Arp Schnitger Organ Database
ORGAN
Search organ
Advanced search organ
Map search
DOCUMENT
Search document
LANGUAGE
Deutsch
Svenska
INFORMATION
Introduction
The Arp Schnitger Organ Database
Project Partners
Financial Partners
Working Groups
The Arp Schnitger Institute for Organs and Organ Building
Arp Schnitger (1648-1719)
Gustav Fock (1893-1974)
Rudolf von Beckerath (1907-1976)
The Arp Schnitger Organ Database
The Arp Schnitger Database contains complete information about the surviving Schnitger organs, including descriptions, pictures, designs, and so forth, in both German and English, as well as short sound examples. It is a free-access web-based database with simple and advanced search functions. The Schnitger database was part of the project: “The Organ Landscape – A Cultural Heritage of the Northwest: conservation and maintenance of the organs of Arp Schnitger.” The project ran from 2012 to 2014 and was produced by the Arp Schnitger Institute for Organs and Organ Building at the University of the Arts in Bremen. The project was funded by the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan region. A collaboration with the Göteborg Organ Art Center at the University of Gothenburg made possible the construction of a research database. The inventories of the organ documentations made by Gustav Fock before 1940, as well as by Rudolf von Beckerath in 1946-47, have been implemented in the database as a part of this project. This work also included the digitalization of the sources, as well as their systematization, transcription and implementation in the database. Texts from the book Arp Schnitger und sein Werk by C. Edskes and H. Vogel (Bremen: Hauschild, 2013) including designs and photographs were selectively inserted. Short sound examples of the recordings from the double-CD Arp Schnitger in Lower Saxony (NOMINE / ASG 2014) were also included.
Project Partners
Arp Schnitger Institute for Organ and Organ Building at the School of the Arts, Bremen Göteborg Organ Art Center at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden The Arp Schnitger Society The Groningen Orgelland Foundation of the Netherlands NOMINE (North German Organ Music Culture in Lower Saxony and Europe)
Financial Partners
Metropolitan Region of Bremen-Oldenburg The Arp Schnitger Society and the Groningen Orgelland Foundation
Working Groups
Hans Davidsson, Project Leader, University of the Arts, Bremen Carl Johan Bergsten, Database Construction, GOArt, Sweden Alf Åslund, Database Construction, GOArt, Sweden Koos van de Linde, Digitalization, Research and Transcription of the Sources, University of the Arts, Bremen Harald Vogel, Digitalization of the Sources, Research, etc. Thomas Ihlenfeldt, Transcription of the Sources, University of the Arts, Bremen Joel Speerstra, English Translation, GOArt, Sweden. Ibo Ortgies, editorial work with English translation, translation of user interface into German, GOArt and Ibo Ortgies Language & Research Services, Sweden.
The Arp Schnitger Institute for Organs and Organ Building
The Arp Schnitger Institute for Organs and Organ Building (ASIOO) at the University of the Arts in Bremen is devoted to the study of the organ art in its wider context, with the aim of linking scientific research, artistic development, and its implementation in the academic training of organists and church musicians. The ASIOO was founded in 2008 on the initiative of Prof. Dr. Hans Davidsson as a center of excellence specifically for the organ art in northwest Germany: the Hanseatic City of Bremen and its wider environs is home to the largest collection of playable historical organs in Europe, with instruments spanning more than four centuries. The organs of Arp Schnitger (1648-1719) in particular, as well instrumenst by his predecessors and teachers and followed by his own students, form an invaluable contribution to the world culture of organs, and indeed all musical instruments. At the core of ASIOO’s activity is the development of interdisciplinary research into the field of organ studies and the related questions of historic preservation. The central goal is the preservation of the cultural heritage of the Schnitger Organs as well as the maintenance and development of previous studies in this subject. Mention should be made of the establishment of a research database for the Schnitger organs, which was developed in cooperation with GOArt at the University of Gothenburg and the Arp Schnitger Society in Golzwarden as well as the Groningen Orgelland Foundation. This Schnitger database contains all previously available data on the surviving Schnitger organs including the documentations by Gustav Fock and Rudolf von Beckerath. Another area of research focuses on developing a methodology for comparative organ documentations including the preparation of individual case studies. The documentation of the Joachim Richborn organ in Buttforde was the first of these case studies, which was conducted in cooperation with Hendrik Ahrend and Reinhard Böllmann; the reference group contained organ builders and researchers from different European countries. The documentation of the Berendt Huss organ in Langwarden, carried out by Koos van de Linde, has recently begun and should be completed by summer 2015. Furthermore, the ASIOO has launched a pilot project on the corrosion of organ pipes, which investigates the historical instruments in Belum and Mariendrebber as case studies. This project is conducted in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute (IFAM) in Bremen and the Materials Testing Institute (MPA) in Bremen. The ASIOO is an active member of an international network of institutions for organ and cultural heritage research and regularly organizes conferences and other activities focused on the goal of consciously placing the cultural heritage of northern Germany as a living part of the national and international culture. The Institute is a partner of the Musikfest Bremen in planning of the Schnitger Festival (held annually since 2010) and the Schnitger Organ Competition (2010, 2012, 2014). In addition, the ASIOO makes an important contribution to the development of Bremen’s profile as a center for art, science, and research, particularly with regard to the globally unique cultural heritage of the historic organs of the region.
Arp Schnitger (1648-1719)
No organ builder has received more admiration and appreciation for his instruments from his contemporaries than Arp Schnitger. He was the first “global player” as an instrument builder, because his work was spread throughout Europe from Moscow to Lisbon. Already in the eighteenth century an organ made in Schnitger’s Hamburg workshop was sent to Brazil, where it can still be heard in the Cathedral of Mariana today. After Schnitger’s death in 1719, organ builders trained in his workshop went on to play a dominant role in determining organ style in northern Germany, Denmark and in the northern Netherlands. Arp Schnitger developed a model of organ building that combined and connected everything from an unmatched variety of timbres, to the balance of “Force” and “Finesse”, and a compelling logic of technical structure, an unmatched quality of materials and workmanship, as well as a conceptual coherence in his entire range of instruments, from the very small positives up to the monumental works (with five keyboards and up to ten-meter-long pipes). With over 170 organ projects, which included the largest organs built in the Baroque period, Schnitger reached a level of productivity that wasn’t seen again until the nineteenth century when semi-industrial production methods were introduced into organ building. Today in the Schnitger organ we hear a clear ”vocal” sound of the highest complexity in every note and every combination of ranks of pipes. This vocal character lies in the wealth of different consonant speech and differentiated vocal colorings in individual tones, thus creating a specific speaking quality to the instrumental polyphony. Arp Schnitger was the last master of his craft who managed to build both a sensitive and smooth action for instruments ranging from small to large that was relevant to their respective sizes. The problem of stiff tracker actions at the major organs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to a situation where a virtuoso playing technique with a high degree of differentiation in the attacks became less and less possible. From the mid-nineteenth century, this dilemma led to the development of non-mechanical and thus indirectly playing actions that no longer allowed the player to influence the pipe speech. At the beginning of the twentieth century, this led to a fundamental criticism of the over-engineered organ-building style of the day, and a new awareness of the qualities of the Baroque organ designs. One of the most important figures in this discussion was Albert Schweitzer. The famous organ conference in Hamburg and Lübeck in 1925 provided a very strong impetus and made the Schnitger organ in Hamburg St. Jacobi the center of interest. With amazement the musical public witnessed something new: sharply contrasting sounds with dissonant qualities as opposed to the edgeless, smoothed and continuously dynamic organ sound of the over-engineered late-Romantic organ aesthetic. There was an expressionistic quality that was perceived in the organs of Arp Schnitger and his contemporaries. It is not surprising that Hans Henny Jahnn, one of the most prolific expressionist writers of his time, and an important spokesman for the budding “Organ Reform Movement”, was the one to discover Arp Schnitger’s instruments as an alternative model to the established organ style of the early twentieth century. Already before 1925, Hans Henny Jahnn had invited Günter Ramin, organist of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, to play concerts in Hamburg’s Jacobi Church, in which were heard in part, premieres of exemplary works from the north German organ school. These concerts were organized under the name “Ugrino”, behind which stood a utopian idea constructed by Jahnn and his friends. It was a visionary approach to a completely forgotten art, because Arp Schnitger and most of the North German organ composers had disappeared completely from public musical awareness in the late nineteenth century. The spontaneous enthusiasm of this group of artistically important personalities linked the discovery of a forgotten historical art form with a contemporary, namely expressionist artistic motivation. The vision of a renewal of this organ music had historical and a-historical roots simultaneously. Another strong impulse to focus on the North German organ art originated in the mid-twentieth century through Helmut Walcha’s recordings of the organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach on the Schnitger organ in Cappel, which became the first worldwide success of recorded organ sound. These records of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft were characterized by an excellent recording and pressing technology that was unparalleled in the world at that time. Helmut Walcha was imprinted with the Schnitger sound when, during his studies with Günter Ramin, his teacher played the Ugrino concerts in 1922 at the Schnitger organ in Hamburg St. Jacobi. Walcha was the most influential German organist in the middle of the twentieth century. The recordings in Cappel – on one of the best-preserved Schnitger organs – influenced organists, organ builders and large audiences throughout the world, thereby Arp Schnitger again became a cultural icon role, and could once again be described as a “global player”. Significant here was the connection with the organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach, as in the twentieth century an intensive examination began of the question of an ideal Bach organ. In the second half of the twentieth century, there was a Renaissance of the Schnitger style in modern organ building, which was supported by the fascination with the Schnitger sound that was available globally for the first time in recordings. Recordings made by Radio Bremen in the late 1960s also made their contribution, and were played in broadcast programs around the world. At the same time, a wave of restorations began, through which, in the last decades, almost all of the surviving Instruments have been set into good playable condition. One must also not forget the impact that Schnitger’s compact way of building according to the so-called “Werkprincip” has had on organ building the last 60 years, making it possible to build new organs even in very limited spaces. Schnitger’s construction principles were closer to the modern structuralist aesthetic than the organ building styles of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On the other hand, replicas of Schnitger organs have been created, by which the ambitious projects from the University of Gothenburg, Yale University and Cornell University (USA) and the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul have garnered particular attention. The Arp Schnitger Festival as part of the Musikfest Bremen with its International Organ Competition heightens the profile of Arp Schnitger in the north German coastal region between the Elbe and the Ems and in Groningen as the pre-eminent figure in the cultural identity of this region. The related vocal and instrumental repertoire from the Baroque period, the Golden Age of the North German music, finds its proper place here as well. On the initiative of the Festival, the Arp Schnitger Heritage Association was founded, an organization that works for the care, preservation, and dissemination of the life’s work of the organ builder Arp Schnitger. It is committed to establishing the 45 Schnitger organs and façades that are preserved worldwide as the first intercontinental project in the list of UNESCO World Heritage. Harald Vogel
Gustav Fock (1893-1974)
Gustav Fock (1893-1974) was a German musicologist, music historian, editor of early music, organ researcher, teacher, and musician. He was, above all, a Schnitger scholar and expert. He studied musicology with Max Seiffert in Berlin and with Fritz Stein in Kiel. In 1931 he defended his doctoral thesis “Hamburg’s Role in Northern European Organ Building”. His major work, Arp Schnitger and his School was published posthumously in 1974. Fock had completed the manuscript for the book in 1940 and sent it to the publisher. World War Two delayed the publication, and eventually the manuscript was destroyed in an air raid. Fortunately, Fock’s collection of materials (documents, quotations, photos, organ measurements and documentations, etc.) was preserved. Before the end of his life, he worked hard to finish the book. Harald Vogel worked as an assistant by his side and Fock managed to complete the project in the year of his death. Shortly before his death, Fock gave a substantial part of his archive to Harald Vogel in the hope that future studies and publications on Schnitger could be performed using this material. The section of Fock’s organ documentations from the 1930s that contains information on the preserved Schnitger organs is digitized and implemented in the Arp Schnitger database. In 2011, the original documents were presented by Harald Vogel to the Arp Schnitger Society in Golzwarden, and they have since been entrusted to the State Archives in Oldenburg. In the Arp Schnitger database, you can find transcriptions made by Koos van de Linde of all of the digitized documents.
Rudolf von Beckerath (1907-1976)
Rudolf von Beckerath (1907-1976) was the most internationally influential German organ builder of his time. He was born into a family of artists and musicians in Munich. In his early years, his family moved to Hamburg where he was educated. Arp Schnitger’s organs inspired Beckerath to change career paths from mechanical engineer to organ builder. He studied organ building in France and Denmark and began his professional career as an organ builder in France. Because of World War Two he did not establish himself as an independent organ builder in Germany until 1949. In the years directly after World War Two he made meticulous studies of the historical organs in northwest Germany, and documented dimensions, measurements and observations in a collections known by his apprentices and in organ-building circles as the Beckerath Documentation. This collection has been digitized and implemented in the Schnitger Database. Here one can also find transcriptions of all of the documents, made by Thomas Ihlenfeldt and Koos van de Linde. Beckerath introduced a new style in organ building, which was inspired by historical organs, and built many organs throughout Europe, North America and Australia. The Beckerath organs in the United States served as a significant impulse for North American organ building and have, in turn, inspired a new generation of organ builders to build historical organs. Beckerath drew apprentices to him from all over the world, and many of his employees became independent and successful organ builders in Europe, North America and Asia.