Östhammar
The organ in Östhammar was the first organ built by Smedmans Orgelbyggeri under Karl Nelson’s leadership. The organ stands to the right in the front of the church room, between two windows. The windows are two meters apart, and the challenge of this project was to build an 8-foot organ in a discretely sized case between these windows. The primary purpose of the instrument is to lead the congregation in liturgy and song, but also to accompany the choir and even serve as continuo in smaller ensembles, all this with only 12 stops.

The disposition features a complete 8-foot principal chorus in the Hauptwerk including a trumpet. The Bröstwerk has 8’ and 4’ oak flutes, a 2’ conical flute, and a 2 rank cornet. The pedal consists of a Subbas and the traditional couplers. The scalings follow the smaller varieties of the historical North-German models, and the voicing is consistently open-toed with generous cutups and a vocale quality.

The design of the case is inspired by the historical organ of the church in Östra Ljungby, built in 1707 by Johan Georg Amdor. The facade of the organ is divided into three fields, instead of the more common five fields, which allows the organ to fit more neatly between the windows. The upper case is 70 cm deep, the lower case only 60 cm deep, and the whole case is placed 45 cm from the wall with the subbas under the walkboard. The tin facade includes pipes from the Praestant 8 from D to tenor h. The order on the HW windchest follows major thirds from tenor c. The pipe for C stands in the center tower behind the other facade pipes. The interior principal pipes are made of 77% lead, hand scraped to a tapered thickness. The 8’ rohrflute and the trumpet resonators are made of 97% hammered lead.

The organ is winded by a single large wedge bellows connected to an electric blower which resides in a small case to the right of the organ. There is a small wind stabilizer under the main windchest. The wind pressure is 72 mm on the manometer. The organ is tuned in Kellner’s “Bach” temperament.

The following persons have contributed to this project:
Mouafak Failli		Case construction, windsystem, pedal keyboard.
Karl Nelson		Concept and design, pipework, voicing.
Gabriel Nordangård		Subbas construction, action
Johan Sköld		Windchests, keyboards, action, installation.
Peter Ardstål		Keyaction
Johan Gustafsson		Stopknob labels
Franz James		Keyaction
Bengt Tribukait		Voicing
Tomas Öjersson		Metalwork
Sven-Olof Carlsson		Painting and gilding
Suzanne Sundström		Carvings, design and execution
David Aurelius		Organist
Siri Eriksson		Chairman, church council and organ committee
Hans Hellsten		Controllant

The musical result of the organ is a result of the particular combination of many factors – mechanical unbushed key action, a flexible windsystem, the organization of the pipework, the acoustical properties of the organ case, the musical tuning system. Hans Hellsten (from the Conservatory of Music in Malmö) described the sound of the organ in the following terms:

“The voicing is of the same high quality as the rest of the organ. The organ’s sound is intimate without dominating, it is fresh without being irritating, the separate voices blend easily without losing their individuality. It is difficult to describe sound and what I have already written may seem “flowery.” But to state it in the most literal words, the Östhammar organ is one of the best organs I have been in contact with. Karl Nelson has succeeded in uniting aesthetic attention to detail with intonation at the highest level, something which happens all to seldom. Should the following Karl Nelson organs be as fine as the Östhammar instrument, we have witnessed the start of a new major organbuilder. Östhammar's congregation is to be congratulated for the courage to engage a young and lesser-known builder and for the courage to allow him to design the organ according to his own principles.”

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