Schnitger organ (Hamburg)
All in all, from the organ's original installation and its condition today (despite the partial destruction during World War II) not much of its conception has changed.
Ulrich Cernitz, St. Jacobi organist of the time (who had studied with Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck) reported extensively on these expansions which led to the instrument having more than 56 registers.
[5] Arp Schnitger used the existing instrument and kept 27 of the stops (including some of the oldest pipes of the original 1516 organ) for his project.
Despite the advice of one of the most prominent organists at the church of St. Katharinen in Hamburg, Johann Adam Reincken, Schnitger installed both a Principal 32' and Posaune 32' into the pedal.
Typical for these fronts are the symmetrical case with the large pedal towers at each side and the staggered arrangement of the manual divisions, although the Oberpositiv did not appear in these frontal prospects.
Instead it was awarded to Johann Joachim Heitmann, who was able to pay the required high sum of 4000 Mark into the church fund and also marrying the pastor's daughter.
In the records of Johann Mattheson we find part of a rather severe sermon by the pastor of St. Jacobi at the time, Erdmann Neumeister: "He believed with certainty that – if one of the angels were to descend from heaven and, wanting to become an organist of St. Jacobi, played divinely – but if this angel from Bethlehem had no money, they would simply have to fly away again.
This happened when the tin prospect pipes had to be taken down and handed over to the army administration's metal collection during the First World War.
Ramin brought back compositions of Hamburg organists of the 17th century alongside works of Buxtehude and Bach to the concert space for the first time in a long while.
[12] Because the wind chests, pipework and carvings were removed in 1942, this prevented these sound-producing parts of the organ from being destroyed in World War II.
The southern nave was only slightly destroyed, and after its restoration in 1950 the Lübeck organ workshop Kemper made a provisional installation.
Kemper had already carried out the restoration work of previous decades under the direction of and cooperation with Hans Henny Jahnn.
It included a new case for the old divisions, a new console with carved heads for register knobs (1950), an extension of the keyboard ranges with the necessary technical adjustments and an extremely stiff action by Kemper.
These included the registers by Johann Jacob Lehnert from the year 1761 (the Viola di Gamba 8 'in the Werck and the Trommet 8' in the Rückpositiv).
The wind supply was set up with six wedge bellows located in the upper area of the tower space, behind the organ.
Cornelius H. Edskes, the leading Dutch organologist and Schnitger specialist, made sure the restoration was done as fundamentally secure as possible by creating the meticulous documentation needed.
It is a compromise between the standard pure thirds of the mean tone tuning and the requirements for playing organ literature from the 17th and 18th centuries in keys that contain multiple sharps/ flats.
