The Silbermann Family
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Gottfried Silbermann's Organs | Schnitger-Silbermann Comparison |
IntroductionMost organists in the United States know some names of organbuilders, and we usually think of them in two groups. The first group of names includes those individual builders and firms that are active today, that have built notable organs that we have read about, or that perhaps built the instrument we play every day. The second group of names is smaller, becuse it includes those notable builders of the past whose works survive today as the finest examples of their type. We might think of Clicquot in eighteenth-century France, or Schnitger in seventeenth-century Germany. If your were to survey organists today, the name Silbermann would perhaps be at the top of the second list. To a large extent, this would be because
Andreas Silbermann and his son Johann Andreas worked in Alsace, the area indicated by a small red circle on the map to the left. They both built some outstanding instruments that are extant there, and Johann Andreas continued to build organs through the late eighteenth century. 159 Andreas spent some time in Paris, learning about French organ-building from Thierry, and his instruments all have a firm basis in the French Classical aesthetic.160 The organs of Johann Andreas show more German characteristics, especially in their pedal divisions, but their French basis can still be seen in stop names. Because Gottfried Silbermann was a near contemporary of Bach, because they worked in the same area of Germany, and because we know that Bach respected Silbermann's work, we associate the work of these two men. The "Silbermann organ" is in the mind of many organists today the "Bach organ." |
Introduction | Gottfried Silbermann's Organs | Schnitger-Silbermann Comparison |
Gottfried Silbermann's OrgansGottfried Silbermann's organs had some characteristics commonly found in other organs of Saxony or Thuringia - - the nearby section of Germany in which Bach was born and worked earlier in his career.
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Introduction | Gottfried Silbermann's Organs | Schnitger-Silbermann Comparison |
Schnitger-Silbermann ComparisonThe two "schools" of German organ-building that you need to learn about first as an undergraduate are
I assume you are reading these pages as a part of my class, so you should know about the Schnitger organs by now. It might help you to make a comparison between these two types of organ, although, again, the comparison will be made verbally. We can summarize the differences between the two in these categories:
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Introduction | Gottfried Silbermann's Organs | Schnitger-Silbermann Comparison |
© 2000 AD James H. Cook