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Hello, I'm Silvius von Kessel,
the Organist and Choir Master here in Erfurt Cathedral.
Erfurt is the capital of Thuringia, and Thuringia is also where Bach as been born.
And a big part of his family lived also in Erfurt but for us, and for
the musicians and church musicians
this is a very important and wonderful history
of music... and the wonderful
churches and buildings here like cathedral you can
do music not only by Bach but you can play
wonderful music in these places where you know
that this music has been played for centuries
Besides my work here at the Cathedral, there's a big
music festival -- classic music festival -- which is called Thuringian Bachhoven
and it lasts the up to two weeks
after the Easter and it's
the biggest festival of music here in Thuringia
and, of course, Johann Sebastian Bach was the most
important composer here, and also in the world you could say.
We are lucky to be able to do all these concerts here
in the historic sites. We we are playing
at these sites where Bach has been and where he has grown
and so we have plenty of houses, churches & places where
we have the feeling of historic
Johann Sebastian Bach and this is very nice for a festival of course
to listen to wonderful concerts but also to listen to these concerts at the places
where you know it was here that was Bach
and it gives you the responsibility to keep up the
cultural beat of this
country here. So, actually for me personally it's wonderful to be here.
I like very much to be here. Yeah, of course I'm playing elsewhere and abroad
many organ concerts and so... but actually to be here
and Center of German old
music is quite wonderful.
I began with a Bach piece
A prelude...a beginning of a prelude
in B Flat major
This is the main console of the organ.
You could say...some people say it's the cockpit...
of the big aircraft
of the organ... and it has 2,500 pipes...
quite a lot... The main organ
is still a mechanical action so you have
a connection between key and the pipe, it is
mechanical so you don't have
electric action...but if you have an organ that is quite far away
it's not possible to have so long wooden
connection and so you have
it simply electrically, and this is much easier...