"On the 100th birthday of Manfred Schlenker" Christian Frommelt plays works by J.S. Bach, Liszt and Schlenker

Christian Frommelt has been cantor and organist at the Ev. Erlöser parish since May 1992. After studying in Greifswald and Weimar and working briefly in Ermsleben, he has now been working as a church musician in Bad Godesberg for more than three decades.
The Mehmel organ, which can now be heard again following its extensive restoration in 2017/18, was completed in 1866 and inaugurated on the 4th Sunday in Advent of the same year. The Royal Director of Music, August Wagner, praised the organ on 22 January 1867: "The entire organ can be considered a success and the work does credit to its builder." Mehmel used very colourful dispositions and attached great importance to delicate voices. In addition, the organ with its 37 stops was intended to have a good effect when the church was full. Contemporaries already appreciated the harmonisation of tone and sound (intonation).
Even today, we still enjoy its unadulterated romantic sound. It is a great stroke of luck that the organ has been preserved almost in its original state over the past decades. As Mehmel's large instruments were destroyed during the Second World War, the Greifswald example is the largest organ in north-east Germany and one of the larger Romantic instruments in general. Even when the organ movement between 1920 and 1970 saw the tuning of instruments elsewhere changed, the Mehmel organ was spared.