Het ASTA-orgel in Steenwijk

last updated on: 01-12-2002

The ASTA-organ.

In September 2001 the Nederlandse Organ Federatie took the largest theater-organ in the Netherlands in use again: the organ from the former ASTA-Theater in Den Haag. It is rebuild again in 'de Meenthe' in Steenwijk and lets hear itself from its best side there.

The ASTA-organ that lets hear its beautiful sounds again in Steenwijk was build round 1930 by the company Blaisse-Strunk for the ASTA-Theater in Den Haag. It is a 4/29 organ, that means it has 4 manuals (rows with keys) and 29 rows with pipes (ranks). And with her 29 ranks, it is the largest of her kind in the Netherlands.

Rebuilding an organ with the sizes of the ASTA is not easy: a large team of enthusiastic volunteers, under supervision of Bert van Rossum has been working on it for more than seven (!) years! Remember that it is not only the organ itself that has to get working again: is has to be installed into something as well: the organ-chambers. And for those chambers there had to be drilled several foundation-poles through the already existing floor of 'de Meenthe'. A 'fat job'.

Below is a small picture-gallery with photos of the ASTA-organ in 'de Meenthe'.
Photos can be enlarged by double-clicking on them.


the organ seen from the front.	the console photo: NOF	the backplane of the console...	and in detail.

The organ is built in in 4 organ-chambers. De console is with a big 'lifeline' connected to the organ and can therefore be placed in the hall right before the audience. A 'light-show' is created before the organ-chambers. The middle chambers are lighted with blue light, the two outer with yellow light. When the 'shutters' (used to let the organ sound louder or softer) are opened for 'full power', the hart of the organ is visible somewhat. On the backplane of the console technicians can set the 'presets': the organist can, by pushing small buttons, give the organ 'preset' sounds'. On the console, between the manuals are white round buttons: every button can be 'preset' with a registration of pipes to produce the different 'voices' a organ can produce with one push on a button.

In the organ-chambers are located thousands of pipes: big ones and small ones. The longest are more than 10 meters long and lay in the chamber, because standing is impossible due to the lack of room while the smallest pipes are as small as a little finger. Apart from all these pipes, there are a lot of other instruments in the organ-chambers, varying from drums to screaming sirens, even an old T-Ford horn can be heard. And since all these pipes and instruments are working on air, there is a room below the organ-chambers where the 'wind-machines' are located: they produce a real storm through the instrument. What kind of pipes and coupled to what manual they are can be read from the 'disposition' of the organ (sorry, only in dutch for the moment)

The ASTA-organ in Steenwijk is provided with a MIDI-interface, due to which it is possible to 'record' a concert, while the organist is playing on a computer and have it 're-played' later (for example at night when there are no people in the building) for instance to make sound recordings for CD's. Every key pressed on the console, every register-switch activated to produce a sound, even the volume (register how far the shutters are opened) is recorded in 'bits and bytes' by the MIDI-interface onto the computer. In this way re-playing a (part of a) concert has become a(n) (organ-)whistle of a (euro-)cent [Dutch proverb].