Cabinet organ
A cabinet organ is a special form of the house organ that is housed in a decorative cabinet , usually a top secretary . Due to the lockable wing doors, it is not easily recognizable as an organ when closed. The relocatable small organ usually has a few stops on a manual and no pedal . Cabinet organs were built in the 18th and 19th centuries as a decorative cabinet and showpiece for a cabinet room in wealthy town houses and experienced a heyday in the Netherlands from 1770 to 1820.
Design and technology
As a rule, the cabinet organ's housing is in two parts and is specially made for the instrument, which can also be built into an existing cabinet. While the bellows and most of the action with the wave board are hidden in the lower part of the case, the pipework is set up in the upper case. The lower part consists of a massive chest of drawers that can be decorated with fittings, decorative strips and blend drawers. The organist or a Kalkant operates the wind supply (comparable to the harmonium ) by means of a foot lever. The wedge bellows common in the 17th century were replaced by fold-in magazine bellows in the 18th century. The wind pressure was relatively low (mostly below 60 mm / WS ). In the 20th century, mostly an electric fan was used. Instead of the writing desk of the secretary, the manual keyboard is built-in, occasionally the register pulls (manubrias) imitate the buttons of drawers.
The upper part is a cupboard attachment with double doors that can be painted or fitted with mirrors. The two or three-part prospectus is characterized by a chromatic arrangement of the pipes (no thirds). The labia of the prospect pipes are directed inwards for reasons of protection, but sometimes have blind labia. In the baroque and rococo periods, a curved upper case structure that rises in a wave shape towards the middle was popular. From about 1785 the neo-classical design brochure and at the beginning of the 19th century following the Empire style . The French influence is increasingly being pushed back. In a simple design, a straight end or a flat triangular gable meets. It is not uncommon for figures, vases or other decorative elements to crown the instrument. Only in exceptional cases did cabinet organs have an attached pedal, like the instrument by Gideon Thomas Bätz (1751–1820), brother of Jonathan Bätz , from the end of the 18th century. Most of the time, pedals were retrofitted. From the heyday of Dutch cabinet organ building, some works with a second manual are known, which served as an echo work , but could also have reeds in an eight-foot position.
sound
Since cabinet organs are built for living rooms, the sound is designed to be chamber music; From 1750 onwards, the instruments became more powerful thanks to aliquot registers and mixtures . In order to increase the tonal possibilities with a few registers (usually four to eight), split registers are used. This division is characteristic of the Dutch cabinet organ building from 1750, but is also found in Switzerland. Due to the lack of height, the sound is mostly based on a principal in a four-foot position, the longest and deepest pipe of which is about 1.20 meters, more rarely on a two-foot position (0.60 meters). For this reason, an (additional) Praestant 8 ′ was only built in the treble in the Netherlands (sounds from c 1 as two-foot). Flute parts that are made of wood predominate. A construction with gedackten or bent pipes allows registers in eight-foot location. In addition to the flute choir, there is always a fifth register ( 2 2 ⁄ 3 , more rarely the high fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3 ) as an aliquot register , which gives the sound color. Mixed voices are common after 1750. Since that time, reeds and strings have also been used (occasionally) on cabinet organs. The organ of the Gandersum church goes back to a house organ of the 18th century and is suitable as a church organ due to the presence of a mixture.
The registers Holpijp 8 ′, flute 4 ′ and octave 2 ′ as well as a fifth are part of the basic inventory of a Dutch disposition . After 1750, Praestant 4 ′ and the mixture were added regularly. The sesquialtera , which can be broken down into a fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3 and a third 1 3 ⁄ 5 , is characteristic of the heyday of the Dutch cabinet organ , which extends the sound possibilities.
The cabinet organ in Anloo by Heinrich Hermann Freytag from 1804 can serve as an example of a typical Dutch disposition :
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distribution
Cabinet organ builders are usually organ builders who also build church organs and other keyboard instruments. Instruments such as the organ of Frederiksborg Castle by Esaias Compenius the Elder (1610), which is designed as a richly decorated and lockable piece of furniture, can be regarded as forerunners of the cabinet organ .
Most of the cabinet organs come from the Netherlands and were commissioned by wealthy citizens in Amsterdam in the second half of the 18th century . House organs have been known here since the 17th century when music shifted from churches to town houses due to Calvinism . Pieter Keerman built the oldest surviving Dutch cabinet organ in Amsterdam in 1736. An instrument from 1739 (today in Bronkhorst ) goes back to Albertus Antonius Hinsz . The famous organ builder Christian Müller created several such house organs in the 1740s. Other Dutch builders of cabinet organs were Vitus Wigleben, Jan Christoffel Smit and Detlef Onderhorst, who still used wedge bellows until 1762. The instruments in the Menkemaborg (1777) and the Organeum in Weener (around 1800) were made by Jan Jacob Vool . Due to their great popularity, cabinet organs were also increasingly being built outside of Amsterdam. A cabinet organ from 1774 by Hendrik Humanus Hess from Gouda even has a 16-foot. In some works, Hess used blind pipes in the prospectus, which meant that it could be more varied than with a chromatic arrangement. Heinrich Hermann Freytag from Groningen manufactured several cabinet organs with six registers each in the 1800s. Together with Frans Casper Snitger , around 1796 he built an office organ in a lockable secretary that does not require a cabinet top. These types of office and secretary organs in turn form a separate type of house organ. With the advent of the much cheaper harmonium and piano, the construction of house organs declined from 1820 onwards. They often ended up in small churches and survived in this way.
In Germany, the Thirty Years' War ended the heyday of house organs. Ibe Peters Iben , who ran his workshop in Emden and temporarily employed two journeymen, built only cabinet organs . Several instruments by Iben have been documented between 1783 and 1804. His organ from 1790 is now also in the Organeum. An organ of Brandenburg origin from around 1810 is now in the Brandenburg Organ Museum . Cabinet organs are also known from France, England, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland. The Swiss cabinet organs have more flute parts than the Dutch, use the wedge bellows and have a lower wind pressure (around 40 mm water column). Aliquots and tongues are rarely represented.
literature
- Martin Kares: Small organs - history, types, technology. Verlag Evangelischer Presse-Verband für Baden, Karlsruhe 1998, ISBN 3-87210-366-0 .
- Rudolf Quoika : The Positive in Past and Present. Bärenreiter, Kassel et al. 1957.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b From the Dutch cabinet organ in the Sebastianssaal , p. 138, accessed on February 10, 2018.
- ^ Franz Lüthi: The Dutch house organ in the 18th century , p. 77.
- ^ Dutch cabinet organ. In: Ars Organi . Volume 54, 2006 p. 106. This is a former cabinet made of mahogany in Empire style with three drawers (around 1810).
- ^ Franz Lüthi: The Dutch house organ in the 18th century , p. 73.
- ↑ musical instrument museums online , accessed on February 10, 2018.
- ^ Franz Lüthi: The Dutch house organ in the 18th century , p. 78.
- ^ A b Franz Lüthi: The Dutch house organ in the 18th century , p. 76.
- ↑ Freytag-Kabinetorgel in Anloo , accessed on February 10, 2018.
- ^ New magazine for music . Volume 145, No. 10, 1984, p. 42.
- ^ Franz Lüthi: The Dutch house organ in the 18th century , pp. 71–72.
- ^ Henk van Eeken: Lathum, Hervormde kerk
- ^ Franz Lüthi: The Dutch house organ in the 18th century , p. 76.
- ↑ cabinet organ in the Menkemaborg , accessed on February 10 2018th
- ^ Franz Lüthi: The Dutch house organ in the 18th century , pp. 72, 79.
- ^ Walter Kaufmann : The organs of East Frisia . East Frisian Landscape, Aurich 1968, p. 46 .
- ^ Brandenburgisches Orgelmuseum , accessed on February 10, 2018.
- ^ Franz Lüthi: The Dutch house organ in the 18th century , p. 81.
