A Spanish musicologist uncovers the oldest organ in Christianity in Jerusalem.

Seven years ago, during his time as a researcher at the University of Oxford, David Catalunya (Valencia, 43 years old) accidentally came across a mention of the organ at the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem. “I had been documenting myself for several weeks for an academic article on medieval instruments and technology,” recalls the musicologist on that rainy afternoon in his office overlooking Christ Church College in Oxford, where Lewis Carroll taught in one of its classrooms. “In an old book, I found a reference to an organ from the time of the Crusades that was discovered in the Holy Land in the early 20th century. Suddenly, doors opened to a world very few have had access to.”

Fascinated by the discovery, Catalunya kept digging through old treaties. “Aside from the first notice by Jeremy Montagu and a brief paragraph in Peter Williams’ book, the lack of a deep study on this material had turned it into a legend,” he states. The spell worked. “I had a kind of premonition and launched into the adventure following a hunch.” After several email exchanges and a video conference session with a Franciscan friar from the Custody of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, he obtained the permissions to research in the museum of the institution, which has been responsible for the guardianship and administration of Christian places in the region since 1217.

Upon entering the Convent of San Salvador, through a maze of narrow hallways and stairs, Catalunya reached a small locked room. There, the friars showed him some relics that matched the description he had given. “In an old trunk, protected by cloth, appeared dozens of uncatalogued copper pipes,” he recalls in a café next to the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. “Immediately, I felt a deep connection with that instrument.” And not just any instrument, but one built nearly four centuries before the 1435 example from the basilica of Valère in the Swiss Alps, which is considered the oldest in the Western tradition.

Everything suggests that the organ from Bethlehem was brought by ship from Europe by French crusaders and used for liturgy for about a century. “After the Muslim invasion in the 12th century, led by Saladin, it was dismantled and hidden to protect it from destruction,” the musicologist explains. “The instrument belongs to a period of truly fascinating cultural and political effervescence. And it was during this time that the organ became an identity element of Latin Christianity.” In 1906, during an archaeological excavation in the basilica’s garden, 222 pipes and a carillon of thirteen bells were found and transferred to Jerusalem.

Until now, no one had noticed a musical treasure set to rewrite the history of European organology. This is attested by the two Dutch experts accompanying Catalunya on his fourth trip to the Holy Land. “Not every day do you have the privilege of witnessing a unicorn,” acknowledges master organ builder Winold van der Putten, who has constructed instruments based on paintings by Jan Van Eyck. Next to him, with a micrometer in one hand and a pipe in the other, the equally eminent Koos van de Linde interjects: “In the absence of plans, we analyze the relationship between parts, as organs from this period are based on mathematical models that aspire to divine proportion.”

There are hardly any tourists these days in the historic district of Jerusalem. “I have had to navigate many obstacles,” the researcher confesses during an impromptu stroll through the Khan al-Zeit market leading to the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. “The pandemic forced me to pause the project, and I almost canceled this last visit after the Houthi rebels’ missile struck near Ben Gurion Airport.” He says this and points to an old Lebanese cedar ladder forgotten in one of the windows of the temple. “It has been there for over three centuries, and no one has dared to move it for fear of the consequences. The same applies to the organ: you must approach it with the utmost respect.”

The next morning, when we meet again in the museum room reserved for the organ, Catalunya looks like he hasn’t slept. “I was awake all night,” he apologizes. “But something extraordinary happened… almost a miracle.” He then explains that at the very end of the previous day, after measuring and organizing the last pipes from the engravings of the openings, the team tried placing the eight best-preserved metal cylinders into a small bellows that mimics the organ’s ventilation mechanism. “An indescribable sensation washed over me as I heard the powerful and full sound, at times almost angelic, from this mythical instrument buried by time.”

His project, which has been embraced by the Complutense Institute of Musical Sciences, began with the idea of creating a replica of the Bethlehem organ to recover its sound reality. “Our biggest surprise has been discovering that some of these pipes, which are nearly a thousand years old, still sound as if they were made yesterday,” says Catalunya, pointing to the region’s dry climate as a determining factor for its extraordinary state of preservation. “For the first time in modern history, we can hear medieval musical sound without going through a recreation, the very sound that the crusaders heard,” he emphasizes. “It’s a unique glimpse into the past in the world.”

At the guesthouse of the Sisters of the Holy Rosary, during a final breakfast of bread zaatar and hummus, Catalunya and his team celebrate the success of the expedition over toasts of instant coffee. “Let this be a tribute to the anonymous monk who worked hard to preserve the instrument,” reflects the Valencian musicologist as a preamble to an interesting hypothesis about the 120 pipes (out of a total of 324) that the heroic Latin cleric did not have time to bury. “He knew very well what he was doing, as he chose the most important ones,” he suggests. “The choice reveals urgency and, at the same time, meticulous care, as if he expected that, sooner or later, someone would come back to play the organ.”