(9 Sep 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jerusalem – 9 September 2025
1. Various of David Catalunya, the project director playing a 11th century liturgical chant called Benedicamus Domino Flos Filius
2. Various of Bethlehem Organ
3. Wide shot of presser
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Alvaro Torrente, director of the Instituto Complutense De Ciencias Musicales in Madrid:
“The Organ of Bethlehem is not just a marvellous ancient treasure that we can now contemplate it here. It is also an extraordinary source of knowledge about European musical making, engineering and craftsmanship, one that will surely transform our understanding of culture in the Middle Ages. It would be like finding a living dinosaur, something that we never imagined we could encounter, suddenly made real before our eyes and ears.”
5. Various of Catalunya showing organ
6. SOUNDBITE (English) David Catalunya, project director:
“This organ was built in the early 11th century, we suppose it was used somewhere in France for nearly one century before it was transported to the Holy Land by the Crusaders in the early 12th century. During the 12th century, it was used at the Nativity Church, and finally it was dismantled in the early 13th century in order to protect it from new inventions. So the Latin clerics of the Nativity Church took utmost care of preserving this material, in the hope that one day they could recover it and make it sound again. And the day has arrived nearly eight centuries later.”
7. Tilt up of organ
8. SOUNDBITE (English) David Catalunya, project director:
“The only, original material that has been preserved are the pipes. So we had to reconstruct the original structure, the original organ case. The original idea of the project was to bring this instrument back to life through a replica. It was during the course of the investigation that we discovered that eight original pipes continue to sound exactly as they sounded thousand years ago.”
9. Various of Catalunya playing on organ
10. SOUNDBITE (English) David Catalunya, project director:
“They preserved all the marks left by the organ maker for example, guiding lines, to cut the sheets and also marks about the fine tuning, the voicing of the pipes. So this is, an amazing set of information that allows us to reconstruct the manufacturing process so that we can build pipes exactly as they were made thousand years ago.”
11. More of organ
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Koos van de Linde, organ researcher:
“It was extremely moving to hear how some of these pipes that came to life again after about 700 years under the earth and 800 years of silence. The hope of the Crusaders who buried them, that the moment would come when they would sound again was not in vain.”
13. End shot of organ
STORYLINE:
Silent for more than 800 years, an organ that researchers say is the oldest in the Christian world sounded in Jerusalem Monday.
Composed of original pipes from the 11th century, the instrument emitted a full, hearty sound as musician David Catalunya played an ancient liturgical chant called Benedicamus Domino Flos Filius.
The music resonated through the Saint Savior’s Monastery of Jerusalem’s Old City as church bells tolled in the distance.
Catalunya, the director of the project to restore it, said Monday during a news conference before the presentation that attendees were witnessing a grand development in the history of music.
“This organ was buried with the hope that one day it would play again,” he said. “And the day has arrived, nearly eight centuries later.”
AP Video by Moshe Edri
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