Map: United States

The United States
Colonial Period

The Seventeenth Century | The Eighteenth Century |
David Tannenberg |
General Characteristics of the Instruments

The Seventeenth Century

The first European nations to colonize the new lands of the Western hemisphere were the Spanish, followed closely by the Portuguese. As they began their expansion to the western hemisphere, they first mobilized the principal institutions and powers of their respective nations: the Crown and the Church.

  • The first representative of the Crown was the military, and their impact was devastating to the indigenous societies they found.
  • The Church was represented by missionaries, often Jesuits. These missionaries were well-educated people who observed closely the people they found and who sent well-written reports back to Europe describing all that they saw and heard. Particularly in Brazil and Mexico, surviving reports give us some of the most detailed information we have today on music among native American populations.

Very soon after representatives of the Church arrived in what is now Latin America, they began the process of converting and instructing the native people they encountered, and their instruction consistently included teaching them the music of the church. Records from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries tell us of the formation of choir schools along with the building of churches in the new land. Soon after the establishment of Spanish and Purtuguese colonies in the West, music in the missionary churches was supported by organs, the first ones being found in Brazil and Mexico. These were not only the first Spanish organs, they were the first organs of any national European tradition to be found in the Western hemisphere.208

Within the Spanish territories that would later become parts of the United States, there were fewer instruments than in those further south, but there were some thirty organs in what is now New Mexico. 209 Regrettably, none of these survive, and we are left to wonder what the organ in the United States would be like today if these early organs in the West had been preserved. The influence of Iberian organs on instruments in the United States has been virtually nonexistent, in spite of their early presence in this hemisphere.

We also find some French instruments being brought to the New World during the seventeenth century, some few years after the Spanish instruments arrived in Latin America. French organs were received in Quebec and Montreal during the second half of the century.210

In between these two areas (Latin America and Canada), a somewhat different situation developed. Soon after 1588, when England had achieved a place of respect with the defeat of the Spanish Armada, a series of colonies was established in North America. Unlike those in Spanish and Portuguese territories, though, English colonies were not all established by the Crown. With regard to the established church and its attitude toward the organ, England was in a state of political flux throughout most of the seventeenth century. During the political changes of the seventeenth century, different factions of the church and state held conflicting ideas about the usefulness of the organ in Divine Worship.210 Their differences continued even in the new lands of North America, and you will find that even as the new culture began a process of stabilization in the eighteenth century, these differences persisted.

The Seventeenth Century | The Eighteenth Century |
David Tannenberg |
General Characteristics of the Instruments

The Eighteenth Century

Before you start reading about the origin of organ-building in the United States, I want to remind you of one little fact so obvious that you might overlook it.

Fundamental characteristics of society in the United States are English in origin.

I told you it was an obvious fact, and it really is. Although citizens of the United States might be individually descended from many different peoples and cultures, the dominant national culture is English in origin. That simple fact has determined not only the language spoken in the United States but also the essential characteristics of its musical culture. The dominance of English culture over other influences from European traditions has been nowhere more complete than it has in the concept of what an organ is, how it should be designed, and what its purpose is. From the time the country was established as an independent nation until experimentation with other types began in the twentieth century, the organ in the United States revealed its English origin in every way. The true history of the organ in the United States, then, begins with the organ in England.

You probably know the essential characteristics of the eighteenth-century English organ.212

  • The typical instrument had three manual divisions, with a compass extending from GG to around d'''. The Swell usually had a shorter compass, beginning on e or g.
    • The Great was the primary manual division, which generally contained a chorus based on two 8' Open Diapasons and an 8' Stopped Diapason. Additional stops included a 4' Flute, a Sesquialtera or Cornet, a chorus mixture, and a Trumpet.
    • The Choir was the secondary manual early in the century, when it included two 8' Diapasons (one Open, one Stopped), two 4' stops, a 2' Flute and a cylindrical, short-resonator reed. Later in the century, the 8' Open Diapason was replaced by a Dulciana.
    • The Swell became the secondary division by mid-century, replacing the Choir in importance. The secondary chorus, with both Open and Stopped Diapasons at 8' pitch, was now found in the Swell, along with one or more reeds, usually an Oboe and a Trumpet at 8' pitch.
  • The Pedal, if it was present at all, was limited to a set of pull-down keys only, playing stops of the manuals through couplers. Later the Pedal gained an independent stop or two, but only late in the century.

Instruments with these characteristics were among the first and most influential to be found in the United States.

  • At first these were imported organs, some of them by England's leading organ builders.
  • Later instruments were built by builders either with European or English training, or trained in the west by these builders.
This list will give you an idea of the range of instruments that were imported during the eighteenth century:213
  • The first recorded use of an organ in United States took place in Philadelphia in 1703, when an organ was played at an ordination service in a Lutheran Church.
  • A small seventeenth-century English organ (four stops) was owned by Mr. Thomas Brattle of Boston, perhaps as early as 1700. It was given to a church in Boston in his will of 1713.
  • In 1737 Trinity Churh in Boston received an organ built by Abraham Jordan, the English builder who introduced the Swell division in 1712.
  • A large three-manual organ by the London builder Richard Bridge was installed in King's Chapel, Boston in 1756. This was a typical English organ of the period, with GG compass, a Swell division, and no pedals. The case survives.
  • In the second half of the century, several imported organs were built by John Snetzler, England's leading builder of the period. Some examples:
    • Around 1760 several small, one-manual Schnetzler organs were imported, one received by George Washington, one by Christ Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and one by the Congregational Church in South Dennis, Massachusetts.
    • Trinity Church, New York, received a three-manual Snetzler in 1764 or 1765.

"Made in America" -- David Tannenberg

In addition to these imported organs, instruments began to be built locally during the early eighteenth century. The first notable professional builder in the United States was Johann Gottlob Klemm, a German immigrant who, along with most Pennsylvania "deutsch," settled there because of the more open acceptance of dissenting religious ideas. Klemm had learned the organ building trade in his native Saxony, and some writers imply he actually worked with Gottfried Silbermann in his early years. After his arrival in this country in 1733, Klemm built several organs as well as other instruments. Though none of his instruments survive, his work is important in its influence on the organs of the first professional builder trained in the United States: David Tannenberg (1728-1804).

David Tannenberg is today the most well-known and respected American builder of the eighteenth century. Although he was born in Saxony, Tannenberg came to the United States in 1733, learning the trade from Klemm and working with him until 1762. He thus became the first professional organ builder trained in North America. Tannenberg's instruments, only a few of which survive, represent the best of late colonial organs built in North America.214 You would do well to remember his name, and to seek out some of his surviving instruments as you travel.

The instrument in the photograph to the right is a small organ Tannenberg built in the late eighteenth century for the Moravian brothers in Salem, North Carolina. It's a small, one-manual instrument, best thought of as an ensemble instrument, or a continuo organ. I want you to notice a couple of characteristics as you look at the photo.

  • The 4' Principal is in the façade -- and it's a "Principal," not a "Diapason." Remember that the names indicate pitch in English organs, so they do the same thing in an eighteenth-century organ from North America.
  • The console is both detached from the main case and reversed -- so that the organist faces other musicians, not the main case. In large European instruments, this was rarely done, because the additional turns in the trackers and stickers meant a heavier action. In a small instrument such as this one, however, that was not so much a problem.
  • No doubt you've also noticed the handle that sticks out from the back of the case. This is the handle that operates the bellows, providing wind for the instrument.

As you might expect from his background in a German organ-building tradition, some of his instruments of have a pedal division that, although small, sets them apart from most English organs of the eighteenth century. Even though both Klemm and Tannenberg incorporated German characteristics in their instruments, these traits had no immediate effect on the general characteristics of organs in the United States during the Colonial period. For the most part instruments either built in the English Colonies or imported from England had English characteristics, whether the organs were large or small. After the United States became an independent nation - - in fact, well into the nineteenth century, changes in design elements continued to follow similar changes in English organs. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that a truly independent "American" organ was built in the United States.

The Seventeenth Century | The Eighteenth Century |
David Tannenberg |
General Characteristics of the Instruments

General Characteristics of the Instruments

Although each organ imported from England had its unique characteristics, and although instruments built by both amateur and professional builders were not all cast from the same mold, it is possible to make some general statements that describe these instruments as a whole. You could even begin to have an understanding of what they were like by looking first at some English organs of the eighteenth century. As you have read in the section immediately above this one, many of them actually were eighteenth-century English organs.

As organists, we often find a stoplist more immediately understandable than a paragraph of well-written explanation, so here's a look at a hypothetical two-manual organ from eighteenth-century Boston.

Great
GG-f'''
Swell
g-f'''
Pedal
GG-c
Open Diapason 8 Open Diapason 8 Subbass 16
Stopped Diapason 8 Stopped Diapason 8 Violon 8
Principal 4 Dulciana 8
Flute 4 Principal 4
Twelfth 2 2/3 Flute 4
Fifteenth 2 Fifteenth 2
Mixture IV Sesquialtera II
Trumpet 8 Hautboy 8

Because this is a hypothetical instrument, it combines characteristics that probably never existed side by side in a "real" organ. Of course, in a smaller instrument, or one built for a remote location, there would probably have been no reeds. In a larger instrument, you would expect to see a third manual division (probably a "Choir") added next, rather than more stops to the existing ones. Taking this stoplist as it is, though, you should notice these general characteristics that apply to most eighteenth-century organs in the United States.
  • Two manual divisions.
  • A principal chorus complete with mixture on only one manual.
  • A small, rudimentary pedal.
  • Within the limited stoplist, a reasonable range of principals, flutes, mutations, and reeds.
These elements are English in origin.
  • The enclosed second manual division - - the Swell.
  • The GG compass of the Great and Pedal
  • The use of Diapason, Principal, Twelfth and Fifteenth as names of the stops of the principal chorus.
Other characteristics would have been included only on an organ built by Klemm, Tannenberg, or someone else influenced by the German organ-building tradition. Chief among these is the presence of pedal stops, because on an English organ of the period, you would expect pull-down pedals only.

If you were to find an authentic eighteenth-century organ built in the United States, you might find some other variations in the scheme, of course. There might be only one manual division, and if that were the case, you would probably find some divided stops on the organ. If a Choir division were present, there might be another type of reed - - a Cremona or Krummhorn, for example. All in all, however, you would be able to see the basic scheme as presented here in the stoplist of most organs built in the United States in the eighteenth century. This was the state of the instrument at the time the country was established, and in a very real sense, this is what we can identify as the first type of "American" organ.

  • Two manual divisions.
  • A principal chorus complete with mixture on only one manual.
  • A small, rudimentary pedal.
  • Within the limited stoplist, a reasonable range of principals, flutes, mutations, and reeds.
After the Revolution, new commercial interests were established throughout the newly formed nation. Instruments of the type described here became the models for those built in the early nineteenth century, and you can consider all organs built later in the United States to have derived from the types of organs described here.

The Seventeenth Century | The Eighteenth Century |
David Tannenberg |
General Characteristics of the Instruments


copyright © 2000 AD James H. Cook