Seventeenth Century Germany Praetorius

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Introduction From time to time it may seem that organists live in a world apart from other musicians. Many historical names that we associate with the history of our instrument and its literature are completely unknown to other musicians. Most music students, for example, never have any reason to learn of Arnolt Schlick or his treatise.147 Michael Praetorius, however, is a different case, because his major publication, however important it may be to organists, is much broader in scope, covering many different topics and types of musical instruments. Even undergraduate music history texts talk about his contributions in general studies of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century music.149 From 1615 through 1620 Praetorius published Syntagma musicum, an three-volume encyclopedic treatise on music. The second volume (de Organographia) describes musical instruments that were in use during his lifetime, including engravings showing how they looked and even how they were played. Most importantly for us, he also described the organ of the Groningen Court chapel, built by David Beck and completed in 1596. That instrument should not be taken as representing "the" Dutch or German organ of the first half of the seventeenth century. There are several reasons, however, for your knowing about it in some detail; First of all, Praetorius thought it was important. One of the first rules of linguistics is: Don't argue with the natives. In the context of languages and their structure, that little warning means a researcher - - a student, in other words - - should accept what the native-speakers say as having more validity than the theoretical statements of one who was raised outside the culture. For us, it means that Praetorius was there - - we aren't. You should respect what he had to say because he spoke as only a native could about the musical instruments he knew. Historically, the "Praetorius organ" lies between the instrument described by Schlick in 1511 and the great "Werkprinzip" organs of the late seventeenth century. We can see in this one instrument elements that in themselves are remnants of a long past. On the other hand, there are hints of characteristics that would blossom and become distinctive hallmarks of organs of the late seventeenth century. Another reason for studying this organ - - or what we can surmise about it from the written description - - is found in its stoplist. You see, we can find two broad divisions in German organ-building in the seventeenth century - - north and south. There are elements in common between organs built in Hamburg (north), for example, and Salzburg (south), but there are also differences between them. We can study the stoplist of the "Praetorius organ" and find both northern and southern elements. Later, some things were emphasized by one region, others in the other direction. Lastly, Praetorius' description served as the model for several instruments built in the twentieth century. From the 1920's through the 1960's, several firms built copies of "the Praetorius organ" as they understood it. You can't evaluate their success unless you know something about his original description. 140

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The "Praetorius Organ" The Groningen Court Chapel organ described by Praetorius is no longer extant, but the case survives in the Martinskirche in Halberstadt, south of Hamburg, Germany. Part of the stoplist reads as follows:151

Oberwerk			Rückpositiv			Brustwerk
Gross Quintadehna	16		Quintadehn	8		Klein Gedact	2
Principal	8		Principal	4		Klein Octava	1
Gross Querflöit	8		Gemsshorn	4		Klein Mixtur
Holflöiten	8		Gedact	4		Zimbeldoppelt
Gemshorn	8		Octava	2		Rancket	8
Grobgedact	8		Spitzflöite	2		Regal	8
Quinta	5 1/3		Quinta	1 1/3		Zimbel Regal	2
Octava	4		Subflöite	1
Nachthorn	4		Mixtur
Klein Querflöite	4		Zimbel
Mixtur			Sordunen	16
Zimbeldoppelt			Krumbhorn	8
			Trommet	8
			Klein Regal	4

Now - - part of this looks fairly normal when compared to other organs you may have seen. The names of the divisions are not unusual as given here. The primary manual division is called Oberwerk instead of the more common Hauptwerk, but names of divisions in German indicate relative position in the case, and there is no confusion here: the "head" is above the "breast."141 Looking at the disposition of stops, several elements were no doubt standard by this time, having been found in northern European instruments a hundred years earlier.150 For example, the stops of a principal chorus are present on the Oberwerk, a secondary chorus (based on a 4' Principal) is found on the Rückpositiv, and short-resonator reeds are included on both Rückpositiv and Brustwerk divisions. On the other hand, several other characteristics might strike you as being somewhat unusual. Oberwerk There are more 8' stops than one might expect. For the most part, each stop represents a different type of construction, and therefore a different timbre, but both the Gross Querflöit and the Holflöiten are open flutes - - at least by their names. There are no reeds where one would expect at least one 8' Trumpet. Rückpositiv There is only one 8' stop, and that one is a small-scaled stopped flute. There are so many 4' stops that balance with the single 8' Quintadena would be top-heavy. The reeds one would expect are there, comprising a complete Schnarrwerk chorus of 16', 8', and 4' reeds, but the Trommet (Trumpet) seems out of place here when there is not one on the Oberwerk. Brustwerk The only 8' stops are reeds, and there is no 4' stop at all. The Zimbel Regal is a puzzle: Is it a mixture, as Zimbel implies? Is it a reed, as Regal implies? Either way, why does it appear at 2' pitch? These characteristics seem strange to us today, but they can be explained with the understanding of two predecessors to this organ: The consort. The ideal instrumental ensemble of the sixteenth century was the "consort," a group of instruments of similar design but different sizes. During the Renaissance a consort might have consisted of soprano, alto, tenor and bass recorders, for example. Many of the stops on this organ are imitative of instruments that would have been played in consorts at the time the organ was built. The organ stops give a single player the ability to sound like an ensemble of instruments - - a consort of recorders, of viols, or even a consort of Krummhorns. The multiple 8' stops were there to provide alternate tone colors, and would have allowed the organist to imitate the sound of that many different ensembles, choosing only one stop at a time. Now - - if you play recorder, you know this already - - the recorder is an octave-transposing instrument, much like a 4' stop on the organ. If you see middle c and play middle c, you hear c' - - an octave higher. The multiple 4' stops on the Rückpositiv provide similar alternate timbres an octave higher. The Regal. If you have played no other organs than one built in the United States in the twentieth century, the stops on the Brustwerk must seem to be an ensemble that has no relationship to anything you've ever seen before. This at first may seem very unusual, but one of the ancestors of the Brustwerk is the Regal, a portable table-top instrument that had as its only stop a single short-resonator reed. In fact the stop called Regal is a reed stop with a short resonator, a stop that descended from the earlier instrument. So - - this whole division is a descendent of that earlier instrument. There are two 8' reeds, both of the Schnarrwerk type, and the flue stops would be consort stops when used alone, or they could be used in combination with one of the reeds to affect subtle changes in tone color. Although this particular Brustwerk may be an extreme instance, other organs of seventeenth-century Germany have divisions with similar ancestry revealed by their stoplists. You can summarize the characteristics of the manual stoplist by saying that it includes Principal choruses on two divisions - - both of them musical descendents of the Blockwerk. The two choruses are not identical, but show a difference in their pitch basis, one of them (the Rückpositiv) being an octave higher then the other. Multiple color stops that imitate the sounds of other instruments of the period. It is simplistic to say that in the century that followed, instruments in both northern and southern German areas emphasized different aspects of this division, but there is truth in the statement. Instruments in the north followed the concept of contrasting choruses as a major element in tonal design, and those in the south emphasized the development of a broader tonal palette for individual ranks of pipes.

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The Pedal Even though you can understand some of the apparent anomalies of the three manual divisions in the way described above, the stoplist for the pedal is another story:

Upper Pedal (Stops on the Oberwerk Chest)			Pedal Towers			Brust Pedal (Stops on chests to the side of the Brustwerk)
Untersatz	16		Gross Principal Bass	16		Quitflöiten Bass	10 2/3
Quintadeen Bass	16		Gross Gemsshorn Bass	16		Bawrflöiten Bass	4
Octaven Bass	8		Gross Querflöiten Bass	8		Zimbel Bass
Holquinten Bass			Gemsshorn Bass	8		Rancket Bass	8
Klein Octaven Bass	4		Quintflöiten Bass	5 1/3		Krumbhorn Bass	8
Nachthorn Bass	4		Kleingedact Bass	4		Klein Regal Bass	4
Klein Quintadeen Bass	4		Posaunen Bass	16
Holflöiten Bass	2		Sordunen Bass	16
Rauschquinten Bass			Trommeten Bass	8
Mixtur			Schallmeyen Bass	4

As you can see, this lengthy list immediately raises two questions: Why are there so many stops? Why are they spread out all over the organ case? Answers: The stops in the towers serve a specific function = complementary chorus to the Hauptwerk. The stops on the Brustwerk chest are solo stops. The placement of the many pedal stops on different chests may have been done for one of two reasons: Some of them (on the two manual chests) might be duplexed. That is, the same stops would have been played by either the manual keyboard or the pedalboard. No separate rank of pipes would be required. You could save wind by shutting off some divisions, but still have a playable organ. One of the characteristics of these instruments was a ventil mechanism which allowed the player to shut off the wind supply to any division so equipped. Spreading stops out meant that some stops could be shut off, but others still worked.

This page is incomplete. This section will be enlarged later.

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© 2000 AD James H. Cook