Seventeenth Century Germany
Werkprinzip

Werkprinzip Organs

The term Werkprinzip is one that is sometimes confusing to organ students in the United States. One of the first steps in understanding what the word means is to remember that the term was invented in the twentieth century. It's how we label certain instruments of the past, not how they labeled them. The term was invented to conveniently describe certain characteristics of organs built in the late seventeenth century, usually organs from north Germany. Translated literally, the word means "work principle," or "principle of works," or some such combination. The confusion begins to clear a little if you realize that a Werk is in this context a German "division." In what may be for German words an unusual shortcut, Prinzip means here a "principle of relationship between" divisions, or maybe "principle of balance between" divisions. So - - if you read about Werkprinzip organs, the writer is talking about an instrument in which the nature of different divisions and their relationship to one another is considered an important identifying characteristic.

In seventeenth-century German organs, particularly those from the north, the nature of this balance was somewhat standardized. Typically, an organ of this time and place had ¹⁴¹

• A Hauptwerk that contained the primary principal chorus, flutes, and trumpets. The sound was rich and full.
• A Rückpositiv that had a secondary principal chorus, additional flutes, and a short-resonator, cylindrical reed (often a Krummhorn). The pipes of this division were built with narrower scales, resulting in a more penetrating quality.
• A Brustwerk that contained the lightest stops, often only flutes and reeds, with a high-pitched mixture meant for solo color, not ensemble use.
• A Pedal that had its own independent principal chorus and reeds, and it might also contain stopped flutes at 32' through 8' pitches. The Pedal was divided and mounted on the gallery rail, to the sides of the positive, where it served two distinct functions:
  • Providing the bass line in ensemble textures based on a principal chorus.
  • Providing solo color in melodic textures.

• Smaller organs might not have all the divisions.
• An Oberwerk might be one of two things:
  • The primary division, simply called Oberwerk rather than Hauptwerk, since either term might refer to a division above the Brustwerk.
  • A third manual division placed above the Hauptwerk rather than a Brustwerk placed below it, or in addition to both Rückpositiv and Brustwerk in a four-manual organ.
• In some organs, the Pedal was divided on four chests, so that the stops that provided a bass line were divided in towers on the gallery rail, while solo, melodic stops were divided on separate chests in the Brust position of the main case.

One important thing to notice here is the relationship between the overall components of a Werkprinzip organ and the same characteristics as we see them in some earlier instruments. If you look back at the "Praetorius Organ," you will see that most of the characteristics listed above are also present in the Groningen Court Chapel organ. ¹⁹³ The great organs of late seventeenth century north Germany are indeed descendants of older organs built in the lowlands. In organs of the later seventeenth century, we can find the same characteristics listed above, but they were concentrated and reduced to the essentials in later instruments. For example, although the primary manual division of the "Praetorius organ" had multiple flutes at 8' pitch, the typical instrument of the late seventeenth century had only one. Similarly, the variety of colors at 4' pitch on the secondary manual (Rückpositiv) was normally reduced in later instruments to two stops, one of which served the principal chorus. Similarities remain, of course. From the standpoint of historical development, two points about the Werkprinzip organ need to be remembered.

• The list above represents a systematic approach to building organs and distributing different stops over several divisions.
• The system for doing this evolved from earlier practices in the lowlands.

Another aspect of the Werkprinzip organ is the matter of pitch relationships among the principals of each division. Typically each division was based on a Prinzipal of a different pitch, with the lowest being found in the Pedal, the next in the Hauptwerk, the next in the Rückpositiv, and so on. In fact, it became standard practice in the middle of the twentieth century to talk about such organs as "8' organs" or "16' organs," using the pitch level of the primary manual Principal stop as a name. Each division would then have another principal stop an octave above each Prinzipal, another stop above that, and each chorus would be topped off with one or two mixtures. This table lists the names and pitch levels of principas on two hypothetical organs built according to this concept:

Disposition

The term Werkprinzip (itself an invention of the twentieth century) describes in broad terms the general disposition of the typical seventeenth-century north German organ. As you might expect, like most generalizations, this one should make you expect as many exceptions in practice as there are rules in theory. This stoplist can serve as an example; others can be found on separate pages of this tutorial.

This organ is particularly instructive because of its history. The Hauptwerk and part of the Pedal (the 16' and 8' Prinzipals and the Trompet) were built by J. Stephani and completed in 1477, then the Rückpositiv was added in 1557-8 by Jacob Scherer. The addition of the Brustwerk and completion of the pedal division by Henning Kröger, 1621-22, completed the Werkprinzip organ you see in the complete stoplist. Each division has a purpose.

• The Hauptwerk has the primary chorus.
• The Rückpositiv has a contrasting, secondary chorus.
• The Brustwerk provides color and sparkle.
• The Pedal supports the whole.

Looking at the specific stops involved, we can expand these simple statements.

• The Hauptwerk has
  • a chorus based on an 8' Principal, topped by two mixtures.
  • a 16' stop that can be included in the chorus, even though it is a stopped flute.
  • a tapered open flute at 8' pitch, quiet enough to be used to accompany either voices or a solo stop on a different division.
  • a Trumpet that is strong enough to be included in the chorus but does not color it unduly.
• The Rückpositiv has
  • a second chorus based on an 8' principal, topped by a single mixture.
  • a Sifflöte and a narrow-scale Sesquialtera, each of which can be used either in a solo combination or to color the chorus.
  • flutes at 8' and 4' pitches.
  • two solo reeds, either of which might be added to the chorus for color.
• The lightest division is the Brustwerk, which has no principal chorus at all, and whose single mixture is meant to provide a sparkly complement to the flutes. The two reeds are not part of an ensemble, but have solo functions.
• The Pedal is characterized by
  • its own principal chorus, based on a 16' foot principal.
  • a complete flute chorus, from 16' to 1' pitch, which can be used to provide a bass line in accompanimental textures, or to provide independent solo lines.
  • reeds that
    • either belong in the chorus or provide a bass cantus firmus line (16' and 8')
    • or provide treble register solo lines (4' and 2').
• Each of the divisions has stops that can serve a solo role, and each has accompanimental stops as well.

Appearance

Just as the stoplists of Werkprinzip organs have certain features in common, so do their cases. The basis for their design was fixed a century earlier, in the "tulip" shape of the main case in most organs of sixteenth-century Germany and the lowlands. ¹⁴² As the size of the pedal increased, and as its musical function expanded, that division began to be housed in separate cases, usually placed on the gallery rail and divided on either side of the Rückpositiv. Given this general procedure, however, you can expect to find a variety of applications in extant seventeenth-century organs.

The organ in the photograph to the left was built by Behrendt Huss and his cousin Arp Schnitger in 1673 in the church of St. Cosmae, Stade. If you pass your mouse pointer over the photograph, you will see several colored rectangles outlining the major divisions of the case.

• The red rectangle identifies the Hauptwerk, with its tall central tower, smaller towers at the extremes, and two-story flats separating the towers. The typical narrow base can be seen clearly below the impost level.
• The blue rectangle surrounds the Rückpositiv, which is closer to the listener, on the gallery rail, and is approximately one-half the size of the Hauptwerk case.
• The green rectangles mark the Pedal towers, which because of the projecting design of the gallery itself, are on the same plane as the Hauptwerk case.

The next photograph is of the Bokelmann organ in the Martinikirche in Bremen, built 1615- 19. Again, passing the mouse pointer over the photograph shows that the same distribution of a divided pedal to each side of the Rückpositiv was practiced earlier in the century, even as early as the time Praetorius published his Syntagma musicum.

Photographs

• Bremen: Martinikirche. 488 x 750 pixels
• Stade, St. Cosmae. 1020 x 702 pixels