https://youtu.be/SoroRuDWSFg 

Unlike other instruments, like violin, piano or saxophone, the organ has never become standardised. And while (almost) every church has an organ, all those organs are unique and unlike any other organ. There are differences in size, differences between builders, differences in time periods, differences in regions, and differences in almost any combination of size, builder, time period and region. 

Each of those combinations created the possibilities of it's own unique musical style. The style of organ playing in Thuringia in the Baroque era differs from the style of playing in southern Germany in the same era. The music of the Romantic era in France differs from that in in Germany or England. An Italian organ is very much unlike a Spanish organ and the music written for those instruments is also very different. Each of these types of music is best played on the instruments of the same region and time period, because the music was written for those instruments and those instruments inspired the music written for them.

The virtal organ software Hauptwerk has created the possibility to play instruments of all styles and all time perods in the comfort of one's own home. There are sample sets of Italian organs, Spanish organs, English organs, French organs, Dutch organs, German organs, Polish organs etcetera, etcetera. And those come in sample sets of organs of different time periods as well. There are for example sample sets of Dutch Baroque organs, Dutch Romantic organs, Dutch neo-baroque organs and the same can be said of most of the aforementioned countries. 

Music of César Franck can be played on a Romantic French organ, music of Max Reger on a Romantic German organ, music of Jan Zwart on a Romatic Dutch organ, music of Edward Elgar on a Romantic English organ and music of Arthur Foote on a Romantic American organ.

And the music of Otto Dienel (1839 - 1905) can be played on a Romantic German organ, one from Sauer or Walcker. After all, Dienel was organist in Berlin during the Romatic period in Germany and his music can be best played on a ditto instrument.

Or can it?

Now it gets interesting. Organs are expensive instruments to build. Changing times and changing musical tastes never led to destruction of all existing instruments to replace them with newly build instruments. Some instruments survived unchanged through the centuries and some instruments were adapted and some instruments were indeed newly build. Every organist always has to make do with the instrument at hand. And that instrument is perhaps newly build, it was perhaps restored or adapted 20 years ago, or it was perhaps never changed at all. And every organist plays on the instrument at hand, the music he or she likes and wants to play on that instrument.

Otto Dienel was organist in Marienkirche in Berlin. The organ in that church was build in 1720 - 1723, adapted in 1800, restored in 1829, and enlarged and adapted in 1893. So it was in origin a Baroque organ, suffered some changes in the classical period and was again changed in the Romantic period. And the sound was probably a mix of all those styles and periods. And that was the instrument Dienel wrote his music for. 

Did he write with a Romantic sound esthetics in mind or was his musical imagination influenced with the (possibly) Baroque sounds of his organ? Did he write music for his own organ, or did he write music wishing he had a newly build Sauer at his disposal?

If I want to play music composed by Dienel, what type of sample set should I choose? German Baroque, Classical, or Romantic? And which one of the possible sample sets from all those time periods? Even if there were a sample set of the organ of the Marienkirche in Berlin, it would be a sample set of how it sounded today (after the enlargement of Sauer in 1908, and the various restorations in 1957, 1970, 1985 and 1999) and not of how it sounded in the days of Dienel. So, I do what every organist of every time always does: adapt the music to the organ at hand. The organ of the Martini church in Groningen is Renaisance in origin and given it's present shape mainly by the famous (Baroque) organ builder Arp Schnitter. How does German Romantic music sound when played on a Dutch Renaisance/Baroque organ and is it 'right' to play such music on such an instrument? 

The result is in the video. Everyone can make up his/hers own mind whether it is 'right' or 'wrong'.

The recording was done with the Hauptwerk software and the sampleset, made by Sonus Paradisi, of the Schittger organ in the St. Martini-kerk, Groningen (http://www.sonusparadisi.cz/en/organs/netherlands/groningen-st-martini.html).

I play the accompaniment with the Salicet 8' of the Hoofdwerk and the choral melody with the Octaav 4' of the Bovenwerk played one octave lower than notated. As an experiment I used the 'wide' option of my phone's camera. It was only when watching the result I realised that the playing of the choral melody is now largely unvisible. Sorry for that.

<center>

![thumbSteem.jpg](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/partitura/ncxX03TP-thumbSteem.jpg)

</center><br/>

<center><hr/>

[You can support me using Steem Basic Income](https://app.steemconnect.com/sign/transfer?to=steembasicincome&amount=1.000%20STEEM&memo=partitura)
</center>

<center><hr/>

<center><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmSSjgs1swFwv64uXRVpB9DAtzSnDv2Eeqr3CnPAup4WVV/Banner.png">