Tuesday, may 29, at some on earthly hour after being awake for an unearthly amount of time:

It has been an interesting 24 hours. Almost exactly a day ago, I boarded a plane and flew from LAX to AMS. I was lucky enough get to sit by a window, in the front of the 747 (no, not first class, unfortunately) with my two parents on a KLM flight. It was long. and boring. and I did not sleep anymore than an hour.

I landed in AMS, did the usual clearing of customs (really easy in EU) and got my bag. Then i got a sim card and called Egbert Schoenmaker (a Dutch organist i met at Southern). I waited at Schiphol for him and then we left to Leiden. Leiden is a fascinating city. Very hold and historically a university town. It has a thriving student population. We met Egbert's friend Eric van Bruggen who is the caretaker of a small parish church in Leiden as well as organist at the church. I didn't write down the specifics of the organ. It was about 14 stops in a Werkmeister temperament. It was built around 1730 and has been unaltered since. The only thing that has been done is adding a motor to drive the three bellows. We sat around, talked while Eric smoked a cigar, then walked to Pieterskerk, Leiden where there is a ~50 stop, meantone Van Hagerbeer organ. Unfortunately, while the organ is usually very accessible, I could not play it because they were prepping for a recording session that evening. So, we took pictures and walked back to Eric's parish apartment.

Eric then demonstrated the organ, then he and Ebgert left and I played for about an hour an a half. It is a fantastic instrument with a very old, intense sound. The praestant was lovely and the flutes were very nice also. However, I was not fond of the reeds.

From there, Egbert and I took the train to Haarlem, where we got some food (bread and cheese) and went to perhaps the most famous organ in the world. The Muller organ in Grotekerk St. Bavo Haarlem. Grote translates to "big" and, the name doesn't lie. The church is HUGE!!! the organ alone is 29 meters tall while from floor to ceiling is a mere 40 meters, not counting the second ceiling/roof or bell tower. It is over a hundred meters long. Egbert then left to go home, where I'll meet him on friday and I hung out in Haarlem. It is a charming city with a lively dynamic. I enjoyed people watching as I had about two hours to kill, read part of a book then went for a walk to find the Nieuwekerk (which I failed to do) and returned for a concert at Bavo by Jos van der Kooy, who is the municipal organist of Haarlem. It was a fantastic concert. He played the Buxtehude ciacona, Bach's "Schmuke Dich" some Messien, Piet Kee and ended with Liszt "weinen klagen sorgen zagen". It is a magnificent piece that ends surprisingly with a well developed yet simple setting of the chorale "Was Gott Tut Das Ist Wohlgetan" (What God does is Well Done). It was the perfect ending for the concert. I left drawn closer to heaven and pondering how, indeed, what God does, is always well done.

On that note, I'll say goodnight, try to get some pictures of these instruments up tomorrow, and get rested for another day of looking at orgels.