The organ building art in Bergamo finished its historical cycle after Luigi Balicco Bossi's (1911) and Giacomo Locatelli Junior's (1918) death: it bequeathed a huge estate of art, culture and faith, root of new paths. Other small artisans tried to keep up this huge patrimony mostly through an ordinary maintenance, but not always with the respect towards the integrity of the instruments. As a matter of fact, a general unity of purpose lacked because the Italian organ building art was passing through a great crisis of identity; the consciousness of their own historical roots and of an artisan, cultural, secular heritage was about to fail; models which came from the other side of the Alps were imported (in particular from England) and pointed out as only models for the future, instead of being inserted and fitted in the different Italian outlines.

Of course, the consequences were ruinous, because many Italian builders of ancient tradition didn't agree about such a kind of organ and shut up their shops without passing their knowledge on to the youngest. So, young people were not tied up to history and traditions, and worked with mass-produced components which hadn't any relationship with the aesthetic constructive logic of the traditional organ building art.

Luckily, such a mentality didn't grip the builders from Bergamo, since they had strong traditions and a long history. The Bossi and the Locatelli, as well the Serassi and other smaller firms (Foglia, Roberti, Cornolti, Piccinelli) refused the new patterns and the latest construction systems (for instance the pneumatic action): such a thing cost them their job and bargains, showing in appearance they were not able to adapt themselves to the new requests; on the contrary they rejected an organ art conception (methodologies, systems, sound and timbre tasks...) which was not connected with their own Italian one.

They came up to the request of bringing organs up-to-date through classical mechanical action instead of other unsuited systems. History would say they were right.

For instance the Locatelli firm, the first in Italy since 1880, carried out a clever experience riform on the late 19th century organ, joining together new requests and tradition; this way was not followed by many others, with the above-mentioned consequences. So, the land of Bergamo, like few other lands, remained faithful to its own history. On the other hand, foreign builders really damaged the patrimony of Bergamo; not only didn't they know it, but they even considered it as an opportunity to make money. When some works were refused by the firms in Bergamo, they were given to foreign firms (after two centuries, the land of Bergamo was again crossed by foreigners), who often didn't pay attention to the local tradition. Some of them were not equal to this task, so they ruined antique, valuable organs, replacing them with instruments of a lower or poor quality; instead, others were up to such a work and built instruments of good quality (we cite the Turinese Carlo Vegezzi Bossi firm, established by Felice Bossi from Bergamo; the Varesine Vincenzo Mascioni; the Cremonese Giovanni Tamburini, Pacifico Inzoli; the Milanese Balbiani Vegezzi Bossi and so on).

In many modern organs, instead of the Sticker-Backfall-Tracker action there were the tubes of a Pneumatic action or the wires of an Electric Action; air pressure was higher, and pipes were different from the classical Italian ones.

On one hand, these organs persuaded modernity, but on the other they didn't arouse enthusiasm for timbre, sound quality, so much that the old, destroyed organ was often thought with nostalgia.

In order to understand the end of the organ building art in Bergamo, we have to pay attention to some economic, musical aspects which have affected very much on it. Firstly, there was the coming of the industrialization and the saturation of the organ market in the north of Italy; then, the positivist mentality towards the tradition, new musical languages coming from the other side of the Alps, and the ideological cathegories of "liturgic" and "not liturgic" organ. Let's have a look:

• the coming of the industrialization. It is necessary to state in advance that in the zone of Bergamo, from the 80s of the XIXth till the 50s of the XXth century, an industrial economical process came off and it was very important in Italy; it happened with continuity among other national and international events of armed conflicts, political, social figths and it had as a main characteristic the diversification (silk factory, cotton-mill, agriculture, mechanics, iron metallurgy, cement factory). Because of such a strong industrialization, the artisan organ builders passed through a crisis, with many consequences: artisan tradition of shops failed, people who worked in this field got fewer and fewer, young builders preferred working with mass-produced elements (anonymous and without personality), which were favourable both for the economic side and for the quickness of application. Moreover, there was the profit mentality (purchasers were more interested in functional fitness and in cheapness than in the quality of the product). Of course, the old builders didn't agree to this new mentality: briefly, at the edge of the market, they would be forced to leave their activity off.
  
  
• Saturation of the organ market. By then, all the parish and the important subsidiary churches had their own organ. These instruments were solid in construction; they were very good in quality and had great technical, musical capacities which complied with liturgic requirements. This situation led to look for new markets in South Italy and South America. In Sicily, the Serassi firm opened a branch of organ works; few times later, it was followed by the Giudici firm, who established its own firm. In South America, where many Italians and people from Bergamo had been living, the Locatelli firm opened a branch: here even forty-one organs were sent from 1898 to 1916, in such a way it got the first Italian organ exporter to America.
  
  
• The widespread positivist mentality which proclaimed a complete confidence in the scientific progress, on behalf of which, the new was always better than the old; so, antique organs were considered as antiquated technical products.
  
  
• The new musical languages which came from the other side of the Alps were pointed out as innovating; they needed a different organ conception both from a structural and timbre point of view.
  
  
• - "Liturgic" and "not liturgic" organ cathegories which created arbitrary classifications and judgements of merit about the past organ building patrimony, leading the way not only to anti-historical, subjective fashionable judgements, but even to negative behaviours. These cathegories strongly contrasted with the history of such an instrument, considered only as an "organ" without arbitrary classifications; it was an ideological modernist attitude, expression of the above-mentioned positivism. This distinction gave rise to hostile attitude towards the organ building tradition and led the way to unjustified charges with anti-liturgy; in particular they wanted old instruments to be conformed to the current mentality, encouraging arbitrary tamperings and alterations; for instance mechanic actions were modified; keyboards, pedalboards, flue and reed pipes were replaced. The matter should have been to educate some organists to use properly those wonderful instruments.
  
  

The organ building art in Bergamo crossed its crisis mostly because of the new musical languages which came from the other side of the Alps.

At the beginning of the 20th century, even the organ music expressed the crisis of traditional already constituted forms; it passed from the classic, romantic symphonism to new contents, characterized by short melodic moments and fleeting sensations. An "incorporal" timbre found more and more space able to express sensations of indefinitive colours; it was subdued to the player's want in an incessant dynamical, expressive transformation, not only from melody to melody, but from bar to bar, and sometimes from note to note too. With light crescendo shades, through the expression case, purposely put far away, it was possible to obtain many different dynamical, sound changes.

The organ got a more and more ductile instrument, ready to change in chromatic ranges of decaying, dull colour; they faded away and reappeared in a mysticism which often became introversion; besides, the musical forms were not clear and intelligible to everybody; the believer often felt himself out of the musical, harmonic language.

Actually, also the organ music interpreted the late century man's crisis, and with right symbolical mediation, it took into the churches the artistic "secular" expression, localizing and enlarging some of its own typical elements: the market subjectiveness, a decaying mysticism, a strong inwardness which often looked like incommunicability.

The musical forms were majestic, characterized by sudden changes: by richness in harmonic passages which bordered on tonality; the chromatism, the fundamental part of the language, caused into the audience a long waiting condition, changing and deferring the arrival of tonal points.

The organ interpreted the frescos of the symphonism through the dynamical crescendo and imitated its dark, broad, dense timbre; through the new technical solutions, it was able to condense the almost shapeless sound masses which died out in fading pianissimo and all of a sudden bursted into impetuous fortissimo. This organ conception led to a lack of balance between planning and realization, between inspiration and the vastness of construction, conception to which the builders in Bergamo felt strangers.

After the difficult identity crisis (with the sorrowful loss of wonderful works) and the dangerous idea which considered the ancient estate as not modern and therefore encumbering, the providential consciousness of its value and of its everlasting modernity started to make its way. The considerable versatility of the past organ building art in Bergamo was pleasantly discovered: on these instruments you can play not only ancient music and that of the age of the organ, but even part of the modern, contemporary repertory.

Since the second half of the century, on Germany's footsteps (with the rediscovery of the organ of Bach's age), an important work of guardianship and valorization has been rising. Bergamo is among the leading characters: the first important historical restorations were made in its territory, in order to recover organs to their former constructive, sound structure. It was realized that the quality of the ancient organ building art in Bergamo is so much that it is everlasting.

Important musical institutions and organ schools were born; apart from the Civic Music Institute of Bergamo "G. Donizetti", which turned out important professional organists, there is the Diocesan Music School "Santa Cecilia", too; it prepares good parish organists. The musical publishing house Carrara spreads a good taste for organ music and contributes to qualify the professional training of many organists. Since 1960 a bold of scholars' decisive, enlightened scientific work has been making the first important historical restorations, under the Commission for the preservation of artistic, historical organs in Lombardy at the Soprintendenza ai Monumenti di Milano, with the collaboration of the Ufficio Diocesano di Musica Sacra di Bergamo.

The consciousness of the value of this heritage has been increasing and new interests and aims have been appearing, that's to say: the historical research; the restoration considered as a respectful approach to the historical work which wants to guarantee the rescue not only of its functionality, but where possible of its former characteristics; the knowledge of the technology of the ancient organ building art; the creation of a scientific, inquiry methodology for knowledge, preservation, protection and valorization of such a patrimony. The danger of an easy restoration is always hidden, a fashionable restoration which deserts the doubt (thought as the biggest alert and constant reflection) for subjective, arbitrary certainties; it has already been a great merit not to damage more the instruments wich had to be restored. But this consciousness has been growing in particular since the 80s: new organ firms, many qualified publications; more than 120 organs restored during seventeen years; fifteen "Organ Festivals" on historical organs of the province (in Italy the only experience in its way); many editions of the new "Concorso Internazionale di Composizione" dedicated to the French Olivier Messiaen (the most important contemporary composer of organ music) for Serassi organs; the international meeting "I Serassi e l'arte organaria fra Sette e Ottocento" along with the exhibition "L'arte del suono. I Serassi nella storia dell'organo" (1995); the exemplary restoration of the Antegnati organ, 1588, in Almenno S. Salvatore (1996); finally the establishment at the Amministrazione Provinciale di Bergamo of operative units for an "Indagine storico-documentale sugli Organi Storici della Provincia di Bergamo" which is within the "Progetto Finalizzato Beni Culturali" (Target Cultural-Works Project) of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR): the aim is to formulate a methodology of cognitive research which can be applied to the whole national territory, and its discoveries can be exported to other countries through data-bases via Internet.

Thanks to the important achievements and to future qualified plans, Bergamo is pointed out as a model of knowledge, preservation, valorization of antique organ patrimony, in order to protect both cultural identities and peculiarity, diversity of each land. Certainly it will be a rich future in new achievements with no space and no time limits.