From Gentle to Giant: Signs of a Continuing Tradition of Organ Building in Central and Southern Germany 1750-1850

When one thinks of the great German Romantic organs of Ladegast, Walcker,

Schulze, and Sauer, visions of the large colossus organs of the cathedrals of Merseburg,

Schwerin, and Berlin come to mind. These instruments were rich in power but also in

timbre and dynamic contrasts, able to crescendo from barely audible to thundering and

back. On the other hand, their eighteenth-century predecessors in the Southern and

Central German regions of Baden-Württemburg, Bavaria, Thuringia, and Saxony showed

a softer side characterized by few reeds and mixtures, generally small size, and gentle

voicing and winding. However, many of the traits found in these earlier instruments,

including an abundance of 8’ registers, a focus on color rather than contrapuntal clarity,

tierce mixtures, and a relatively low proportion of mixtures and reeds to foundation stops

are carried over to the early Romantic organs.

Especially interesting are the transitional instruments around the turn of the

nineteenth century. The end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth, the

time between the death of J. S. Bach in 1750 and E. F. Walcker’s construction of the

Paulskirche organ in Frankfurt in 1833, often appears as a sort of “Dark Ages” for the

organ in which little happened to advance the organ into the new century. Modern

scholarship has largely overlooked these instruments. However, the Central and Southern

German states were among the few areas that saw a continuation of organ building

through the economic and political disaster resulting from the Napoleonic Wars, the

secularization of many institutions including the grand abbeys of Swabia, and a rapid

change in musical aesthetic toward the symphonic and the virtuosic.

In this document, I examine organs of the Southern and Central German territories

of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Thuringia, and Saxony. I focus on organs that show

development from the late Baroque to the early Romantic Period, culminating in the

organs of Eberhard Friedrich Walcker in Baden-Württemberg and Friedrich Ladegast in

Thuringia. These little-known transition instruments provide intriguing insight into the

genesis of the famous German Romantic organs, giants in stature and sound.