Re: Werckmeister Schnitger Buxtehude organ temperament etc, Luebeck, Hamburg, Groningen

Johnny Reinhard wrote

> Thank you, Ibo, for your depth of response. I do have a
> different view, in some regards.

Hi

thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately I can't help disagreeing in several of your points,
because the source situation is different but clear, or the
evidence points into other direction.

I hope you don't mind my correcting you. I would however like to
know, where your data come from.

> Arp Schnitger built organs in Hamburg, Magdeburg, and
> throughout Friesland...

(And other regions,
see http://www.arpschnitger.nl/schnit.html )

your later statement that AS did not built in the Netherlands,
would point to that you couldn't mean the Dutch province Friesland?
AS however built there organs in Leeuwaarden, Ferwerd and Sneek.

If you mean my home region Ostfriesland, which often falsely is
called Friesland (s. below), it is Germany, neighbouring the
related Dutch province of Groningen, where AS built ca. 30 organs.

However, in Ostfriesland AS built only four organs incl. the
famous still existing (restored) in my hometown Norden.

> but not in Dutch-speaking Nederland.

Additional to the organs he built in the Netherlands we can count
one (at least) house organ: that went to the core of the
Netherlands: Den Haag.

So including house organs and minor repair work we deal with bunch
of 30 AS-organs in the Netherlands, of which about ten are
preserved in different state of preservation.

> Dutch-speaking Nederland is clear to me as a bastion of
> quarter-comma meantone,

in organs yes, until ca. 1760 - ca. 1850, and the same is true
basically for Northern Germany (defined here very much as the
German speaking region which AS worked in or at least delivered
instruments, to - marked by the line from Flensburg, (Dargun),
Stettin, Berlin, (Hagelberg, Magdeburg), Clausthal-Zellerfeld,
Leer, Norden, Pellworm and back Flensburg).

Sideremark: Since we talk about Northern Germany, we skip here
AS's deliveries to Moscow, Spain, Portugal and England, and
offers he was asked for, but did not get the job, like Sweden,
Uppsala, Cathedral)

> which would be fine for

Frans ...
> Caspar Schnitger.

Yes,
I think too, it would be FCS's way to work meantone and now I can
prove it, after organology had rejected this idea for FCS and the
Alkmaar organ. Actually this organ was one of the keystones in the
long and wrongly prevailing assumtion that AS and FCs might have
used well-temperaments or even ET.

> Split-keyed quarter-comma meantone is "Werckmeister II,"
> described by Werckmeister as an incorrect approach.
> The Hamburg St. Jacobi Church was reputed to be built by Arp

yes
the large rebuilt, in which AS took over lots of older pipe work,
was finished in 1693

> and it was tuned to equal temperament (read
> well-temperament, and likely Werckmeister III).

No,
not by AS, who tuned it to meantone. This was found in preserved
original pipe lengths during the last restoration.
Then we have two different descriptions of the temperaments in
Hamburg organs from 1729 and 1731. As the later publication shows
both the authors were not respectfully to each othe. But their
statement on the Hamburg organ's temperaments is unanimous.

Btw, watch out: the authors in the regions concerned, from
Werckmeister onwards (may be before already?) do not mix up
well-temperaments and ET! The are clear and well aware about this
point!

> Remember Bach auditioned for Reinkein here.

No,
that was not an audition, but Bach's improvisation(!) during a
meeting with Reincken at St. Katharinen, the old organ, rebuild by
Besser in the 1670ies. Reincken however, never let AS touch his
Besser-organ. From the large Hamburg organs in the four main
churches, it was the only one not worked on by AS!

However Bach played an audition in St. Jakobi to apply for the
organist position. And that organ was meantone, too, as said
before and also in 1729 and 1731.
Schnitger's meantone masterpiece was certainly not retuned extra
for Bach - and then to be tuned back, so that the later reports
and findings in the organ itself could fit. that would have easily
meant more than 1 1/2 years work: As account books from
Northern Germany show, actual tuning was a heck of a job, in
organs that large (50-65 stops) it could easily take 100-180
working days - an that by famous and professional builders!

> As there was no "equal temperament" in the day, that church

organ

> is today in Werckmeister III.

No, it is in a "modified" meantone temperament based on 1/5-pyth.
comma-fifths.

> Yes, as to friends, I agree that we hold different standards,
> as people are wont to do. Writing a poem to Werckmeister
> takes a bit of a focus on a person that would lead me to
> suspect a "friendship."

> Your article

My abstract? Yes, you're right - for the purpose of that Artikel,
which did not have to struggle with Werckmeister I could leave him
out.
However, as soon as Schnitger and Werckmeister are mentioned
together the link to Buxtehude will be drawn. All three had some
contacts - the strongest link can be established between Buxtehude
and Schnitger. But, as I showed or will show here - and later in
my diss. these links are all very shiny, one ore two bits of
information unrelated to temperament issues, but all have been
used in the past to propose Werckmeister (especially W. III) as
"the" best choice for Buxtehude. That Werckmeister differntiated
his temperaments according to the modes - recommending a
third-comma temperament for the ordinary ones, the W III
(quarter-comma based) for the remote modes, has been elegantly
overlooked in the Buxtehude-discussion. Not to speak how this W.'s
splits (spagat) could be carried out in an organ: Werckmeister
doesn't solve that riddle!

> does not mention Buxtehude, really. And yet,
> his music in Werckmeister III tuning fits like a glove.

I really appreciate your personal preference for Werckmeister and
I think at least sometimes it might be a good choice for modern
performance of Buxtehude's "organ works".

But Werckmeister himself admitted that he was unsuccesful in transmitting his ideas to the organ builders practice!
He complains about the stubborn organ builders and does not
mention anyone of his famous colleagues (friends or not) who
supports his temperament-ideas.
No substantiated claim of a "temperament link" between those
persons can be made, except of the poor chronological overlap,
that they lived at the same time, and might have exchanged some
letters of unknown content.

Our personal preference for the one or other temperament neither
proves nor disproves anything about the actual status of the organ.

We should try to avoid judging the organs from music which can't
be even shown that it was performed (see. my poll from last week
and try to find an answer for that).
Of none single of Buxtehude's or one of the other North German
organ composer's "organ music" any exact performance data are
known (place, time, instrument) are known, from which a careful
and very cautious clue might be drawn, pointing to the status of
an organ - and in terms of temperaments always our personal
preferences might be in the way.

> And history does consider his W's friend.

No,
only modern conclusions from this poem, and a third-hand report
that they exchanged letters (how many, over what period?). Not
very much, that confirms that they shared much more than a few
common opinions, and not necessarily about temperament.

On the contrary I think that Buxtehude was well aware of the needs
and function of an organ. An organ was no private experimental
site for a theorist, who admittedly was unsuccesful in promoting
his ideas, and a composer inspired by new ideas. The organ was
instead a tool used in a public situation and its status and
enormous costs (building and(or maintenance) paid and supervised
by the churchly structures. It playyed its role within in a rather
strictly ruled liturgical and social function, in the service,
with congregation, and in the interplay with ensemble music.

Even if Buxtehude would have subscribed to Werckmeister's
temperament ideas, and finally would have convinced his parish
council of the urgent need to complete retune two 40+ and 50+
instruments (together ca. 100 stops, including the old facade
32-pipes from 1516-18) and found an organ builder, who would and
could do that kind of unprecedented experiment? And why did that
escape Mattheson and (Händel) who visited Buxtehude (Mattheson
wrote countless pages, incl. loads about temperament etc.)?

Why does neither Werckmeister himself point to this in his
several publications, in which he defends his ideas - nor one of
the many people in Northern Germany (Hamburg) which asked until
much later (after B.s death in 1707) for the invention of
well-temperaments or equal temperament, with frequent general
statements that "organs don't have" such "nw" temperaments. And
Werckmeister himself calls the meantone temperament the 'common
temperament' also the 'old temperament' (the latter of course to
market his ideas as new).
And finally, such substantial retuning-work is not documented?
Only touch-ups of maximum ca. 4-5 weeks (in both organs together)
at several times (and already in unsuspicious clear menatone time).
No, nothing indicates, that Buxtehude was in favor of other than
meantone temperament *in organs*. And when he visited Schnitger's
brandnew meantone organ in Nikolai Hamburg, 1687, he obviously
didn't object. On the contrary years later he asked Schnitger to
come and work on an offer for an 'update' of 'B.'s' large organ in
St. Marien in Lübeck. That didn't happen for unclear reasons and
O. D. Richborn, Schnitger's concurrent in Hamburg did the job.

> W had spent some time in Lubeck.

No!
There is neither one single source for a visit of Werckmeister in
Lübeck, nor a direct source nor second-hand (or may be you can
provide an until now unknown source?). And the (unknown and
unsupported) visit, of whichs possible content we could speculate
ad infinitum would not mean that the organs in Lübeck St. Marien
would have been retuned afterwards. And finally the organs were
usually played together with instruments in the sunday services
and the Abendmusiken: The accompanied instruments include
woodwinds (for example 16'-bombard) which could not be easily
adapted to a new temperament (and if the tuning work was not
extremely exact, to a newer pitch, mostly raised), because the
holes are exactly drilled, according to pitch and temperament.
The account books, thousands of pages, which I have gone through,
do not support substantial purchases of new instruments or
changes. A few expenses every now and then on repairing a
*damage of an instrument. 2-3 times a new instrument including
strung instruments. That's about the amount: nothing indicating a
change.

> And then there is Groningen

Do you mean St. Martini (finished 1692)? Schnitger re/built some
larger organs in this town - btw, in the Netherlands - which still
today has a bunch of his output (Martini, Aa-kerk,
Pelstergasthuiskerk)!

> which was tuned to WIII in 1705.

Neither Groningen-Martini,
as the pre-restoration report from Cor Edskes 1972 stated that
the research on Schnitgers (and the older) pipework in St, Martini
lead to the conclusion, that the organ was meantone in 1692,
when Schnitger finished the rebuilt. This agrees to all other
reports about Arp Schnitger's tuning/temperament practice.
Edskes also states firmly, that nothing points to any temperament
change in Groningen Martini until 1854.

This would not be a very seldom case. Schnitger's largest organ in
Hamburg St. Nikolai, finished 1687, was according to Fock's
research never worked on again (minor touch ups), until it burnt
in the fire, which destroyed greater parts of the old city in 1842
- it probably burnt down unchanged in meantone!

Nor Groningen Pelstergasthuiskerk,
which today has a "transition"-temperament between a modified
meantoe and a well-temperament.

About the temperament of the other organs in the twon of
Groningen, indications are lacking.

> best, Johnny Reinhard

Best

Ibo Ortgies

A sideremark to "Friesland", for those who have good maps.

Friesland is best understood as the Dutch Province of Friesland.
As "Ostfriese", not "Friese", I'd like to confuse everyone even
more with some facts.

From West to east the most important "Frieslands" are:

1) (Dutch) West-Friesland (a small area on the peninsula north
of Amsterdam)

It is geographical disconnect by the former North Sea bay (once
Zuiderzee), now a sort of salt water lake Ijsselmeer
from

2) (Dutch) FRIESLAND or Provinsje Fryslân - Dutch province
http://www.fryslan.nl/
(in German we call it not quite correct West-Friesland)
capital: Leeuwaarden/Ljouwert.
Bilingual: official documents are written in Dutch
and Frisian (many relations to [old] English)

It is geographical disconnect by the whole Dutch Province of
Groningen from

3) (German) Ostfriesland
main cities: Aurich, Emden, Leer, Norden, Wittmund
local language: local dialect of Low German (with very
few rests of the old Frisian)
At home we used to say that south of Leer and east of
Wittmund, "Germany" begins.
Southeast of Leer, already surrounded by "German" ground
is a small enclave of 1500 people still speaking a Frisian
dialect (while
It is adjacing the
4) (German District) of "Friesland" - which is just a political
name
main city: Jever (yes, the famous beer! pronunciation like
"yafer" not "yaver" as even some south Germans do ...)
language: local dialect of Low German
They belonged once to Russia (under Katarina 'the great'), but
you know, as long as their beer is so good ...

It is geographical disconnect by the North Sea (German bay) by
road ca. 400-500 km North east (across the North sea just 150 km) from

5) (German)Nord-Friesland,.
Cities: Husum, Westerland
Language: Local variant of Frisian (partly mixed with
local dialects of Low
German)

These are the socio-lingual-cultural-political regions.
And the geographical ...

For example:
The socio-cultural entity Ostfriesland ("Eastern Friesland") is
the (larger) western part of the whole peninsula whichs
geographical name is also "Ostfriesland". A part of the eastern
part of the peninsula Ostfriesland is the adjacing adminstrative
district (or county) of "Friesland" - which should not be mixed up
with the Dutch Province of Friesland. Then there are some areas at
the very east (Wilhemshaven) and southeast which belong to the old
dukedom Oldenburg ...