Pierre Schyven

Letterhead from 1882

Pierre Schyven (born December 22, 1827 in Elsene near Brussels ; † June 6, 1906 there ) was a Belgian organ builder in Elsene.

Life

Pierre Schyven was a student and employee of Joseph Merklin , who founded a workshop in his hometown Elsene in 1843. In 1851 Schyven became the Merklin-Schütze factory manager. From around 1855 he ran the business there largely independently, since Merklin and Schütze have mainly stayed in the new branch in Paris since that time.

In 1873 Schyven finally took over the workshop in Elsene as the owner and ran it as Pierre Schyven & Cie. In 1882 he had a Système à Dédouplement , a system for the transmission of registers for cone chest organs , patented, in 1883 also for slider chest organs .

In 1905 he handed the workshop over to his son François, who continued to run it until around 1917.

Organs (selection)

Pierre Schyven built around 250 organs, mainly in Belgium, some in northern France and other countries. His instruments were shaped by the romantic organ building of his teacher Joseph Merklin and by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll . Pierre Schyven is considered one of the most important Belgian organ builders of the 19th century.

year	place	building	image	Manuals	register	Remarks
1874	Laeken / Laken	Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk		III / P	54	Dismantled in 1906, rebuilt in 1912 by Van Bever with a new brochure
1880	Douai	Église Saint-Jacques		III / P	44	receive
1887	Kortrijk	Sint-Martenskerk		III / P	43	receive
1888	Liège (Liège)	Salle Philharmonique		III / P	55	receive
1891	Antwerp	Onze Lieve Vrouwe-Kathedraal		IV / P	90	largest mechanical organ in Belgium, in an 18th century prospectus from Cartier, preserved almost unchanged - organ
1891	San Jose , Costa Rica	Catedrala Metropolitana		III / P	25 + 12	receive
1897	Cambrai	Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Grâce		III / P	38	later expanded to III / P, 49 - organ
1906	Ghent	Koninklijk Muziek Conservatory		III / P	50	replaced by François Schyven, 1981

literature

• Steven Verplancke: organ maker Pierre Schyven (1827–1916) . In: Orgelkunst , Vol. XXVII, No. 4, December 2004.

Web links

• Pierre Schyven Inventoryis (Dutch)
• Pierre Schyven Orgeldatabase, 134 organs (Dutch)