplers were built into the playing board, but the remaining 10 keys of the highest octave of the superoctave-copula have not been connected to the existing pipes. Consequently, the number of the sounding pipes is almost 90 less than the total number of the organ's pipes at present.
Although the project contained the construction of two reeds (man. I: Trumpet 8' , Ped.: Light Posaune 16' ), only their tabs were installed on the console, which is a remarkable loss.
The organ-case was painted blue (previously it was brown, today its tone is greenish).