Tobias Heinrich Gottfried Trost

Organ of the town church (Waltershausen)

Tobias Heinrich Gottfried Trost (* around 1680; † August 12, 1759 in Altenburg ) is considered the most important Thuringian organ builder . Consolation was highly valued by Johann Sebastian Bach . His largely preserved instruments in the town church of Waltershausen (1722–1730) and in the castle church of Altenburg (1735–1739) are among the most famous baroque organs in Central Europe.

Life

Trost was the son of the organ builder Johann Tobias Gottfried Trost and his wife Anna Dorothea geb. Thüm († 1703). Together with his father, from whom he learned organ building, the first organ building work between 1697 and 1706 can be verified. On November 3, 1704, Trost married Susanna Catharina Schweinfleisch († 1749) in Tonna . Before 1711 he obtained the master's title. At the beginning of 1718, Trost moved to his brother-in-law in Mockern and, after his father's death, to Altenburg (1722), where he was appointed "court organ builder" on November 23, 1723 after a dispute with Johann Jacob Donati over organ building privileges. The dispute with Donati broke out again in 1726/1727. In the years 1733 to 1735, Trost borrowed from his son-in-law Hellborn and two widows when he ran into financial difficulties. From 1754 his health deteriorated, in the summer of 1756 he suffered a stroke and in 1759 Trost died after three months of serious illness.

plant

21 new buildings and five conversions can be traced back to Trost. Among other things, he created the largest baroque organ in Thuringia with the organ of the Waltershausen town church . Another important work is the Trost organ in the Altenburg Castle Church. The Bach student Johann Ludwig Krebs was organist in Altenburg from 1756 to 1780 and looked after his organ. The later Altenburg organist Wilhelm Stade praised the work in an expert opinion in 1880: “The organ of the castle church is considered to be one of the best organs in Germany, and not without good reason, because it is characterized by shine, power, especially the bass, by characteristic, subtle Intonation of individual voices; the solidity of the work left nothing to be desired. "

While Silbermann's dispositions were rather conventional and his five organ types standardized, Trost was keen to experiment. He liked to use new designs and preferred colored sounds. The flute choir was particularly strong and extended to the one-foot position. Mixed voices, on the other hand, were used cautiously. Each work was equipped with only one third mixture, Scharf and Cimbel were not used. Tongue registers were only used sparingly and were mostly limited to the pedal. Side and effect registers , however, were popular. Consolation distributed the registers to the main, chest and pedal, and occasionally an upper work. He did not use any other designs.

Consolation, however, was not very enterprising. The cost and construction times of his organs often exceeded all agreements, so that the clients were angry. Trost worked on the Waltershauser organ from 1722 until 1730, according to evidence - two and a half years were agreed. The local councilor Marci then wrote about "dissolute organ-maker consolation":

"Done before and after thought, has some
and us too at this whole church building,
brought in much suffering and misfortune.
The organ maker is called consolation,
but he gives us bad consolation
Oh, we are redeemed from consolation. "

In Altenburg, even Gottfried Silbermann was asked for an expert opinion, who, with all his appreciation, made various suggestions for improvement, "in which H. Trost would put a lot of effort and work, and save no diligence, [but] should also have bad profit". Since its completion in 1739 it has been a magnet for organists and quickly developed into a popular concert instrument.

List of works

The size of the instruments is indicated in the fifth column by the number of manuals and the number of sounding registers in the sixth column. A capital "P" stands for a separate pedal. Italics indicate that the organ in question is no longer or only the prospectus has been preserved.

year	place	building	image	Manuals	register	Remarks
1697-1701	Bad Langensalza	St. Stephani		III / P	34	Neubau together with his father; Replaced in 1885
1701	Tonna					New building together with father; not received
1705 (?)	Ashara	St. Peter's Church		II / P		New building together with father; burned in the 18th century
1705-1706	Eckardtsleben	St. Viti Church		I.	8th (?)	New building; not received
1709-1713	Döllstädt	St. Peter and Paul		II / P	20th	New building; Prospectus received
1712-1717	Great Gods	St. Walpurgis		II / P	22nd	New building; largely preserved, restored in 1996/1997 → organ
1722	Aspach (Hörsel)	Ortisei		I.	9	Attribution; New building
1720-1723	Großstöbnitz	Village church		I / P	8th	New building; not preserved, replaced in 1886
1721-1726	Narsdorf- Ossa	Village church		I.	9	New building completed by Johann Jacob Donati; not preserved, replaced in 1886
1722-1730	Waltershausen	City Church		III / P	47	New building; Preserved, restored 1995–1998 → Organ of the City Church (Waltershausen) → Organ
1730?	Saalfeld / Saale	Saalfeld Castle , Castle Chapel				Attribution; New building
1730-1733	Kriebitzsch	St. Vitus Church				New building, replaced in 1899
1731-1733	Eisenberg	Castle Church				Extension conversion of the organ by Christoph Donat (1683); receive; slightly rebuilt in 1776, 1862, restored 1959–1963, restored from 1986 and brought back to the state of 1733 → organ
1730-1735	Stünzhain	Stünzhain village church		I.		New building; received some registers
1735?	Altenburg	Castle Church (positive)				New building; partly preserved in Thonhausen and the Altenburg Chapel of Grace
1735-1739	Altenburg	Castle Church (large organ)		II / P	36	New building; largely preserved, restored 1974–1976 → organ
1744-1746	Thonhausen	Ev. Village church		I / P	11	New building; changed greatly
1745-1746	Nobitz	Nobitz village church		I / P	10	New building; Replaced in 1826
1746	Bocka	Village church		I / P	10	Attribution of new building; Remains received
1747-1748	Lohma on the Leina	Village church		I / P	10	New building; not preserved, replaced in 1878
1747-1750	Saara	Christophoruskirche		I / P	15th	New building; Remains received
1747-1752	Eisenberg	St. Petri		II / P	24	New building; not preserved, replaced in 1848

literature

• Felix Friedrich:  Consolation, Tobias Heinrich Gottfried. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
• Felix Friedrich: The organ builder Heinrich Gottfried Trost. Life - work - performance . German publishing house for music, Leipzig 1989, ISBN 3-370-00287-6 .
• Theophil Heinke (ed.): The consolation organ and city church "Zur Gotteshilfe" Waltershausen . Self-published, Waltershausen 1998.

Web links

Commons : Tobias Heinrich Gottfried Trost organs  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Felix Friedrich: The organ builder Tobias Heinrich Gottfried Trost. (with list of works) (PDF file; 369 kB) on the website of the Society of Organ Friends

Individual evidence

1. ^ Friedrich: The organ builder Heinrich Gottfried Trost. 1989, p. 18.
2. ↑ Heinke: The consolation organ and city church "Zur Gotteshilfe" Waltershausen. 1998, p. 30.
3. ↑ Felix Friedrich: The organ builder Tobias Heinrich Gottfried Trost , p. 104, accessed on May 29, 2015 (PDF file; 369 kB).
4. ^ Friedrich: The organ builder Heinrich Gottfried Trost. 1989, p. 39.
5. ↑ Heinke: The consolation organ and city church "Zur Gotteshilfe" Waltershausen. 1998, p. 33.
6. ^ Friedrich: The organ builder Heinrich Gottfried Trost. 1989, p. 77.
7. ↑ Information about the organ on orgbase.nl. Retrieved February 5, 2020 .