Gerhard Janssen Schmid

Gerhard Janssen Schmid (also: Johann Gerhard Schmid or Schmid I ) (* July 28, 1770 in Logabirum ; † March 1, 1845 in Oldenburg ) was an organ builder who founded the Oldenburg line of the Schmid family. Although he had his company headquarters in Oldenburg, he mainly worked in East Frisia .

Life

Gerhard Janssen Schmid came from an extensive family of organ builders. He was the second son of the organ builder Ihno Eylard Schmid and his wife Elisabeth born. Janssen and uncle of the organ builder Wilhelm Eilert Schmid . His older brother Anton Friedrich Schmid (born January 13, 1765 in Logabirum ; † September 29, 1846 in Quakenbrück ) lived in Quakenbrück since 1791 and worked in the Osnabrück area and in the Emsland . In Leer , Gerhard Janssen Schmid married Margaretha Imkea Müller, the daughter of a miller from Marienhafe, on December 23, 1808 . In 1810 he received the privilege of organ builder for the Duchy of Oldenburg , where he moved in 1811 and where he ran his workshop, but remained mainly active in East Frisia. After his death, his son Johann Claussen Schmid (1811–1881) took over the workshop in Oldenburg (1845–81). The grandson Johann Martin Schmid managed the company from 1881 to 1919, which was then taken over by the Rohlfing company.

plant

Schmid has carried out three new buildings in East Frisia:

• From 1798 to 1799 he built a two-manual organ with 14 registers and attached pedal in Strackholt , which, however, underwent some changes over time. In 1971 Hans Wolf added a substation and an independent pedal mechanism, which was completed after Hermann Hillebrand's death in 1973, who at the same time restored the historical parts of the organ. In a further step, the four still vacant reed registers were made by Hillebrand in 1986, so that the organ now has 23 registers. The Strackholter organ is thus one of the largest village organs in East Frisia.
• 1812–13 Schmid built a small organ with seven registers and an attached pedal in Logabirum. The work was replaced in 1928 by an organ by Wendt and Heise.
• In 1814 in Landschaftspolder he built a small organ with eight registers and an attached pedal. The interior was replaced by Gebr. Rohlfing in 1915, but the old prospectus and case were retained. 1987-88 the Krummhörner organ workshop built a new building with five registers in the style of Gerhard Janssen Schmid behind the historical prospectus .

In 1803 Schmid repaired the organ in Buttforde and redesigned the exterior by removing the wing doors on the side and replacing them with carvings and creating the crowning urns. In Dedesdorf , St. Laurentius, he replaced a register in the pedal in 1838 and created an equal tuning . Repairs to the following organs have been proven: Uttum (1795–96, 1805), Eilsum (1795–97), Victorbur (1808), Osteel (1808–10) and Hesel (1810).

List of works (selection)

The size of the instruments is indicated in the fifth column by the number of manuals and the number of sounding registers in the sixth column. A capital “P” stands for an independent pedal, a lowercase “p” for an attached pedal. Italics indicate that the organ in question is no longer available or that only the prospectus has been preserved.

year	place	church	image	Manuals	register	Remarks
1795-1796, 1805	Uttum	Uttum Church		I.	9	Repair → organ of the Uttum church
1795-1797	Hurry	Eilsumer Church		I / P	10	Repair of the organ by Joachim Kayser (1710), of which only the prospectus has survived.
1798-1799	Strackholt	Barbara Church		I / p	12	New building; rebuilt several times over the course of two centuries and expanded to II / P / 23 in 1986.
1803	Buttforde	St. Mary's Church		I / p	9	Work on the organ and redesign of the exterior → Organ of St. Marien (Buttforde)
1808	Victorbur	St. Victor Church		I / p	8th	Repair of the organ by Johann Gottfried Rohlfs (1817–18), of which only the prospectus has been preserved.
1808	Wiarden	St. Cosmas and Damian Church in Wiarden		I / P	14th	Some registers received from Schmid; 1963 conversion by Alfred Führer (today I / P / 14)
1808-1810	Osteel	Warnfried Church		II / p	13	Repair of the → organ of the Warnfried Church (Osteel)
1810	Hesel	Liudgerikirche		I / P	13	Repair; not received
1812-1813	Logabirum	Logabirum Church		I / p	9	New building; old organ sold and moved to Cleverns , where the prospectus is preserved; the Schmid organ was replaced by a used one in 1928
1814	Landscape polder	Landscape polder church		I / p	8th	New building, of which only the old housing and the prospectus have been preserved; In 1987-88, five new Schmid-style registers were built by the Krummhörner organ workshop.
1817	Tossens	St. Bartholomew		II / p	14th	Extension of an organ by an unknown builder (1660), of which 6 registers have been preserved (then I / p / 10); 1963 Extension conversion by Alfred Führer (new Rückpositiv and pedal) to II / P / 16
1831	Intermediate tooth	St. John		II / p	14th	Receive prospectus only; 1973 New building by Detlef Kleuker (II / P / 23)
1836	Elsfleth	St. Nikolai		II / P	19th	1955 Extension conversion by Führer (today II / P / 21)
1838	Dedesdorf	St. Laurence		II / P	18th	Exchange of a register in the pedal; Establishment of equal tuning
1840	Minsen	St. Severi		I / P	13	New building; Originally preserved except for the prospectus pipes delivered in 1917

literature

• Walter Kaufmann : The organs of the old Duchy of Oldenburg . Stalling, Oldenburg 1962.
• Walter Kaufmann: The organs of East Frisia . East Frisian Landscape, Aurich 1968.
• Harald Vogel , Reinhard Ruge, Robert Noah, Martin Stromann: Organ landscape Ostfriesland . 2nd Edition. Soltau-Kurier-Norden, Norden 1997, ISBN 3-928327-19-4 .

See also

• List of organ builders
• List of historical organs in East Frisia
• List of organs in Oldenburg