Organa Rediviva 01 Leerbeek

Organa Rediviva – Reborn Organs is a new Organroxx recording series devoted to historic organs that have been brought back to life. Each volume celebrates an exceptional instrument, its history and, above all, its rediscovered musical voice.
The series opens in Leerbeek, Belgium, with an extraordinary organ whose story spans almost four centuries. Its origins date back to 1648, when the Brussels organ builder Nicolas Le Royer created the instrument. In 1784, it was transferred to the church of Leerbeek and enlarged by Smets, adding another important historical layer to its identity.
In 2026, an extensive restoration by Orgues De Facto brought this remarkable instrument back to life. Preserving the surviving historical material while recovering the organ’s earlier tonal character, the restoration once again allows us to approach the sound world of Le Royer and the seventeenth century.
That sound world is at the heart of this first volume. Benjamin-Joseph Steens presents a rich anthology of seventeenth-century organ music, a period in which the organ was celebrated for an extraordinary palette of contrasting colours. The programme allows the restored instrument to reveal itself in all its diversity: the intimacy and character of individual stops, the dialogue between different registers, delicate combinations of colours and, finally, the brilliance and splendour of the full organ.
The music and the instrument illuminate one another. Repertoire conceived in the seventeenth century once again speaks through an organ whose roots lie in that very same musical world. In the hands of Benjamin-Joseph Steens, this is therefore more than a historical reconstruction: it is the rediscovery of a living musical language.
Organa Rediviva begins where restoration ends: when a historic instrument can breathe, speak and make music again.
Organa Rediviva — historic organs, restored, reborn and heard anew.