Inaugural Recital Set for Organ

The instrument is massive, taking up a corner of the choir loft at St. Denis Roman Catholic Church in Diamond Bar.

And after four years of painstaking craftsmanship by master organ builder Winfried Banzhaf, his magnum opus will be heard this afternoon when organist Sandra Soderlund performs the inaugural recital.

The organ, which has a cherrywood case and gold-leaf decoration, has 2,800 pipes imported from Germany and France, Banzhaf said. Everything else on the instrument was built and assembled in the craftsman’s East Los Angeles shop, then reassembled in the church at 2151 Diamond Bar Blvd. Installation took a year, including the time-consuming tuning adjustments.

The instrument is a tracker organ, like the ones built in the 18th Century.

“The keys are mechanically connected to valves that let air into the pipes,” said Banzhaf, as opposed to a pneumatic action that was used in the mid-19th Century, or the electronic controls of this century. Banzhaf said craftsmen began building tracker organs again in the 1920s, although the trend did not really get going until after World War II.

How the musician touches the keys does make a difference, Banzhaf said.

“You can have more of a relationship with the instrument,” he explained. “When you press a key slowly, the sound is different than when you press it quickly.”

Banzhaf began his apprenticeship in his hometown of Giengen, Germany, in 1953. He came to the United States in 1963, building organs for other companies until he opened his own shop in 1978.

The concert of works by Clerambault, J. S. Bach and Cesar Franck will begin at 4:30 p.m. Suggested donation is $10, or $5 for students and seniors.