German Positive Organ by Goetze & Gwynn
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PO Ref. PO1595S
German Positive Organ by Goetze & Gwynn, built in 2019-20 in 'as new' condition. Fully serviced prior to despatch.
Audio demonstration:
| Coppel | 8ft | (stopped wood) |
| Flöte | 4ft | (stopped wood) |
| Octav | 2ft | (open metal F – e¹ in front) |
| Regal | 8ft | (in front of the front pipes, for tuning) |
Compass: C/E short octave – c³ 45 notes
Pitch: A440
Tuning: sixth comma meantone (known as Silbermann’s tuning)
The organ comes in two halves. It is 165cm tall (5ft 5ins), 92cm wide (3ft) and 60cm deep (2ft).
Fully insured and tracked delivery worldwide available.
This is a new organ made in imitation of German positive organs of around 1700, based on an organ which was made in around 1730, most likely in Salzburg.
Surprisingly little has been written about these small German organs, though a number survive from the Nürnberg Stadtorgelmacher, whose work was exhibited at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in 1995, and written about by Jürgen-Peter Schindler. There is also the published work of Theodor Wohnhaas and Hermann Fischer, which catalogues surviving positive organs in Franken and Bavaria, though it does not help the outsider to classify their origin or their makers, or appreciate what they were originally used for.
It is typical for having three different sound qualities in a small organ, stopped wood 8ft and 4ft flutes, open metal 2ft in the front and a regal in the front, the width of each pipe more or less the same scale as the keys, as they would have been in the instrument known as the regals. This regal is based on Brussels Musical Instrument Museum MI 1130, which was made in 1676 by a German maker for an Italian. Goetze & Gwynn copied it for the reconstruction of the 1579 claviorgan by Lodovicus Theewes in the V&A museum (now at Oberlin College Ohio).