Gerhard (organ builder)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The organ builder family Gerhard (also "Gerhardt") worked for three generations in the East Thuringian area in the 18th and 19th centuries . At that time that was the area of ​​the Duchy of Saxony-Altenburg , followed by the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach .

Family history

The family and company history begins with the company's founder Justinus Ehrenfried Gerhard , a student of Gottfried Silbermann , the most important Saxon organ builder of the Baroque era . The different spelling of the family name with and without "t" appears in official and personal documents. The year of birth of Justinus was set to 1710 after an entry in the death register of his place of work Lindig in 1786 , because it says there: Justinus Ehrenfried Gerhard (t), famous organ builder as well as neighbor and resident of Lindig died on January 16th and 18th The same was buried with a funeral sermon on the text of his own choice, Psalm 73, verse 28, aged 75 years . Biographical data of Justinus from the time before he came to Lindig are still unknown. The Lindig congregation's register shows an entry according to which Justus Ehrenfried “the organ maker and the virgin Justina Maria Thiemin” , a native of Lindig, married on May 16, 1741. Presumably the house and workshop of the organ builder were on the property of today's homestead, Dorfstrasse 17. The village church in Lindig received an organ from Justinus in 1742.

Christian August was the second son of Justin and Mary. He was born on September 1, 1745 in Lindig and learned the trade of organ building in his father's workshop. Inscriptions on the organs built in 1780/81 in the evangelical town church in Bürgel and in the evangelical church in Rudersdorf attest to his collaboration: "From the two Gerhard (t) en zu Lindig" . After the death of the company founder, Christian August took over the workshop. On November 3rd, 1777 he married Maria Susanna Süße from Lindig. This marriage had fourteen children. Christian August died on December 15, 1817 in Lindig.

  • Johann Christian Adam Gerhard (* August 17, 1780; † May 6, 1837), the fourth child, learned the trade of organ building in his father's business, but later moved his workshop to Dorndorf an der Saale . According to the Dorndorf church register, he marriedChristiane Juliane Rost, daughter of the cantor Johann Christoph Rost in Dorndorf,in the church in Tautenburg in 1814.
There is evidence that Johann Christian Adam built organs independently since 1810. The organ in Kötschau , a district of Großschwabhausen near Weimar, bears the inscription " FCA Gerhard (t), master organ builder Dorndorf 1826 ". The organ builder Hugo Schramm from Bürgel discovered this inscription in 1927 while repairing the organ.
  • The seventh child, Regina Maria, was born on October 29, 1784. Regina married Ludwig Wilhelm Caspar Poppe, the son of the organ builder Christian Friedrich Poppe from Stadtroda , then Roda , on November 3rd, 1807 in Lindig .
  • Even Johann Ernst Gottfried Gerhard (* April 21, 1786), born as the eighth child learns organ building in his father's business. He later opened his workshop in Merseburg .
  • Johanna Rosina Elisabetha was born on August 5th as the twelfth child of the family (the source does not provide the year.) On January 17, 1820, she married the carpenter and organ builder master Christian Heinrich Körner from Stadtroda in Lindig, who through this marriage became the brother-in-law of Ludwig Wilhelm Caspar Poppe, in whose father's business he was probably employed. This shows that even then, family ties were forged among the same trades out of business interests.

With the deaths of Johann Christian Adam († 1837) and Johann Ernst Gottfried (†?), The East Thuringian family business of organ builder Gerhard died out. The beautiful baroque brochures of the solidly manufactured instruments, the good register arrangement and the extraordinary sound still bear witness to the great craftsmanship of the family.

See also

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Gottfried Silbermann: Students & Journeyman" ( Memento from March 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive )