Orgelcultuur in een Deltagebied. Vijf Casestudies

Abstract

ORGAN CULTURE IN A DELTA AREA contains five casestudies on organhistorical subjects. The first study Museum organs under the care of the government has been written as a contribution to a scientific discussion whether or not the famous 1479 Peter Gerritszorgan should be restored to a playable condition again after more than a century of museum conservation. The contribution focusses on the conservation history of the organs from the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum collection, among others based on the archives of the ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences. Among five instruments, only for the Peter Gerritszorgan the conservation of the complete instrument seems to have been intended after purchase in 1885. The second study A great work is an extended written result of a lecture during conference in Stockholm, 2003, on the Orchestrion that was built for the organ virtuoso and theorist Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler (1749-1814) by the Rotterdam organ builder Johannes Pieter Künckel (1750-1815). Since very few primary sources on this innovative transportable organ have survived, the description has mainly been derived from contemporary periodicals and a specification available in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. The third and fourth studies OF GOLDEN AND UNNECESSARY ORGANS and They did not seem to be aware of the jewel they possess are classic historic overviews of the organ history of the city of Dordrecht and the Rijnmond region. As Albert Schweitzer noticed in 1928, people of Rotterdam were unaware of the value of the organ of the Great or St. Laurens church. The typically Dutch underestimation of the meaning of proper cultural heritage and the tendency of expecting the best from far away gave reason to the idea that establishing a ‘School’ of organ builders hardly seems to have existed in the Rijnmond region. This seems especially to be applicable to the career of the Rotterdam organ builders Willem Hendrik Kam (1806-1863) and Hendrik van der Meulen (1810-1852). Their biographies are provided in the fifth study Accused of Mediocrity. According to independent contemporary experts as well as to more recent insights, their surviving instruments rank them among the most important Dutch organ builders of the 19th century. Yet, their career was firmly injured by the preoccupation of the Rotterdam church wardens who were wrongly informed of Kam and Van der Meulen’s so-called mediocrity. An anonymous newspaper discussion from their circle on the 1845 Bätz & Co. renovation of the Rotterdam Laurensorgan was not appreciated by the consultant involved. However, their surviving instruments at e.g. Zierikzee (1848), Nieuw-Lekkerland (1853), Ouderkerk aan den IJssel (1854) and Dordrecht (1859) all testify of their internationally orientated scholarly approach of organ building