Michael blowing the bellows for J S Bach's Fugue in g BWV 578

[Enofrappini]

....I could give up the internet, my cellphone and television and just listen to this for the rest of my life....

[Txboy85A]

So, the idea here is to make sure that those levers never rise above a horizontal line. Also, the number of stops selected dictate which of those bellows needs to be filled faster.

[claviolino]

could you explain why the sound is more supple and fluent? fantastic!

[Ianthe22]

hehe, behind evey great organ is a .. hardworking BBB(Bellow Blower Boy). Nice video.

[Arjunai]

Thanx for video. A nice, clean sound, played beautifully. Even perfectly blowed:-)

[HerrWarja]

Interesting job. Does he have a system of somesort of do you just do it randomly?

[bw4t]

@HerrWarja No real system. As the beams come up you push them down. The wedge-shaped bellows may have slightly differing weights on them in order to maintain the correct wind pressure in the organ. (The bellows usually all feed into a common wind line which branches out to supply the various parts of the organ.) A bellows with a slightly heavier weight will collapse more quickly. (Of course, a leaky bellows will also collapse more quickly!)

[Quintade8]

very nice!

[YouNeverMind00]

crazy i never knew that

[SilverlakeDehners]

Clear, unforced tone on bouyant wind, elegantly played, unrushed with just the right amount of rubato giving the organ tone time to develop and the listener the opportunity to luxuriate in the polyphony and sonorities. The flexible wind is clearly heard in the sustained soprano starting at 2:34 to 2:40 when the pedal is also playing adding yet another dimension to the sound.

[organboi]

fantastic. what a totally gorgeous sound. great video. it should go viral actually. something truly fascinating about it.

[Larsky1010]

Wish we could see what's on the other end of those levers. Thanks for uploading!

[bw4t]

The beams will extend to the opposite side of where Michael is standing, with a fulcrum in the middle. From there a smaller beam goes up and is attached to the end of a wedge-shaped bellows. If you search for "hand pumped organ Spain" you'll find what an entire mechanism looks like. John Brombaugh built quite a few organs that could be winded the old fashioned way -- I recently had the opportunity to do this on one of his meantone organs!!

[daniel15671]

The quality of the pipes sustains the tempo. This is the sound and the tempo I've always imagined for this fugue.

[wayfarer197348]

Gorgeous. Sounds just like a group of recorders. Never heard and organ sound that smooth.

[pgandhiyt]

Beautiful. Very different from other organ renditions.