The Sixteenth Century Arnolt Schlick

Introduction

One of the great documents of sixteenth-century organ-building is the Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten, written by Arnolt Schlick and published with the blessings of the Emperor in 1511. Schlick was from the Heidelberg area, and seems to have been highly regarded as both an organist and an advisor to organ builders. His Spiegel gives the most complete description of the northern European organ in the sixteenth century that we have today. There is not a surviving instrument which can be associated with Schlick, but his account of organ-building is a most detailed source. He includes information on stops, winding, and other matters of construction, as well as descriptions of how the organ was used.

Schlick's Organ Descriptions

Schlick describes the organs he knew -- those of what is now southern Germany, and in general he indicates a preference for an instrument of

• two manual divisions
  • Hauptwerk
  • Rückpositiv
• and a pedal division,
• with eight or nine stops on each division considered sufficient,
• including a stop mechanism controlling
  • both mixtures
  • and individual ranks
• consisting of
  • both open metal flues
  • and reeds.

Schlick's Stoplist

The stoplist that Schlick gives in his Spiegel is considered so important that it has been included in almost every discussion of historical instruments published in English. You have to remember, though, that the format Schlick used was not the neat, tabular form that we are accustomed to today. In fact, if you look at more recent discussions of this stoplist, you will see some disagreement on details. The language used by Schlick and his somewhat unclear descriptions of a few stops add to the confusion. In spite of these problems, however, most of the stops in the list are clear, and this is one possible interpretation if you reduce it to a more modern form:¹¹⁹

Hauptwerk			Rückpositiv			Pedal
Principal	8		Principal	8		Principal	8
Octave	4		Gemsslein	4		Octave	4
Gemshorn	2		Hintersatz			Hintersatz
Zimbel			Zimbel			Trumpet/Posaune
Hintersatz
Zink
Flute	2
Regal

 

There are some aspects of this list that you might not notice in a first read-through:

• Compound stops appear in each division:
  • The Hintersatz is a chorus mixture - - the remnant of the old Blockwerk. Northern European organs have included some sort of chorus mixture since Schlick's time.
  • The Zimbel is a flute-like mixture, relatively high-pitched, that contains a third-sounding rank. It was used in combination with other single ranks as a solo registration.
• The most interesting stop named by Schlick is one named hültze Glechter. According to Schlick, it 's a stop "whose sound resembles that of small boys hitting a pot with a spoon."¹²⁰ It might have been a reed (the Zink above), or it might have been a high-pitched mixture.
• All the flues are open principals, except for the two Gemshorns and the Flute on the Hauptwerk.
• Even if we don't think of the hültze Glechter as a reed, there are two different type of reed on the organ:¹²¹
  • The Trumpet (or Posaune) played in the Pedal, with what must have been a full-length conical resonator.
  • The Regal on the Hauptwerk, which no doubt had a short-length cylindrical resonator.

Registration

Schlick's registrations are only in general suggestions, such as his brief statement that the organist should use a quiet stop to give the priest the pitch for chants in the service. Schlick also suggested placing the organ near the choir, because the instrument would be used to accompany the singers.¹²² Because he was writing a treatise on the construction of instruments, not on their actual use, it is not surprising that he did not give specific instructions such as those found in some other sources of the period. Those instructions are summarized in this tutorial on the "Northern Europe - - Sixteenth Century" page.