Jürgen Marcussen

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Jürgen Marcussen (born May 10, 1781 in Schnabek ; † November 9, 1860 in Aabenraa ) was a Danish organ builder and founder of Marcussen & Søn .

Live and act

Jürgen Marcussen was a son of the Schnabeker carpenter Jørgen Christensen (or Marquardsen) (1745-1812) and his wife Magdalena Lorentzes (datter) (1749-1832). His parents were so poor that he had to spend his childhood and youth with the relative carpenter Alexander Alexandersen in Satrup , whose piety shaped him for life.

After confirmation, Marcussen began training with his foster father and then worked as a carpenter for several years. From 1802 he learned organ building from Hans Frederik Oppenhagen in Rudkøbing . According to the traditions of his family, the teacher feared that Marcussen could become a potential competitor to whom he did not want to impart important specialist knowledge. The apprenticeship therefore ended after a year and a half. Marcussen then went back to Satrup and worked as a carpenter again. Self-taught, he continued to build organs.

In 1806 Marcussen married Anna Maria Andresen (or Andersen) (* February 26, 1782, † September 28, 1857). She was the daughter of Andreas Jacobsen (1739-1822) and his wife Ellen, née Jessen (1737-1825). The Marcussen couple had two daughters and three sons. The son Alexander (1806-1835) worked from 1833 as a deacon in Hammelev .

In 1806 Marcussen created a small positive as the first instrument , which the teachers' seminar in Tondern supposedly bought from him. He himself recorded 1806 as the founding year of his organ building workshop; he only got the royal concession for this in 1811. At that time he had his residence in Lundsgaardfeld . His workshop was obviously always in Vester Sottrup .

In the area of ​​organ building, Marcussen initially only took on repairs. Since Denmark fought in the Napoleonic Wars and the state went bankrupt in 1813, municipalities did not award contracts for new buildings. From 1810 Marcussen took care of the organ of the Moravian Brethren in Christiansfeld , to which there were presumably also religious connections. In 1813 a repair in Hadersleben followed , in 1816 a relatively large renovation of the organ in Tondern . In 1819 he received the first order for a new, large organ. He finished this instrument for Sieseby on the Schlei in 1820. For the first time, he used a box bellows that he designed, which regulated the air supply evenly and thus offered the solution to an urgent technical problem in organ building at the time. A report about the inauguration of the instrument mentions Andreas Peter Wilhad Reuter as Marcussen's assistant for the first time . After a few years, Reuter became a partner in Marcussen's workshop.

After his first organ, Marcussen received further orders from Holstein. In 1921 he created an organ for the church in Bruges and in the same year he took over the restoration of the organ in Kiel's St. Nikolaikirche . A few years later he received orders from Denmark, for example from Copenhagen and the surrounding area. His friend and pastor Søren Salling from Vonsild probably put him in contact with the architect Christian Frederik Hansen , who was in charge of building a church in Copenhagen in 1824/25. Hansen advocated that Marcussen could build the new organ for the Christiansborg church . In addition, he received support from Christoph Ernst Friedrich Weyse . In 1825 Marcussen and his partner Reuter stayed in Copenhagen because of this large order. In September 1826 they were awarded the contract and in the same month passed a partnership agreement, according to which they received equal shares from Marcussen & Reuter .

In August 1828 a ship brought the finished parts of the organ for Christiansborg to the Danish capital. The organ was removed and inaugurated the following year. Marcussen and Reuter were among the leading organ builders in the entire Danish state. This was also expressed in the fact that, after the organs of the Eckernförde Nikolaikirche and the Itzehoer Laurentiuskirche , they bought a building complex in Aabenraa, which they moved into with a workshop and apartment.

In 1831 Marcussen and Reuter redesigned the organ of the St. Mary's Church in Flensburg . In 1832 they built a new organ for the church in Husum on behalf of Christian Frederik Hansen . In 1833 they built an organ for Havetoft , where Reuter came from. After that they received further large orders for which they had already researched from 1829. In 1833 they rebuilt the old organ in Roskilde Cathedral , in 1835/36 they created the new organ in the Frauenkirche in Copenhagen, which Marcussen's teacher Oppenhagen had probably tried, failed and was very embarrassed about.

In July 1836, Marcussen and Reuter received the title of "court organ builder" and the order to renovate the organ at Frederiksborg Castle . They did that in 1837; their work was destroyed in a fire in the castle in 1859. In 1838 they rebuilt the Wilster organ , and in 1840 the instrument in Schleswig Cathedral . In 1842 they worked again in Kiel's St. Nikolaikirche, where they de facto built a new building. In 1843 they built an organ for Kronborg Castle and in 1846 for Fredensborg Castle . In 1844 Marcussen and Reuter stayed in Gothenburg and considered whether they could rebuild the organ in the cathedral there.

After Reuter's death in 1847, Marcussen took on his son Jürgen Andreas as a partner. The company has been trading as Marcussen & Søn ever since . The first major work was carried out under complicated circumstances due to the Schleswig-Holstein survey . This included the rebuilding of the Tönning organ in 1848 and that of Gothenburg Cathedral the next year . During the 1850s, Marcussen's son increasingly took over the management. During his cooperation with Reuter, Jürgen Marcussen created around 50 organs, with his son 35 by the end of his life.

Marcussen founded the most important organ building company in Denmark in the 19th century. In addition to his own manual skills, the theoretically better trained Andreas Peter Wilhad Reuter obviously played an important role. Christoph Ernst Friedrich Weyse criticized several times in his reports that Marcussen and Reuter demanded very high prices, but also repeatedly pointed out that they kept their contracts exactly and created excellent works. His successor, Johann Peter Emilius Hartmann , stated in 1847 “that the achievements of Messrs. Marcussen and Reuter in the field of organ building in relation to the fineness and elegance of the work, the beauty, richness and peculiarity of the tone and the appropriate arrangement of the mechanisms were among the most excellent works known to me belong to the newer and older times. "

literature

  • Leopold Iwan Cirsovius : Life picture of the organ builders Marcussen & Sohn: together with a list of the organs supplied from 1848–91 a. the time, b. the size and the main provisions according to which all are built, as well as expert opinions. Kiel: Jensen 1891 ( digitized at HathiTrust ) with opus list 1-200
  • Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , pages 222-225.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , pages 222-223.
  2. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , page 223.
  3. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , page 222.
  4. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , page 223.
  5. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , page 223.
  6. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , page 223.
  7. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , pages 223-224.
  8. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , page 224.
  9. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , page 224.
  10. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , page 224.
  11. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Marcussen, Jürgen . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 9 - 1991. ISBN 3-529-02649-2 , page 224.
personal data
SURNAME Marcussen, Jürgen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish organ builder
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1781
PLACE OF BIRTH Schnabek
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1860
Place of death Aabenraa