Alexander Schuke Potsdam organ building

Alexander Schuke Potsdam organ building
legal form	GmbH
founding	1820
Seat	Werder (Havel)
management	Michael and Johannes Schuke
Number of employees	18th
Branch	Musical instrument making
Website	http://www.schuke.de/

The Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau GmbH is a company incorporated in the 19th century German organ builder from Potsdam .

history

The organ builder Gottlieb Heise founded the company in Potsdam in 1820, he had a workshop built in the courtyard of a residential complex in the Holländerviertel . In 1848 his student Carl Ludwig Gesell took over the management of the company, initially together with Gustav Schulz, who soon went into business for himself. From 1868 the son Carl Eduard Gesell took over the management. When he died childless in 1894, Alexander Schuke bought the company and made it one of the most famous Brandenburg organ building companies. After his death in 1933, his two sons, Karl Ludwig Schuke and Hans-Joachim Schuke, ran the company together.

In 1950 the two brothers decided to found a second organ building workshop in Berlin. The political and economic situation at the time in post-war Germany made it advisable to create a work opportunity in the western part of Berlin , should the economic situation continue to narrow . Hans-Joachim Schuke continued to run the Potsdam company, which remained in private hands, on his own. With his move to Berlin in 1953, Karl Schuke took the opportunity to separate the Berlin workshop from the Potsdam company and continued to run it under the name of Karl Schuke Berliner Orgelbauwerkstatt GmbH. In 1972 the company was expropriated in the GDR and continued as VEB Potsdamer Schuke Orgelbau . Organ builder Matthias Schuke , an employee since 1974, successfully re- privatized the company in 1990 in the course of the economic and political turnaround and has been the owner and managing director ever since. In January 2004 the company moved into a new workshop building at Otto-Lilienthal-Straße 33 in the Havel meadows in Werder (Havel) .

Schuke received important orders for the new construction of organs for the cathedral in Erfurt , the cathedral in Magdeburg , the cathedral in Kaliningrad and also for the cathedral in Zamora in Mexico. In the 20th century the company developed into one of the leading German organ building companies with a worldwide reputation.

The company had to file for bankruptcy in November 2014 due to difficulties in delivering new organs to the Ukraine and Russia as well as payment defaults from these countries due to the economic sanctions against Russia . In solidarity with the traditional organ building company, some customers preferred planned orders. A Chinese art lover who bought the finished instrument for a Russian luxury hotel and also ordered a smaller one for training music students in Shanghai was helpful . In January 2017, the Potsdam District Court unanimously accepted the insolvency plan, so that the bankruptcy was averted and the company was saved. At the end of October 2017, Matthias Schuke announced that he would gradually hand over the company to his sons Johannes (* 1985) and Michael (* 1989), who had worked in the management of the company since the beginning of 2018. In October 2018 Johannes and Michael Schuke took over the management of the traditional company in the fourth generation. In November 2018 they received a major order for the restoration and expansion of the organ in the St. Katharinen church in Brandenburg an der Havel . Schuke had rebuilt the main organ , which is under monument protection, in 1936.

plant

Alexander Schuke first built the cone drawer , which he got to know from his teacher Eduard Gesell. He combined this technology with tube pneumatics in a solid construction . The company soon developed into one of the leading organ building companies in Brandenburg alongside Dinse and Sauer . After the First World War, the electric action was introduced as standard. As a result of the organ reform movements under Albert Schweitzer and Hans Henny Jahnn , Schuke orientated himself again on the principles of classical organ building and returned to the mechanical slide box. The first restorations of historical instruments were carried out at the end of the 1950s. In the meantime, the company has emerged through major restorations, such as the Scherer organ in Tangermünde (1624) and the Wagner organs in Brandenburg an der Havel (1725) and Angermünde (1744).

In cooperation with Schuke, the University of Potsdam is developing measurement methods with which the authentic sound of historical organ pipes can be determined.

Musicologists appreciate the "romantic and symphonic sound" of the Schuke organs, which is attributed to the careful selection of the pipe material and its processing in our own workshop. In contrast to the typical development in organ building, the Schukes use lead and tin together with the trace elements contained in the raw material, which leads to high stability and durability.

The opus list includes 630 new organs built between 1895 and 2015. In addition, there are more than 60 restorations (as of the end of 2017), the proportion of which has risen sharply since the end of the 1990s, as well as numerous conversions and extensions of existing works.

List of works (selection)

The list includes new buildings and restorations. The size of the instruments is indicated by the number of manuals (6th column) and the number of sounding registers (7th column). "P" stands for an independent pedal.

year	opus	place	building	image	Manuals	register	Remarks
1895	1	Bike trails near Brandenburg			I / P	7th
1898	45	Golßen	Town church Golßen		II / P	18th	In his catalog raisonné, Schuke gives the year of construction 1908 and 14 registers; Restored by Scheffler in 2010
1906	28	Luebben (Spreewald)	Paul Gerhardt Church		II / P	29	Parts of the previous organ from 1846 were used. Pneumatic action. → organ
1911	64	Berlin-Schmöckwitz	Village church		II / P	8th	→ organ
1935	149	Berlin-Mahlsdorf	Kreuzkirche		II / P	10	→ organ
1936	153	Potsdam	St. Peter and Paul		III / P	41	→ organ
1938	172	Mountains (nauen)	St. Peter and Paul		II / P	10	1938 new building in the case of the organ built by Johann Tobias Turley in 1815 , pneumatic cone chests, 2 transmissions; 2001 general renovation
1942	198	Berlin	University of Berlin				Badly damaged by the war in 1943, dismantled, stored in the Potsdam workshop and rebuilt in 1949 as op. 224.
1943	199	Hiddensee	Hiddensee island church		II / P	8th	→ organ
1947	214	Bismark	City Church		II / P	20th	Replacement for an instrument built in 1873 by August Troch from Neuhaldensleben .
1949	224	Berlin	Parish hall of the Grunewald parish		II / P	11	from 1988 new location in the ecumenical community center Darmstadt-Kranichstein
1950	231	Erfurt	Thomas Church		III / P	57	Expanded in several construction phases (1953, 1967, 1978, 1993, 2011)
1953	243	Stendal	St. Nicholas		III / P	56
1954	252	Altfriedland	Monastery church		II / P	11
1958	293	Mulhouse	Divi Blasii Church		III / P	42
1959	Rest. 2	Stralsund	Marienkirche		III / P	51	Restoration of the Stellwagen organ from 1659
1960	305	Potsdam-Hermannswerder	Island church		II / P	23	→ organ
1960	312	Löcknitz	Village church		II / P	15th	The organ was completed in a second construction phase in 1978.
1961	313	Gotha	Margaret Church		III / P	36	The organ is located in an organ case that was built by Johann Moritz Weise in 1632. → organ
1962	326	Anklam	Marienkirche		II / P	30th
1963	332	Jena	St. Michael		II / P	51
1964	351	Potsdam	Church of the Redeemer		III / P	36
1965	354	Berlin-Friedrichshain	St. Bartholomew Church		III / P	36	→ organ
1965	364	Rostock	Holy Cross Monastery		III / P	33
1966	371	Leipzig	Thomas Church		III / P	47	Mined in 1999, 42 registers and other parts in the organ of the cathedral at Fürstenwalde installed
1967	383	Almaty ( Kazakhstan )	conservatory		II / P	32	2017 general overhaul
1968	390	Greifswald	St. Jacobi Church		II / P	30th	→ organ
1968	Rest. 6	Angermünde	City parish church St. Marien		II / P	30th	Restoration of the organ by Joachim Wagner (1742–1744)
1969	402	Magdeburg	Magdeburg Cathedral , transept		III / P	37
1969	404	Bonn- Rüngsdorf	Church of the Redeemer		III / P	34
1971	420	Quedlinburg	Collegiate Church of St. Servatius		II / P	28
1973	443	Potsdam	Baptist Church		II / P	10	→ organ
1973	448	Sofia	concert hall		III / P	55
1977	469	Schalksmühle	Church of the Redeemer		II / P	20th
1977	470	Erfurt	Preacher Church		III / P	55	behind the prospectus by Ludwig Compenius (1648) → organ
1981	499	Leipzig	Gewandhaus		IV / P	89	2008 expanded by 2 registers
1982	509	Eisenach	George Church		III / P	60	behind the prospectus by Georg Christoph Stertzing (1707) → organ
1982	Rest. 19	Schwerin	Dom		IV / P	84	Restoration of the organ by Friedrich Ladegast from 1871
1984	520	Halle / Saale	Marktkirche Our Dear Women		III / P	56	behind the prospectus by Christoph Cuntzius
1985	534	Berlin-Mahlsdorf	Village church		II / P	15th
1985	538	Stralsund	Nikolaikirche		II / P	22nd	→ organ
1986	536	Brandenburg on the Havel	St. Gotthardt		III / P	44	as a replacement for burned work by W. Sauer
1988	552	Varna ( Bulgaria )	Festival complex		III / P	53
1989	559	Weimar	Kreuzkirche		II / P	16
1991	579	Wismar	St. Laurence		IP / P	19th	→ organ
1992	583	Erfurt	Erfurt Cathedral		III / P	63	→ organ
1994	595	Tangermünde	St. Stephan		III / P	32	Restoration / reconstruction of the organ by Hans and Fritz Scherer (1624)
1995	599	Potsdam- Nattwerder	Village church		I / P	8th	Case from 1797 → organ
1997	606	Lublin ( Poland )	Lublin Philharmonic		III / P	51
1998	Remainder. 31	Brandenburg on the Havel	St. Peter and Paul Cathedral		II / P	33	Restoration of the organ by Joachim Wagner (1722–1725)
2000-2003	612	Erfurt	Neuwerk Church		II / P	28	Restoration / reconstruction of the organ by Franciscus Volckland (1737)
2003	614	Berlin-Spandau	St. Marien am Behnitz		II / P	35
2005	613	Fürstenwalde / Spree	St. Mary's Cathedral		IV / P	69	using op. 371, built in 1966 for the Leipzig Thomaskirche (III / P / 47)
2006	616	Kaliningrad ( Russia )	Koenigsberg Cathedral		II / P	32	Choir organ → organ
2008	618	Kaliningrad ( Russia )	Koenigsberg Cathedral		IV / P	90	Main organ → organ
2008	619	Magdeburg	Magdeburg Cathedral , main organ		IV / P	93	→ organ
2008	620	Zamora de Hidalgo ( Mexico )	Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe		III / P	51
2011	Remainder. 29	Seehausen (Altmark)	Ev. Church of St. Petri		III / P	44	Restoration of the organ by Friedrich Hermann Lütkemüller (1867)
2012	627	Bardowick	Bardowick Cathedral St. Peter and Paul		III / P	45	Behind the historical prospectus by Ph. Furtwängler (1867)
2014	630	Pingtung ( Taiwan )	Performing Arts Center		III / P	45
2015	631	Lobetal	Hope Valley Foundation		II / P	23	Two mechanical game tables (lower church room and gallery)
2016	632	Kharkiv ( Ukraine )	Philharmonic		IV / P	70
2011/2015/2019	626	Potsdam	Ev. Pentecostal Church		II / P	25th	New building in three construction phases behind the historic prospectus by Wilhelm Sauer (1896)

literature

• Hermann Fischer : 100 years of the Association of German Organ Builders . Orgelbau-Fachverlag, Lauffen 1991, ISBN 3-921848-18-0 .
• Hannes Ludwig: Organ manual Brandenburg. Volume 1: Uckermark (western part) . Freimut & Selbst, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-9805293-7-1 .
• Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau GmbH: 100 years of Alexander Schuke organ building in Potsdam . Thomasius, Schwerin 1994.
• Matthias Schuke: Alexander Schuke Potsdam, Orgelbau GmbH . In: Thuringian Organ Journal . 1995, p. 58-60 .

Web links

Commons : Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau GmbH website
• Catalog raisonné. ( Memento of 15 January 2016 Internet Archive ) Schuke organ building, pp 25-44 (PDF, 5 MB) The directory contains stating the manuals , registers and pedals all new buildings, renovations and repairs since 1820, including the Heise- and Gesell organs.
• Schuke Orgdatabase, 750 organs (Dutch, German)
• Schuke organ index, 85 organs
• Organ builder institute for organ research

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Torsten Müller: Organ pipes according to the rules of the forefathers . In: Berliner Zeitung , December 23, 2017, p. 20.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} orgellandschaftbrandenburg.de: Orgelbauer , accessed on July 17, 2018.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Fischer: 100 years of the Association of German Organ Builders. 1991, p. 301.
4. ^ Wolf Bergelt : Organ tours through the Mark Brandenburg. Freimut & Selbst, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-7431-5217-7 , p. 239 limited preview in the Google book search.
5. ↑ Traditional company in Potsdam. Organ builder files for bankruptcy. tagesspiegel.de, November 15, 2014, accessed on July 17, 2018 . 
6. ^ Organ builder Schuke saved. The world . January 19, 2017. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
7. ↑ Luise Fröhlich: Organ building stays in the family. MAZ-online. October 27, 2017. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
8. ↑ Website Alexander Schuke Orgelbau: Organ building in the 4th generation ( Memento of the original dated December 2, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 11, 2018. 
9. ↑ Generation change in organ building Schuke. MAZ-online. December 14, 2018, accessed February 5, 2020.
10. ↑ Enrico Bellin: Record order for organ builder Schuke. Potsdam latest news. November 6, 2018, accessed January 5, 2020.
11. ↑ Steffen Uhlmann: Airy research against weird tones. Manufacturers have been trying to explain the mystery of the organ wind for centuries - the Schuke company in Potsdam has succeeded with the help of science . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 3, 2013.
12. ↑ Alexander Schuke Orgelbau Werkverzeichnis ( Memento of the original from May 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 4.9 MB), accessed on July 17, 2018. 
13. ↑ Schuke catalog raisonné 2018, p. 25
14. ↑ www.altekirchen.de Organ of the town church Golßen , accessed on July 17, 2018.
15. ^ Orgel Databank: Organ in Bismark , accessed on July 17, 2018.
16. ↑ Information on the organ of the Hope Valley Lobetal Foundation , accessed on April 6, 2020.

Coordinates: 52 ° 23 '54 "  N , 12 ° 54' 48.4"  E