Hoffmann and Schindler

Hoffmann & Schindler GbR.
legal form	GbR
founding	2020
Seat	Ostheim vd Rhön , Germany;
management	Christoph Schindler; Dominik Schindler;
Number of employees	6 (2017)
Branch	Musical instrument making
Website	www.orgelbau-hoffmann.de
	As of August 17, 2017

Logo Transparent Orgelbau Hoffmann and Schindler

Hoffmann und Schindler is an organ building company in Ostheim before the Rhön . It is the successor company of the Markert family of organ builders .

history

Otto Hoffmann

In 1944 the last bearer of the Markert organ building family , Otto Reinhold Markert, died. He left two daughters. Ida Emilia Martha married the master brewer Willy Hoffmann (1883–1915). The two sons Louis (1906–1965) and Otto (1913–2004) emerged from their marriage.

Both learned to build organs in their grandfather's business and passed the master's examination in the 1930s . After 1945 Otto Hoffmann took over the business because his brother was still a prisoner of war . Associated with this was the change of the company name to Orgelbau Otto Hoffmann .

Louis Hoffmann

The company's organ assembly hall from 1973. The picture shows the company's old logo that was there until 2014

When Louis Hoffmann returned from captivity, he supported his brother in the company until his death in 1965. Initially, organs were built with pneumatic and electric cone chests , and since the 1960s with mechanical slide chests.

Due to the Iron Curtain , the company lacked a traditional sales area: Thuringia , the border of which was only 5 km away. So the company tried to open up new sales areas. By 1985 Orgelbau Hoffmann had built over 100 new organs and around 60 restorations with up to 20 employees.

Larger organs were built u. a. in Karlstadt , Selb , Solingen , Ebelsbach , Seibelsdorf , Rentweinsdorf , Baunach and in Würzburg . In 1975 Otto Hoffmann restored the organ that his grandfather had relocated in St. Michael's Church in Ostheim vor der Rhön and put it back in its old location in the east choir. He donated a choir organ for the instrument that can be mechanically coupled to the main organ. Important monument organs, such as the Herbst organ in Lahm / Itzgrund, the Schlimbach organs in Bad Königshofen and Klingenberg, and several Seuffert organs have been restored. One of the early restorations in 1972 was the Will organ in the Carmelite Church in Bad Neustadt / Saale. In 1970 a new workshop building was opened in Ludwig-Jahn-Str. 18 where the company is still located today.

Horst and Günter Hoffmann

In 1985, Otto Hoffmann was 72 years old, his two sons, the master organ builder Horst (* 1944) and Günter (* November 5, 1947) took over their father's business. Numerous new buildings followed such as B. in Sulzfeld , Bad Kissingen , Oberelsbach , Lauf an der Pegnitz , Kürnach , Pommersfelden , Hamm , Höchberg , Hofheim , Volkersberg , Wilhermsdorf , Mariabuchen , Neuhof , Bad Soden-Salmünster , Wildflecken , Aschaffenburg-Gailbach and the renovation of the great organ of the Johannesstift Berlin IV / 64 register.

The reconstruction of the organ built by Johann Friedrich Wender in 1703 for the new Bach Church in Arnstadt, the first organist of which was Johann Sebastian Bach from 1703 to 1707, as well as the restoration of the romantic organ in the Bach Church in Arnstadt are among the company's highly regarded tasks .

Important monument organs have been thoroughly restored in: Arnstadt, Althausen, Dampfach, Etzelwang, Schornweisach, Detter, Spitalkirche Mellrichstadt, Burghaun, Brunn, Aschaffenburg-Glattbach, Kronungen, Unterhohenried, Fulda, Ebern, Hain, Vohenstrauß, Zimmer, Obereuerheim, Heilig Geist, Fulda , Oberzell, Blankenau, Goldkronach, Kirchzell, Bettenhausen, Gerolzhofen, Himmelkron, Bibra, Dalherda, Elxleben, Tröchtelborn, Geba, Triptis, Seeba, Herpf, Helmershausen, Meuselbach and Ostheim / Rhön.

In 1993, Horst Hoffmann was the founding director of the Ostheimer Orgelbaumuseum , which was equipped with the extensive collection of historical documents and objects of the brothers Horst and Günter Hoffmann.

In addition, Horst Hoffmann has been a board member of the Association of German Organ Builders (BDO) since 1986 , Vice Chairman from 1988 and Chairman of the traditional association from 2000 to 2014. In 2010 he sold his share in the workshop to master organ builder Christoph Schindler, who had been trained by him.

present

Mural on the hall wall, 2015

Günter Hoffmann's son , Tobias (born November 2, 1975), has continued the organ building tradition since 1996 in the 7th generation. Since April 2010, the company has been under the management of Günter Hoffmann, Christoph Schindler (* 1963), the company's long-time employee and voicer . Since then, the GbR has been called Orgelbau Hoffmann & Schindler . Günter Hoffmann retired on January 1, 2020 and sold his company share to Dominik Schindler, Christoph Schindler's son. The Hoffmann & Schindler company will be continued under the same name. The owners have been Christoph and Dominik Schindler since 2020.

Concert organ

The truck converted by the company in 1998 is unique in the world. It serves as a mobile organ that can be set up and played anywhere. The open air concert organ was last used at the 2017 Kirchentag in Berlin on behalf of Hoffbauer gGmbH . The concert was called Drums & Pipes .

Open-air concert organ from Orgelbau Hoffmann and Schindler. It was built in a truck in 1998 and is unique in the world

Built	Ostheim before the Rhön 1998
Action	electric tone and register action
range	Manuals C - g ³ , pedal C - f ¹
Game aids	4000 memory locations, electronic
Pipes	1830 wooden and metal pipes (tin, copper, fine zinc)

Works (selection)

year	place	church	Manuals	register	Remarks
1977	Michelau in Upper Franconia	Protestant church	II / P	23
1981	Wolfsburg	St. Raphael (Catholic)	II / P	23
1983	Lahm (Itzgrund)	Castle Church "On the Holy Trinity"	II / P	29	Restoration of the organ by Heinrich Gottlieb Herbst from 1732
1984	Etzelwang	St. Nicholas	I / P	9	Restoration of the organ by Elias Hößler from 1744
1985	Sulzbach-Rosenberg	Vocational school in the Upper Palatinate district	II / P	17th	Practice organ with alternating loops and coupling manual
1986	Pommersfelden	St. Mary and John	II / P	21st
1990	Run on the Pegnitz	St. Johannis	II / P	24	Reconstruction of the Johann Adam Brandenstein organ from 1700, supplementing the traditional prospectus with a Rückpositiv
1994	Bettenhausen (Rhönblick)	To the Holy Cross	II / P	17th	Restoration of the organ by Johann Ernst Döring from 1747, originally built for Unterweid
2000	Arnstadt	Bach Church (Protestant)	II / P	21st	Reconstruction of the organ by Johann Friedrich Wender
2011	Helmershausen	Cathedral of the Rhön	II / P	26 + 3	Restoration of the organ by Johann Michael Voit from 1786
2012	Kirchenreinbach near Etzelwang	Ortisei	II / P	12	Historicizing new building in the existing case (1823) by the Amberg organ builder Wilhelm Hepp