Installation begins of new pipe organ at St. Vitus Cathedral
Prague’s famous St. Vitus Cathedral, symbol of Czech statehood and home to the Czech crown jewels, is getting a new organ that will better resound through the monumental house of prayer. The instrument, which is being financed from a public collection, will put the finishing touch to the cathedral’s glory more than 700 years after work on it started.
The Cathedral of St. Vitus, where Czech kings were crowned and where they are buried, is a majestic house of prayer within the Prague Castle compound. Just one thing marred its perfection. The cathedral’s organ with its four and a half thousand pipes, built by Josef Molzer in 1932, is not strong enough to fill the whole space of the 125-metre-long and up to 60-metre-wide church.
In 2017, the Catholic Church commissioned a new organ for St. Vitus from a renowned Spanish firm which has made similar organs for cathedrals in Madrid and Brussels. The first consignment of the overall 6,000 pipes arrived this week from the workshop of German organ builder Gerhard Grenzing in El Paipol near Barcelona. Jakub Skrejpek from the St. Vitus Organ Endowment Fund said the new organ necessitated a great deal of planning.
“The process of creating the new organ took longer than expected because we made additional requirements in the course of time. We asked for a number of customized features, for instance technology that would enable give the organ player mobility and enable him to sit with the orchestra during concerts.”
The new organ will be installed in the neo-Gothic organ loft, on the Western side of the cathedral above the main entrance. Its maker, Gerhard Grenzing, visited Prague in person to inspect the loft where it would stand. He promised to create an instrument suited both to classical organ music and new compositions. “I will listen to the melody of the Czech language and try to project it into the instrument,” he said.
It will be some time yet before people get to hear the sound of the new organ. It is now being put together pipe by pipe. The smallest is under 7 mm, the largest over 7 meters. Its installation is expected to continue through the summer. That will be followed by fine-tuning which should be completed in the spring of next year. The official ceremonial inauguration of the new organ will take place on the feast of St. Vitus on June 15th 2026.
Vojtěch Mátl, head of the Secretariat of the Prague Archbishopric and chairman of the board of the St. Vitus Endowment Fund says it will be a historic day for the cathedral.
"We see this moment as the culmination of a profound spiritual and social effort. The organ is not just an instrument - it is a symbol of the spiritual voice of the cathedral that will speak to the faithful and visitors for generations to come."
Individuals and institutions have so far donated more than 106 million towards the cost of the new pipe organ. A final 2.5 million crowns remain to be collected before the entire project is completed.
