Germany
Introduction

Geography

The history of the organ in Germany is a long and varied one, but not one that is always easy to comprehend. One of the problems is that scholars and historians usually mean more than just "Germany" when they say "the organs of Germany." Most of the time, they are also talking about parts of Austria, instruments found in some areas of Switzerland, and, in general, instruments anywhere that show some influence of Germanic organ-building. If that alone did not complicate the issue enough, there is an additional problem: because of the diversity of instruments found in "Germany," discussions and descriptions divide the whole area into sub-parts like "Northwest Germany," "Central Germany," "Southern Germany," and so on. In fact, the differences between organs from different regions of "Germany" may be more distinct from one another than instruments from seventeenth-century France and Holland.

All in all, the divisions into Germanic regions can become so specific that all sight of the forest is obscured by individual trees. You can't just ignore them, however, because they are real, and the sound of an organ in Lübeck is not the same thing you would hear in an organ built in Salzburg from the same time period. For the student, the best solution is to start with the big picture and gradually spend enough time with the instruments to make greater distinctions.

It is for this reason - - providing a handle through which you can see the big picture as well as some of the details - - that this tutorial doesn't attempt to label each tree. Instead, a few selected areas and regional types of organ are described in some detail, and an attempt is made to put each of these types - - each tree, if you will - - in context. If you are a serious student of the organ, you will continue studying and learning about the instrument the rest of your life, and as you learn more music, you will learn about the instruments for which it was written. This tutorial should be only a beginning guide for a lifetime fo wandering through the forest.

Chronology

The history of the organ in Germany is not only a diverse one, it is a long and healthy one. From the fifteenth century, two specific items of German origin provide us with valuable information about the instrument and its music:

• The Treatise of Arnaut of Zwolle - - written descriptions of organs
• The Buxheim Organbook - - music for organ

For that reason, the "Organ in Germany" menu of this tutorial begins with general information about the organ in the fifteenth century, then includes pages on developments in Northern Europe during the sixteenth century. I recommend that you read these pages first, then go on to the more specific pages. The menu lists all pages on "German" organs in chronological order, in some case loading new menus for a specific century.