Saint Francisco’s Serafine’s at Charles’s Bridge in Prague

Knights of the Cross - Knights of the Cross Square
11th August2006

The picture: Ján Přibyl and me

The organ is mechanical. An open octave in the manual and a short octave in the pedal are original. The organ had not had the short octave in the pedal before its return to the original state. Conservationists ordered to return the instrument into the original state. In the picture you can that the original part of the console is disrupted by new wood. I feel little sorry that I did not make an overall picture of the instrument. The manuals operated very easily. The II manual had more registers than the 1st manual. The 1^st manual has a low of keys. It is not more than 5 mm. It was possible to move the keys upwards. So if the master organist had paid more attention the 1st manual would be wonderful as well. The overall view of the instrument was very good, one day I would like to play it for sure.

The organ in the Knights of the Cross Church with a red star comes from the end of the 17^th century. According to one of the sources, Leopold from Loket built it. His activities in Prague and in the countryside as well are observed from 1685 to 1721. The organ is situated on the choir, on the right side of the presbytery. It has two manuals. The first one is the positive and the other one is the main instrument. The manuals are connected with a broaching joint. The manuals have an open octave, and the pedal has a short octave.

The disposition from the beginning of the 19^th century:

Manual:
Principal           8´
Bourdon          8´
Octave             4´
Flute              4´
Quinta              3´
Mixtura            2´6x
 

Positive:
Copula major   8´
Copula minor   4´
Principal           2´
Mixtura            2´4x

Pedal:             
Subbas            16´
Octavebas         8´
Quintbas          6´
Superoctavebas 4´

During the operation of the organ several changes have appeared particularly in the disposition. The latest repair has brought the return of the original ideal. The changes and repairs are visible in the pictures.

Worked out by Ján Přibyl.

You can download the above mentioned description here as a Word document.

          

I thank Janko Přibyl and Knights of the Cross brethren for showing the organ.