Aspects of the Digitalisation of the Documentation and Research of Lithuanian Historical Organs

Abstract

About 450 historical organs have survived to the present day in Lithuania. Some of them are almost completely authentic instruments which constitute valuable heritage and have been recognised as being unique in European context. Currently the digitalisation of the data about the Lithuanian organ heritage is being implemented at the Centre for the Lithuanian Cultural Heritage since 2000 (until then non-digital data were accumulated) and is oriented towards the promotion of this part of the country's heritage, and scientific research. The most valuable instruments included on the heritage list are registered in detail: comprehensive photography of their separate parts and equipment, engineering data, as well as that of the surviving authentic mechanism and parts. A research into the instrumental part of some the most valuable organs (the organs in the church in Joniskis, the churches of the Holy Spirit and the Bernardine in Vilnius) is introduced. By the drawings it is possible to recreate an organ or make a copy-replica in case it is destroyed; the data can be used to make a new instrument according to old organ-making traditions.