Pipe organ tuning, a very Specialized profession

In a world where everything synthetic or electronic is considered the best and everyone is scrambling to make a better electronic this or that, it is so refreshing to come across young professionals in the relatively small and exclusive industry of pipe organ builders! The fact that they love their work and that only the best service is acceptable is as rare as a flawless red diamond of many carats!

Young Werner Hurter of 'Pyporrels Pty Ltd' in Pretoria/Tshwane is a perfect example of such a professional. I have come across a few pipe organ builders and unfortunately quite a few of them do not really go the extra mile... Not to discredit anyone, I have personal experience where a certain person was asked to come and service and tune a pipe organ. The person was in and out within an hour and where they were specifically requested to please fix the preset buttons, they simply wrote in the organ book that the springs are worn and the buttons should not be used... Just one example...

It was decided to have an organ recital at another old church with an older organ in a relatively bad state of tune and they fortunately agreed to allow Mr Werner Hurter to come and tune the organ. He worked on the relatively small pipe organ for over 4 hours. During the recital a few days later, everyone was absolutely stunned by the beautiful sounds of the small organ. The String section sounded incredible and so much better than the other organ which has a reputation of having beautiful String stops!

How nice to have young professionals in this very rare specialist field, especially ones as excellent, talented and humble as Mr Hurter.

Hats off to you, Werner Hurter!