Johann Nepomuk Holzhey

Johann Nepomuk Holzhey (anonymous portrait)

Johann Nepomuk Holzhey , also Holzhay (born February 26, 1741 in Rappen, today in Unteregg , † September 18, 1809 in Ottobeuren ) was a German organ builder . Alongside Karl Joseph Riepp and Joseph Gabler , he is considered to be the most important organ builder of the South German Baroque.

Life

Johann Nepomuk Holzhey first learned his trade from his uncle Alexander Holzhey, who completed the organ in Brixen Cathedral in 1758 . One of his employers was Karl Joseph Riepp , for whom he worked as a journeyman on the organ of the Salem Minster from 1767 to 1768 . In 1766 he had already taken over the workshop of his father-in-law Joseph Zettler in Ottobeuren and settled there. Two years later he was accepted into the Ottobeurer Rosary Brotherhood .

After the decline of the Swabian and Bavarian monasteries in the course of secularization in 1803, organ building went drastically downhill. Holzhey, who by then had built around 40 organs, spent his last years as a repair cabinet maker.

Holzhey took up the elements of the French classical organ introduced by Riepp in Upper Swabia and integrated them into the traditional Upper Swabian organ type. With Holzhey, the Rückpositiv has come out of use in Upper Swabian organ building.

List of works

year	place	church	image	Manuals	register	Remarks
1769	Holy Cross (Kempten)	Heiligkreuz monastery choir organ		I / P	7th	Prospectus received
1774-1775	Oberelchingen	Former abbey church of St. Peter and Paul : choir organ		I / P	13	not received
1774-1776	Bad Buchau	Collegiate Church of St. Cornelius and Cyprian: main organ		II / P	25th	not received
1775-1776	Ursberg	Monastery church of St. Peter and St. John the Evangelist , main organ		II / P	26th	rebuilt in the 19th century
around 1777	Bad Buchau	Collegiate Church of St. Cornelius and Cyprian: choir organ		I.	7th	Remains of windchest and action survive
1778	Memmingen	St. Martin				Repair and overhaul of the Gabler organ → St. Martin organ (Memmingen)
1778-1780	Obermarchtal	Collegiate Church of St. Peter and Paul : main organ		III / P	41	Get prospectus; Elaborately restored in 2011 and 2012
1781	augsburg	Jesuit Church of St. Salvator		II / P	22nd	not received
1782-1784	Obermarchtal	Collegiate Church of St. Peter and Paul : choir organ		II / P	26th
1785-1787	Red on the red	Monastery church of St. Verena and Assumption of Mary : choir organ		II / P	32	New building → organs of the St. Verena monastery church (red on the red) . Housing and some registers preserved.
1784-1787	Ravensburg- Weissenau	Monastery church of St. Peter and Paul , main organ		III / P	41	New building; rearranged in the 19th century; Reconstructed in 1991 to the condition of 1787
1788	Erkheim	Parish Church of the Assumption of Mary		I / P	10	New construction of a parapet positive; not received
1789-1793	Red on the red	Monastery church of St. Verena and Assumption of Mary : main organ		III / P	36	→ Organs of the St. Verena monastery church (red on the red) . Originally preserved except for a few registers
1793	Cell	St. Wunibald		I.	5-6	New construction of a positive; not received
1795	Ottobeuren -Eldern	Pilgrimage church				New work for an organ from 1710 or repair, installed in 1805 by Holzhey after the pilgrimage church was demolished in the parish church of St. Johannes Evangelist in Ummendorf , today only the case from around 1710 is preserved
around 1796	Roggenburg	Roggenburg Abbey , monastery church		III / P		Reconstruction of the organ by Georg Friedrich Schmahl (1761); Change of disposition, new, free-standing console, extension of the range of the keyboard; Prospectus received
1796-1798	Roggenburg shooting	Pilgrimage Church of St. Maria Major		II / P	16	New building; Housing received
1797	Ottobeuren	Monastery church, side chapel				now in Babenhausen
1794-1797	Neresheim	St. Ulrich and Afra monastery church : large western organ		III / P	48	New building; later rebuilt several times; 1979 restored to original condition, but with increased pedal circumference
1802-1803	Ehingen -Kirchbierlingen	Parish Church of St. Martin		I / P	at 12	New building
1809	Dürmentingen	Parish Church of St. John Evangelist		II / P	16	New building; not received; Demolished in 1869 and sold to Göffingen , where it was replaced in 1911

literature

• Ulrich Höflacher: Johann Nepomuk Holzhey. An organ builder from Upper Swabia . In: Publication of the Society of Organ Friends . tape 121 . Oberschwäbische Verlagsanstalt, Ravensburg 1987, ISBN 3-926891-01-7 (also dissertation from the University of Tübingen, 1987).
• Wolfgang Manecke , Johannes Mayr: Historical organs in Upper Swabia. The district of Biberach . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1995, ISBN 3-7954-1069-X .
• Josef Edwin Miltschitzky: Ottobeuren: a European organ center. Organ builders, organs, and traditional organ music . Dissertation, University of Amsterdam 2012, especially p. 120ff. ( Full text )
• Walter Supper :  Holzhay, Johann. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 575 ( digitized version ).
• Thomas Uecker:  Holzhay, Johann (Nepomuk). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 1015.

Web links

Commons : Johann Nepomuk Holzhey  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Johann Nepomuk Holzhey at orgel-information.de
• Short biography in the Oberschwaben portal
• Ulrich Höflacher: Johann Nepomuk Holzhey - a south German organ builder of classicism . In: Ars Organi . Vol. 57, Issue 4, 2009, pp. 219–225 (PDF file; 418 kB).