Hindelang brothers

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hindelang brothers
legal form one-man business
Seat Ebenhofen , Germany
management Most recently Heinrich III Hindelang
Branch Musical instrument making

Gebrüder Hindelang was an organ building company from Ebenhofen in the Allgäu.

history

1st generation: Heinrich I and Peter Paul

Hergensweiler, parish church St. Ambrosius , console of the organ op. 212 from 1906 (II / P, 12 stops)

The only printed source for early family history that can be found so far is a handwritten article from an unknown newspaper dated October 20, 1964. He reports under the heading “Musical master carpenter began building organs” on the “Family celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Hindelang organ building company in Ebenhofen”.

Accordingly, Heinrich I Hindelang (1848–1926), referred to as the company's founder, learned the carpentry trade from his father Sebastian Hindelang (1823–1889). His workshop was located in the 19th century at the site of the later organ building business in Ebenhofen near Marktoberdorf . Due to his musical disposition, Heinrich I received instruction in violin and organ playing and was organist in his home town of Ebenhofen. The carpenter and organist Heinrich I also dealt with the technology of the instrument and soon carried out the repairs himself in the event of malfunctions. Word of Heinrich I's craftsmanship got around, and he expanded his activities to include the neighboring communities. The beginning of this self-taught organ building activity is given in the year 1864/65. A first written testimony about the work of Heinrich I Hindelang from the year 1874 comes from the Ebenhofener pastor and testifies to “the carpenter and musician from here [...] that he put the defective organ back in a completely usable condition [...] and the renovation, cleaning and Mood to everyone's satisfaction. "

The newspaper report reads further: "In order to be able to cope with all the repairs, Heinrich had to be supported by his brothers Peter and Paul." Here, however, the newspaper report and the parish register books contradict each other: There are sons of master carpenter Sebastian Hindelong only Heinrich I and Peter Paul (1860–1943). It can therefore be assumed that there was an error in the reporting and that Heinrich I only had a brother with the double name Peter Paul.

An indication in which organ builder Henry I Hindelang eventually went into teaching, which in 1925 published fixed and promotional material is the 50th anniversary of the organ-building Institute: "Our company owes its formation the then famous organ builder Pröbstl in feet ." In It remains unclear at what time this was. It is also questionable whether both Hindelang brothers were with Balthasar Pröbstl or just Heinrich I. In this case, Peter Paul was only an employee in the local company.

Heinrich I and Peter Paul Hindelang received the first order for an independent new building in 1875 for the Salenwang branch church near Friesenried ( Ostallgäu district ). The instrument identifies the builder as "Gebrüder Hindelang" and counts as Opus 1 in the company's internal list of works. It comprises seven registers (Manual: Principal 8 ', Gedeckt 8', Gamba 8 ', Salicional 8', Octav 4 ', Mixtur 2 2/3 'pedal: Subbass 16' and pedal coupler) on mechanical cone chests and is unchanged except for the addition of an electric fan by Gerhard Schmid , Kaufbeuren . The design of the gaming table and the neo-Romanesque housing shows a clear parallel to the style of the Balthasar Pröbstl workshop . This new building was the spark for the development of the Hindelang company. The following orders for new buildings made it possible to expand the workrooms in Ebenhofen and equip them with modern machines.

Heinrich I and Peter Paul Hindelang built around 20 organs with mechanical cone chests from 1875 to around 1895 . Slider chests that were found occasionally were taken over from previous instruments, which was cost-effective at the time. From 1895, initially not without teething problems, the switch to pneumatic control took place. By 1914 the company had built around 120 new buildings, most of which can be found in Allgäu-Swabia. After the First World War, the sales area expanded into the Bavarian region. The Hindelang brothers adapted their organ cases to the respective church rooms in neo-style until the transition to the free pipe aesthetic in the 1930s and 1940s. Some cases are so successful that they can easily be mistaken for the original style (e.g. Nesselwang ).

2nd generation: Heinrich II, Friedrich I, Adolf and Xaver Eugen

From 1925 at the latest, Peter Paul's four sons worked in the company. Heinrich II (1893–1941) ran a branch of the company in Würzburg until his untimely death, thereby laying the foundation for further work in the Franconian region . Friedrich I (1897–1977) was entrusted with scheduling, pipe construction and intonation, Adolf (1901–1984) took care of console construction and action, and Xaver Eugen (1907–1998) was responsible for wind chests and assembly in addition to his work as managing director. It can be assumed that the four sons received training in their parents' company. It has not yet been possible to determine whether they also worked for other organ builders or were teaching. In the 1920s and 30s the first cone chests with electric action appeared, which were retained as the main drawer system until the reluctant introduction of electrically controlled sliding chests around 1960. Occasionally organs with horizontal pockets were also made, for example in 1930 in Obergünzburg.

The prospectus designs and housing drawings were provided by the Kaufbeuren-based architects Matthias and Heinrich Karl Abele (1939–2005) until the company was closed. An interesting episode was the short collaboration between the Hindelang brothers and the interior designer Kollmann, who had designed the equipment for the Führer's building on Obersalzberg and who went underground in the Allgäu after the war .

3rd generation: Heinrich III, Paul Eugen and Friedrich II

The third generation of organ builders emerged from the marriage of Xaver Eugen to Ida Wolf (1917–2003). Heinrich III (* 1943), authorized officer of the general partnership and later managing director of the company converted into a GmbH, was responsible for assembly, technology and electrics. Paul Eugen (* 1946) was responsible for the intonation. From his work at Späth in Rapperswil / CH, he brought the mechanical sliding drawer, which had become en vogue again, into the company, but was rejected by the older generation. Paul Eugen graduated from the college for organ building in Ludwigsburg and graduated there as a master organ builder. Furthermore, Friedrich Hindelang (* 1956) passed the master craftsman's examination in 1980.

Trend reversal and company extinction

The neo-baroque turnaround made it difficult for the company, which had built more than 300 new buildings and carried out numerous conversions by the 1970s. The sound ideal of the Hindelang company lay in the expiring late romanticism with wide lengths, an overall orchestral sound and emphasis on the basic voices. In the diocese of Augsburg , the heartland of the activities of the Hindelang brothers, the organ expert at the time, Paul Steichele , pursued an organ- moving style, and the Hindelang company, with its late romantic self-image, went out of fashion. The senior generation in management could not and would not accept that. The Franconian area offered a final field of activity during the 1960s and 70s, thanks to the expert of the diocese of Würzburg , Ordinariatsrat Domkapitular Richard Schömig, and his sympathy for the romantic organ. A number of sub-buildings were built here, many of which were not completed and have therefore been replaced by new buildings today.

Due to the poor order situation, the Hindelang brothers became increasingly active as a supplier for construction companies and, from around 1971, switched entirely to stair construction, in which Heinrich III and Friedrich II Hindelang are still active today. According to the 1966 list of works, the last new building in the Allgäu is Roßhaupten with a mechanical sliding drawer. In 1973 an instrument was installed in the former Cistercian church in Würzburg, which apparently represents the ultimate opus. Up until the 1990s, the Hindelang brothers still carried out occasional renovation, tuning and maintenance work on organs (e.g. in 1978 in Nesselwang ). The extensive company archive went under with the death of Ida Hindelang in 2003, and the building in Ebenhofen was sold. A flute maker is based in the rooms of the former “organ building institute”.

By the time it came to an end, the Hindelang company had built over 350 conversions and new buildings over three generations, from Romanticism to Neo-Baroque.

Electronic organs

Heinrich III Hindelang was a pioneer of electronic organ building. Since working in the family business, he has dealt with synthetic sound generation, which aroused skepticism among the older generation: The unpleasant electronic competition was only reluctant to see in-house. In addition to the traditional pipe organ construction, around 30 to 40 electronic house organs were created with a disposition that was individually designed according to customer requirements , consisting of a console made in traditional construction with an electronic interior. Heinrich III was in exchange - especially about dispositions for sacred organs - with Rainer Böhm, who manufactured electronic organs in Minden from the 1960s to the 1980s.

A synthesis between the electronic organ and the traditional organ is a small organ with seven pipe registers on a mechanical slide box and electronic sub-bass. The Hindelang company was represented at the Munich musical instrument exhibition and sold from there to the USA and South America. This positive had a generator with regulator, through which the electronic sound generation could be adapted to the temperature fluctuations of the pipework. More than 20 pieces of this type were sold from the 1970s / 80s to around 1985 as house organs or for small church services.

List of Hindelang organs

literature

  • Christian Kohler: Organs and organ builders in the Allgäu from 1850 to the present. Diploma thesis Augsburg, 2007. Augsburg / Nuremberg University of Music.

Web links

Commons : Gebrüder Hindelang  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files