After extensive feasibility studies, engineers at the Ramon Llull
University in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, have finally produced
two prototypes. Wind-tunnel tests have proved positive.
"We're going to build the first-ever surrealist organ!" said
Josep Puig, spokesman for the three local entrepeneurs who got one
million euros (1.2 million dollars) together to breathe life into
the 20-year-old project.
Dali, who died in 1989, first had the idea of a giant organ
played by the wind at the end of the 1970s. He wanted the organ's
music to be heard by the people of the region of Ampurdan when the
fierce tramontane wind blows from the north. Locals say the wind can
drive people mad.
"Dali was obsessed by the tramontane. But his original idea came
up against technical problems, such as the wind's irregularity,"
Puig explained.
To get round this problem, a team of engineers perfected a
revolutionary "wind accumulator": the wind blows into the organ via
a huge funnel, after which it is channeled past a pressure regulator
and blasted out of the instrument's 500 pipes.
As a result, the organist can play without worrying about the
wind dropping as their crescendo approaches. The organ can also play
itself at the whim of the tramontane, or use fans on calmer days.
Either way, say the inventors, the sound is not going to be like any
other organ you have heard.
Another challenge was finding somewhere to put the windy
contraption, until the project's backers bought the ruined
10th-century castle of Quermanco in the village of Vilajuiga, near
Dali's birthplace of Figueras.
When alive, the mustachioed surrealist had tried to buy this
castle for his wife, Gala. His dream was to install a domesticated
rhinoceros to guard the hilltop, with its serene views over the
Mediterranean and the Pyrenees.
"Dali loved the castle because of the magnificent sunsets and
because it is associated with legends of witches and hidden
treasure," said Puig.
The hilltop is, of course, also rather windy.
The fort was used as an ammunition dump by Napoleon's troops, who
blew it up in 1814. Restoration work is due to start there by
September, with a cultural centre dedicated to the people of
Ampurdan planned alongside the organ.
The open-air pipes will be built of robust materials to survive
the weather and passing birds. It will be built by Albert
Blancafort, a violin maker with a sideline in church music, who has
already built the organs of the famous Catalan abbey of Montserrat.
German organist Wolfgang Seifen is currently working on specially
composed scores for the tramontana device.
Seifen is set to play the inaugural concert on September 16,
2004, by which time those behind the scheme promise to have found
the requisite domesticated rhinoceros.
