LIZ SAYS: St. Bavo, a church in Haarlem, has this fantastic organ. We entered the church because Dick said the organ was remarkable. It just so happened that the organist and the two assistants it took to pull and place the stops were working on notations. They were playing just a few notes, then he, the organist would, scribble on the sheet music in front of him. We could see them on a video that was being shown below. The organ was high up and huge, baby blue and pewter. The sound was typical grand pipe organ, but the high end was sublime. The puffy, round sound of the high notes put to shame the hissy, white noise we tolerate with our imusic earphones. It was truly magnificent and these were just three note trills.
There were lots of gorgeous wood carvings. Normally, I’m not attracted to wood carvings, too much brown, but these were really clever. One life sized dog with another tiny dog head coming out of its neckerchief. But the most interesting one was of a man biting the wood of his carving. Evidently, at one point the people of the town were starving and this piece noted their desperation.
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