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Nature 427, 8-9 (1 January 2004) | doi:10.1038/427008a

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Music and Chemistry: Organ failure

Tom Clarke1

  1. Tom Clarke was until recently in Nature's online news team; he is now science reporter for Channel 4 News in London.

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Across continental Europe, historical instruments are falling silent, muted by a new and mysterious form of corrosion. Tom Clarke speaks to the chemical detectives who are striving to protect our musical heritage.

Since 1467, the pure sound of the Stellwagen organ has filled the parish church of St Jakobi's in Lübeck, Germany. Named after the great organ builder Friedrich Stellwagen, who renovated it in the seventeenth century, aficionados rate the Lübeck organ as among the world's best for performing Renaissance and early baroque music.