Sometimes we just get lucky.
Looking through a very long list of possible things to do in our last week in Budapest, I came across ads for an organ concert at St. Stephen’s Basilica. It sounded interesting because if we bought the right ticket, we’d get to meet the organist. He would talk about the organ and then play the concert.
We walked and bussed to the basilica* in light rain and heavy wind, went through the usual misunderstandings about what we were supposed to do to validate our vouchers, and ended up in a small group of 9 people waiting for whatever was supposed to happen next.
Here’s what I was expecting: We would enter the massive basilica with the rest of the throngs of tourists. The organist would point in the direction of the pipes way up there and tell us how many there were and how old they were and who built them. We would then sit in one of the pews and listen to the concert with all of the rest of the people milling about. It would be informative and we would know more than we did before we went in.
Here’s what happened: The cheerful organ player was maybe in his early forties. Hard to tell. He was very friendly, said follow me, then stood back and waited for us to go first instead of following him, which resulted in him having to more or less jog up the stairs to get past us and back in the lead just in time to usher us through the right door.
To my surprise, we ended up in a little room where the organ was high above the sanctuary pews, with the pipes towering over us, right behind us. The organist did indeed tell us about the organ. He told us about the largest pipe, which is 30’ tall, and then played it so we could see why they don’t use it very much. It’s deep-throated blast must have rattled everything in the place including our teeth.
He also told us about the smallest pipe, just ½” long. He played it too, but we couldn’t hear it, none of us being bats.
It is all beyond belief to me; not just the massively ornate cathedral but the mechanics of the organ. How on earth did someone create that instrument in 1904? The sheer magnitude of the materials needed, the precision of the pipes, the connections between the organ and the blowers and the pipes. It boggles the mind what skilled craftsmen can do with enough experience, time, money and manpower.
In between the two extremes, there are 6,505 pipes. The organ itself now incorporates some computer technology and has 93 registers. A register is a combination of settings that give a specific sound quality. The organist showed us what that means by changing the settings to make it sound like a piano, an oboe, a trumpet and much more. Once a combination is set up, it can be saved for easy access, with handy buttons for switching to the “Previous” or the “Next” set of settings.
I wondered what the people below must have wondered as they heard random sounds from the pipe organ. We knew what he was doing as he displayed its versatility, but they wouldn’t have had a clue.
A bit of trivia that’s important only to me: the organist talked directly to me almost the whole time. Nora noticed it too, and she said others looked at me. I’m not sure why; maybe I looked in most serious need of an education in pipe organs. I prefer to believe I looked the most interested, and I was looking him in the eye the whole time. Only the organist knows for sure.
“Now I will play it for you,” he said. “First, the Allelujah Chorus by Handel.” OMG. Sitting 10 feet from the organist, with the pipes filling the space behind us and the basilica’s incredible interior as a panorama in front of us, it was more than magnificent. Tears filled my eyes and trickled down my cheeks.
Next, Ave Maria, quiet and moving. And then a variety of pieces by Bach and Hungarian composers. One piece was composed by a famous Hungarian, Franz Liszt, who among other things played the organ in the Jewish synagogue here and founded the Academy of Music in the 1800’s. It was a favorite.
When he was finished, the organist thanked us for listening. I told him we would be willing to listen for another 60 minutes, but he declined. Instead, he invited anyone who could play piano or organ to play the organ. I wished my grandkids had been there instead of me. There was one man in our little group who had some familiarity with pipe organs, so after considerable prodding from all of us he took a seat on the bench and played some simple music beautifully. It turned out that he tunes pipe organs in cathedrals in England and beyond.
As for us, the best we could do was to sit on the bench while the organist took our picture. I asked how long he had taken to get to this point where he was in such an honored position. He had started when he was 6 playing the piano, then switched to organ when he was 12. He had been playing for nearly 30 years? When I tried to give him a tip as we parted, he refused it. “You paid for your ticket,” he said. I protested, “Yes, but you have been practicing for us for 30 years.” He smiled, thanked me, and still refused the tip.
Our tickets got us into some other sections of the basilica as well. We climbed 364 steps to get to a walkway that goes around the main dome. It’s a fantastic place to see the panorama of the city, although to be honest the wind and rain detracted a bit from the experience and gave the whole city a misty appearance. Still, it was worth it. The top of the top of the basilica is 96 meters high, exactly the same height as the top of the top of the Parliament building. The origin of the 96 is 1896, the centennial of the founding of Hungary, and the equal heights are meant to convey the equivalent importance of the religious and civil realms.
We also saw the mummified right hand of St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary, after whom the cathedral is named. According to the story, King Stephen’s body was exhumed at some point and the whole body was decomposed except his right hand, which was identifiable by the royal ring on his finger. That “miracle” has made it one of Hungary’s most sacred and treasured relics, so much so that during WWII it was spirited away to Austria with King Stephen’s crown so Russian bombs wouldn’t destroy it. Not to diminish from the value of the relic, the gold and glass case it’s in is magnificent. The hand itself? A little hard to see.
Sometimes we get great experiences by planning and researching and asking questions. Sometimes we just get lucky.
*If you don’t know the difference between a cathedral and a basilica… well… I don’t either, really. At least not well enough to explain it here. Google it.
