As is now the case on the home stretch of the Beethovenhalle construction site, where two partners who have been working together for over six decades are now meeting again and have their sights firmly set on the common goal: the reopening of the renovated Beethovenhalle on December 16, 2025. The world-famous, traditional Bonn organ builder Klais began restoration work on the Beethovenhalle concert organ at the beginning of March 2025.
On Monday, March 17, 2025, Bonn's Mayor Katja Dörner visited the Beethovenhalle construction site to see the progress of the work for herself. In the workshop set up by the Klais company in the chamber music hall, it is clear that the restoration of the organ is another major project within a major project. 5,344 pipes have to be removed, cleaned, restored and reassembled together with the other important components of an organ, windchests, bellows, mechanical action parts and electronics, as well as two consoles, to create a resounding instrument.
Mayor Dörner: "A piece of Bonn all over the world thanks to Klais organs"
Mayor Katja Dörner was impressed by the detail and care that went into the restoration of the organ and recalled the close cooperation between the City of Bonn and the long-established company Johannes Klais Orgelbau GmbH & Co. KG, which are working together for the third time on a large scale for the Beethovenhalle concert organ: "Bonn stands for Beethoven. And music plays an important role in Bonn. In addition to Beethoven, companies such as the traditional organ building company Klais are also associated with music in Bonn all over the world. For around 150 years, the Klais company has had its headquarters and workshop not far from here in Kölnstraße, where it produces organs for concert halls and churches on all continents of the world with impressive craftsmanship. Through these instruments, a piece of Bonn can always be found all over the world."
The Klais company has accompanied, maintained and preserved its organs for decades. One of these is the Beethovenhalle organ, which left the workshop in 1959, 66 years ago, and now stands in the Great Hall of the Beethovenhalle just a few hundred meters away from where it was built. This connection closes the circle from the creation of the Beethovenhalle to its reopening after extensive restoration. "I am delighted that we will be able to experience the impressive sound of the organ again."
Philipp Klais, great-grandson of the founder of the Klais organ building company and current company director, adds: "We are very grateful to be in demand as an organ building workshop for projects around the world. At the same time, Bonn is and will remain our home. It is therefore all the more wonderful to be trusted to carry out the overhaul of this organ in our workshop more than 65 years after it was built. After the decision was made to preserve this concert hall largely unchanged as a monument to the architecture of the late 1950s, it was an obvious choice to also leave the organ inside largely unchanged as a monument to the sound and architecture of the same period. It is with great respect that we are now taking on the task of overhauling our organ family member, and in our Vedel. What could be better?"
New construction of the organ 1958 to 1960
In July 1958, after extensive preparations and consultations with the architect of the Beethovenhalle, Siegfried Wolske, the company Orgelbau Klais, founded in Bonn in 1882 by Johannes Klais (Sr.), was awarded the contract "to supply and install a new organ with 67 stops at a cost of DM 208,850". According to the plans at the time, the instrument was to be completed within 13 months - a time span that is almost unimaginable with the precise craftsmanship that characterizes organ building. But Klais kept to the schedule. The fact that the organ could only be inaugurated on January 21, 1960, four months after the grand opening of the Beethovenhalle, was due to the very same opening. The busy rehearsal schedule and the wealth of events that took place in the Beethovenhalle from September 1959 onwards made it impossible for the organ builders to work "in peace" in the true sense of the word, so that the voicing, the tonal shaping of the organ pipes, could only be completed after a delay of several weeks.
Restoration in 1983
The reason for the second collaboration was a rather sad occasion. The organ was also damaged in a fire on the stage of the Beethovenhalle in 1983. Fortunately, the sound box and the valuable pipe stock were not damaged, but indirect damage caused by extinguishing water and chloride infestation, which affected the wooden windchests, the console and the mechanical and electronic actions, had to be repaired. Here too, Klais was on hand to repair the instrument.
Restoration in the year 2025
With the third collaboration currently underway, the necessary peace and quiet in the Beethovenhalle is once again not a given. However, unlike 66 and 42 years ago, it is not the rebuilding or saving of the organ that has now begun, but its cleaning and restoration. For many years, the organ, which is prominently located on the stage of the Great Hall, was wrapped up and protected by thick wooden walls, which were carefully erected around the precious instrument by Klais himself at the beginning of the restoration work and have now only been dismantled by the professionals so as not to take any risks.
Pipe after pipe is now removed, stored in drawers and racks and taken to the chamber music room next to the hall to be individually cleaned and restored. Only the longest of them, with a length of 16 feet (= about five meters), will remain in the hall - they simply won't fit in any other room. The chamber music hall will now be Klais' outdoor workshop in Bonn for a few weeks. At the same time, the carpenter is completing the wooden sliding wall on the stage, which will provide a view of the organ whenever it is in use.
Outlook
At the beginning of May, when the Beethoven Orchestra supports the acoustic adjustment of the concert hall with its rehearsals on site, the pipes will also be reinstalled and the organ's mechanics and electronics will be overhauled, so that from summer it will finally be: "Hall ready - organ installed - peace and quiet please!" This time, nothing should get in the way and the final step of the organ construction, the voicing, should be completed with the necessary calm and care for the reopening.
Facts and figures about the organ
After cleaning and restoration, the special features of the Beethovenhalle organ will once again be brought to life. Its construction and its tonal and visual design are the joint work of the organ builders, the architect Wolske and two expert advisors from the Cologne State University of Music. The organ is characterized by the fact that it not only contains a fixed console with mechanical action, but also a mobile second, purely electric console for playing in the orchestra.
The design of the front of the organ (the façade) goes back to the creative planning process between architect Siegfried Wolske and Josef Schäfer, the Klais company employee primarily responsible for the Beethovenhalle organ. Numerous design sketches in the Klais archive bear witness to this exchange to this day. For example, tin and copper were used instead of zinc for the large pipes of the façade and special shades of color were created on the pipes by flaming the copper. The floor-to-ceiling instrument is also integrated into the hall's characteristic wood paneling made of Japanese Sen wood, so that the architecture and organ enter into a creative dialog and complement each other.
- Four manuals
- 68 stops
- Manual range: C-a3 = 58 notes
- Pedal range: C-g1 = 32 notes
- Slider chests
- Mechanical and electric key action
- Electric registration