Heinrich Voit

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 Voit-Orgel-Knittelsheim.jpg 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 Voit-orgel-marbach-am-neckar-01.jpg 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 Mannheim-St-Sebastian-Orgel.jpg 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 Voit organ of the Holy Cross Church in Zweibrücken 1879-1945.jpg 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 Durlach city church organ.jpg 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 Km3l inside new.JPG
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 2010-Dirmstein-Laurentiuskirche-kath-0037.jpg 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
Nunkirchen Herz-Jesu-Kirche inside gallery organ prospect 01.JPG
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
Voit organ HP-Hambach.jpg
I / P 11 Almost unchanged, restored in 1987.
1903 Heidelberg City Hall Historic Voit gaming table, Stadthalle Heidelberg.JPG III / P 56 restored by Vleugels in 1993
1903 Mannheim Muses room in the rose garden not received
1903 Pfaffenthal Église Saint-Mathieu Pfaffenthal parish church, organ, Laurent Menage 8409-110.jpg 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 Mannheim-Neckarstadt-West-Luther-Church-03.jpg 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 Voit organ rousse bulgaria.jpg 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.