Heinrich Voit

This article deals with the organ builder from Baden. In Hesse there was the organ builder Heinrich Voigt .

Letterhead from H. Voit & Sons on account from 1913

Heinrich Voit (born March 18, 1834 in Durlach ; † October 1914 there ) was a German organ builder and the best-known representative of the Voit family of organ builders. After him, the Durlach organ building company was called H. Voit & Sons from 1890 to 1932, when it was closed .

history

ancestors

The family business Voit originally came from Franconia . In Schweinfurt , according to old documents "since the middle of the 17th century, members of the family from sex to sex have been involved in organ building". Johann Volkmar Voit (* 1772; † 1806) had four brothers. Carl Friedrich Voit also built instruments and organs like his father and grandfather. Johann Volkmar Voit moved from Schweinfurt to Durlach (now part of Karlsruhe ), where he married Katherina Friederike Stein , the daughter of the Durlach organ and piano builder Georg Marcus Stein (* 1738; † 1794), and after the death of his father-in-law, in 1794 Company took over. After the early death of Johann Volkmar Voit, whom Elector Karl Friedrich had appointed Baden court organ maker in 1804, the widow married the journeyman organ maker Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Bürgy (* 1761; † 1838). He trained his stepson Louis Voit (* 1802; † 1883) to be an organ builder and made him his partner and successor in 1835.

Owner Heinrich Voit

Former factory portal (2005)

In 1870, Louis' son Heinrich Voit became the managing director and from 1890 on, together with his sons Emil (* 1865; † 1924) and Siegfried (* 1870; † 1939) operated as H. Voit & Sons . Furthermore, the younger sons Heinrich Voit jun. (* 1871; † 1926) and Julius Voit (* 1883; † 1955) work in the family business.

The company flourished up to the First World War . In 1890 the first Voit organ with a pneumatic action falls . In Heinrich Voit's time in 1899, a very responsive pneumatic windchest system similar to the American Rooseveltlade was developed. In view of the sporadic disc shutters built by Voit from around 1885 , as preserved in the Bühl-Neusatz church , it must be questioned whether Voit was really based on the US model, as is claimed in the sparse literature. Since the disc drawer is, so to speak, a mechanical version of the pneumatic wind drawer system patented by Voit in 1899, it could very well have served as a model. The first attempts with an electric action took place in 1885 in the church of St. Barbara in Forst (Baden) . However, Voit has been purchasing electropneumatic actions from M. Welte & Söhne since at least 1887 ; the collaboration has not been researched.

In 1903 the world's first mobile electric organ console was built in Heidelberg. In the Evangelical City Church and the Church of St. Bernhard, both in Karlsruhe, high pressure registers were arranged.

A specialty of the company were generously built concert hall organs. In 1912 Voit delivered a three-manual organ with 50 stops to a music school in Paris.

Heinrich Voit also supplied various smaller organ builders in Baden with organ parts and pipes, for example his former apprentice Mathias Burkart (* 1838; † 1922) in Heidelberg -Kirchheim or Wilhelm Schwarz & Sohn in Überlingen .

Hans Voit (* 1904; † 1994), son of Heinrich Voit jun. , founded his own company in Stendal in 1930 .

Downfall of the company

Today's cultural center organ factory (2005)

The First World War weakened the company considerably. From 1914 until the end of the war, almost all workers were drafted, Carl Hess (* 1879; † 1943), long-time manager and voicer, ran the business together with Emil and Siegfried Voit in Durlach. Only a few of the experienced former employees returned home after the end of the war.

Many of the organ works built after 1918 already had serious technical defects when they were officially accepted. The Protestant organ building inspector Walter Leib , who worked for Baden, took the unsuccessful rebuilding of the organ in Mannheim-Feudenheim as an opportunity to publicly warn against the work of the Voit company.

Company task

Operations manager Carl Hess founded his own organ building company in Durlach in 1920 and systematically promoted the decline of his former employer. In the spring of 1932 Siegfried Voit gave up the company. The organ builders Reinhold Sauder (as voicer) and Wilhelm Wagner (as windchest carpenter), who had remained with Voit until then, went into business for themselves. The often-widespread comment that Hess set up in Voits workshops is, however, unfounded and unsustainable. As early as the 1930s, Carl Hess was building occasional grinding chests.

After the death of Carl Hess, the widow Anni Hess b. Meyer (* 1900; † 1981) continued the business until the beginning of 1961. Then the Hess company also went out.

List of works

year	place	building	image	Manuals	register	Remarks
1758/59	Directions	St. Joseph				received technically modified
1840	Knittelsheim	St. George			18th	received technically modified
1853	Friedrichshof	St. Maria Rosenkoenig		I / P	9	restored by Vleugels in 1993
1860	Gerolzahn	Catholic St. Marien		I / P	4th	restored by Vleugels in 1974
1864	Baden-Baden	Ev. City Church		II / P	30th	not received
1867	Baden-Baden	St. Boniface				received some registers
1868	Ladenburg	St. Gallus Church		III / P	41	today Alexanderkirche Marbach → organ
1869	Weidenthal	Ev. Christ Church		II / P	24	preserved, restored in 1997 by Gerhard Kuhn, Esthal
1873	Sinsheim -Hilsbach	Ev. church		II / P	28	receive
1875	Heidelberg	Jesuit Church				many registers preserved in the Valley Organ Museum
1877	Mannheim	St. Sebastian		III / P	36	Exhibited at the art and trade exhibition in Karlsruhe in 1875 and installed in St. Sebastian in 1877, partially preserved
1878	Distelhausen	St. Mark		II / P	18th	restored by Vleugels 1971/88
1879	Weidenthal	St. Simon and Jude Thaddaeus		II / P	24	not preserved, replaced in 1972
1879	Gailingen on the Upper Rhine	Cath. St. Dionysius		II / P	24	former St. Blasien cathedral organ, moved in 1913, cleaning by Vleugels 2011
1879	Zweibrücken	Holy Cross Church		II / P	24	Expanded to 43 registers in 1911, destroyed in 1945
1879	Eppingen	Evangelical town church		II / P	26th	receive
1880s	Lambrecht (Palatinate)	Catholic Church of St. Johannes Nepomuk (today Heart of Jesus)				not received; rebuilt and replaced in 1946, 1954 and 1972
1887	Eschbach	Catholic St. Agnes		II / P	16	restored by Vleugels in 1993
1888	Hochstadt (Palatinate)	Prot. Church Niederhochstadt				Originally preserved except for the prospectus pipes
1890	Forbach (Baden)	St. Johannis		II / P	30th	first organ Voits with pneumatic cone chests, canceled in 1965
1891	Kirrlach	Catholic Church		III / P	35	received changed
1892	Schopfheim	Ev. (new) city church		II / P	26th	preserved and restored
1892	Jöhlingen	St. Martin		II / P	18th	Preserved and restored in original condition except for prospectus pipes
1892	Kembach	Ev. church		I / P	10	restored by Vleugels in 1979
1893	Otterbach	Assumption Day				z. T. received, expanded in 1989
1893	Edingen-Neckarhausen	Ev. church				preserved, but stored, is to be transferred to the Trossingen University of Music
1893	Messelhausen	Catholic St. Burkhard		II / P	14th	restored by Vleugels in 1981
1894	St. Ingbert	St. Joseph		III / P	59 (52)	received greatly changed
1894	Heckfeld	Catholic St. Vitus		I / P	12	restored by Vleugels in 1994
1895/1896	Durlach	Town church Durlach		III / P	41	5 registers received
1894	Dunzweiler	Evang.		I / P	8th	Housing reused in a new building by Vleugels in 1995
1896	Karlsruhe	Grand Ducal Baden grave chapel				received, but z. Currently unplayable
1898	Munsterappel	Monastery church
1900	Bischweier	Catholic Church				In 1960 it was replaced by a new building in which parts have been preserved and changed
1900	Dirmstein	Laurentiuskirche , catholic part		III / P	23	technically modified 1986, preserved
1900	Erlenbach near Dahn	Saint Mary of the Assumption and Aegidius		I / P	6th	preserved, restored by Peter Ohlert (Kirkel)
1900	trier	Treveris Festival Hall		II / P	32	First Voits concert organ, moved to the gallery in 1946, given away to Mückeln before the building was demolished in 1974 , where it has been partially preserved
1902	Gillenfeld-Eifel	Catholic St. Andreas		II / P	17th	Partial reconstruction by Vleugels 2016
1902	Nunkirchen	Sacred Heart Church		II / P	26th	Dismantled in 1917, rebuilt in 1920, largely preserved, expanded to 30 registers in 1980 by Hugo Mayer Orgelbau
1902	Heppenheim-Hambach	Parish and pilgrimage church of St. Michael		I / P	11	Almost unchanged, restored in 1987.
1903	Heidelberg	City Hall		III / P	56	restored by Vleugels in 1993
1903	Mannheim	Muses room in the rose garden				not received
1903	Pfaffenthal	Église Saint-Mathieu		II / P	25th	1968 major overhaul by the Manufacture d'orgues luxembourgeoise Georg Westenfelder Lintgen . The pneumatic action was converted electropneumatically, the organ got a new console, the pipework remained untouched.
1904	Vineyard	Catholic St. Michael		I / P	23	Housing used by Vleugels in the new building in 1981
1904	Asbach	Catholic St. Mariae unfilled conception		II / P	11	restored by Vleugels in 2009
1905	Karlsruhe	St. Bernhard				with three high pressure registers; not received
1905	Baden-Baden	Collegiate church		III / P	43	received some registers
1906	Karlsruhe	St. Cyriac				in a Silbermann case from Baden-Baden; receive
1907	Karlsruhe	Luther Church				not received
1907	Mannheim	Luther Church		III / P	40	receive
1907	Lichtental (Baden-Baden)	Luther Church		II / P		Canceled in 1976
1907	Budapest	Kgl. Ung. State Music Academy Franz Liszt				Prospectus received, reconstruction of the organ planned
1907	Russian	St Paul of the Cross Cathedral				receive
1908	Karlsruhe	St. Boniface				seriously rebuilt by Hess in 1950 and Bormann in 1979, remains have been preserved
1910	Hoepfingen	St. Aegidius		II / P	23	Housing used by Vleugels in the new building in 1982
1910	Düsseldorf - Pempelfort	Kreuzkirche		III / P	44	not preserved, replaced in 1966 by a new building by Alexander Schuke, Potsdam (III + P / 45)
1912	Baden-Baden	Hofgut Maria Halden				House organ with organola; receive
1912	Prague	Smetana Hall		III / P	70	preserved, restored by Vleugels in 1997
1913	Mannheim	Castle Church				not received
1913	Rotenberg (Rauenberg)	St. Nicholas				not received
1915	Karlsruhe	Concert hall				not received
1915	Woellstein	Cath.		II / P	15th	Partial restoration by Vleugels in 1998
1916	Baden-Baden	Kurhaus				currently stored at Vleugels
1917	Krefeld	City Hall				not received
1921	Baden-Baden	St. Bernhard		III / P	47	received greatly changed
?	Baden-Baden	Dreieichenkapelle				destroyed by fire in 1979

literature

• Markus Zepp: "... a masterpiece from the well-known H. Voit & Sons organ factory in Durlach ..." The history of the Voit organ in the Kurhaus Baden-Baden . In: Ioculator Dei. Festschrift for Andreas Schröder on the occasion of his 60th birthday . Freiburg 1999.
• Evangelical Oberlandeskirchenarchiv Karlsruhe, Organ & Bell Examination Office: files of organ builder recommendations ,
• Gerhard Wagner ao: The Voit organ in the Heidelberg city hall, organ restoration - a contribution to cultural history . Heidelberg 1993, ISBN 978-3-924973-59-9 .
• Estate of the Archbishop's organ inspector Otto Schäfer (1876–1967), Baden-Baden (private property).

Web links

Commons : H. Voit & Sons  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Friedrich Blume, Ludwig Finscher: Music in the past and present . General Encyclopedia of Music, Part 2 . Issue 2nd volume 17 . Bärenreuter, 2007, ISBN 3-7618-1137-3 , p. 197 f .
2. ↑ Gerhard Wagner among others: The Voit organ in the Heidelberg city hall. Organ restoration - a contribution to cultural history. Heidelberg 1993.
3. ↑ M. Welte & Sons .
4. ^ Franz Bösken , Hermann Fischer , Matthias Thömmes: Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history . Volume 40 ). tape 4 : Koblenz and Trier administrative districts, Altenkirchen and Neuwied districts . Schott, Mainz 2005, ISBN 978-3-7957-1342-3 , pp. 1144 f .
5. ^ Festschrift for the organ consecration on March 13, 2016.
6. ^ Oskar Gottlieb Blarr, Theodor Kersken: Orgelstadt Düsseldorf. Düsseldorf 1982, p. 68 f., Ill. P. 66 f.