Anyone seeing the Philharmonie Essen for the first time often perceives the building as “new and time-honored at the same time”. These were the words the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” used in June 2004 to describe the newly opened concert hall. This refers to a decisive feature: It is precisely this successful synthesis of the musically historic hall building and the acoustically and aesthetically modern Philharmonic Hall that is a trademark.

But what would a house, no matter how beautiful it is, with its “outstanding acoustics” (“Tagesspiegel”) be without its great artists? Here, too, the Philharmonie continues a tradition of over 100 years. After all, it was nobody else than Richard Strauss who opened the Saalbau in 1904. And just two years later, Gustav Mahler was at the podium, conducting the premiere of his own Sixth Symphony. Largely destroyed in the Second World War, the Saalbau was rebuilt at the beginning of the 1950s, incorporating preserved elements.

After a fundamental renovation of the listed building and the complete redesign of the concert hall, the building was ceremonially reopened on June 5, 2004. Since then, audiences in the acoustically outstanding Philharmonie have been able to enjoy wonderful music.

The large Kuhn organ is the jewel of the Philharmonie. It was inaugurated on September 24, 2004, a few months after the opening of the building. The Swiss organ building company Kuhn wrote about the work of art with its 4502 pipes: “When building the new concert hall organ for the Essen Philharmonic, we had to meet many different demands: The work had to reflect the international, sophisticated character of the place without neglecting the convincing principles of traditional organ building. We also wanted to incorporate the musicians’ suggestions while remaining true to our own ideals. The symphonic instrument with mechanical action and 4502 pipes combines all these goals. As an excellent partner of the orchestra, this organ is capable of giving gravity and sonority to a wide range of musical styles.

The facade is not bound to the work, which allows certain creative freedom. These were also exploited in intensive cooperation with the architects. We were able to give the ‘Tuba’ a very special place: horizontally, it shines under the gallery. In order to optimally meet the requirements of modern concert business, the instrument is equipped with an additional mobile console.

Thanks to balancers and Kuhn levers, the high wind pressures are kept at an easily playable level. Two additional octave couplers support the effective swell so that the tonal resources can be used to the best advantage. In contrast to the church organ, the sound gradation is based on the hierarchy of the manuals; mensuration and intonation are designed for ensemble effect.

What existed in the beginning only as an idea in people’s heads and on paper has been transformed into reality by our organ builders, pipe makers and carpenters in untiring detail work. They have paved the way for artistic flights of fancy, moments of evening gowns and unforgettable performances”.

The sample set has many special and unique features, including:

• Four channels (2 stereo channels) of chromatically sampled stop-by-stop pipes, including recorded tremulants for all Positiv and Schwellwerk stops.
• All screens are optimized for single and dual touchscreens in landscape and portrait format in 4K resolution.
• The sample set offers multiple photorealistic screens. The original organ has two consoles: a mechanical console on the balcony and a mobile console on the stage. Both consoles have been implemented as virtual screens. The landscape screen shows the mobile console, and the portrait screen the mechanical console. The photorealistic dual jambs also show the jambs of the mobile console (dual landscape screens) and the mechanical console (dual portrait screens).
• Simple screens. Simple screens in both landscape and portrait orientation are available for single and dual-monitor systems.
• The sample set offers modeled (all manual divisions) and recorded tremulants (Positiv and Schwellwerk).
• The sample set adds two carefully selected transmissions to the pedal stops. Moreover, the Tuba 8 can be also played from the Positiv and the Schwellwerk.
• All 4 divisions are enclosed.

New features of version 2:

• The crescendo and the enclosures can now be also MIDI learned on the simple screens.
• A user-programmable crescendo.
• Sostenuto for all 4 divisions.
• A user-adjustable fixed and automatic pedal divide (the latter not available in the US).