Research Methodology
A distinctive GOArt-research profile has developed out of almost fifteen years of experience in research projects into Europe’s historical organs and their related keyboard culture. There are some important factors that are common denominators for our projects.
One can be described in terms of methodology. An Italian Renaissance organ or a French Symphonic one are both “organs” but they are separated by three hundred years of technology history and social and technological change. These instruments have different qualities, different technical requirements, different physical properties, and soundscapes. GOArt’s methodology has been to explore what happens when you approach the instrument on its own terms, open to learning about what kind of expressive means the instrument was designed to create. There is as a dynamic relationship among the three points of a triangle that are always present in any musical experience: the music, the musician and the instrument. The research questions formulated are grown out of experiences made by muscians involved in musicmaking.
Another is the instrument itself. As important as the music is, the instrument on which the music is made always plays an equally important role in the music’s creation. It is the framework within which the music can be made, delimiting sound resources, aesthehic parameters, possible playing techniques, range, and dynamics and a host of other parameters. GOArt began with the concept that the instrument that was available to the improvisor or composer is the best possible teacher for that repertoire. GOArt has been engaged in researching a dynamic relationship that can be expressed simply as: a study of the interaction between the music and the musician, mediated through the instrument. Our experience is that the organ, the most complex musical instrument ever devised, has many facets and possible interfaces to other disciplines from iconography to fluid dynamics to traditional woodworking, inorganic chemistry, musicology, sociology and beyond. And not least, performance.
Ongoing projects
Currently GOArt is involved in two projects: Organa Sueciae, and an organ for Anabel Taylor Chapel, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
ORGANA SUECIAE. Studies of the Organ Landscape of Sweden
The historical organs of Sweden form a cultural landscape of great national and international significance and also constitute an important mapof Sweden’s intangible cultural heritage. The objectives of Organa Sueciae (OS) are -to digitalize research material in the archives of the Swedish National Heritage Board; -to migrate the GOArt database software to open source code. OS is inspired by theworkof Abraham Abr. Hülphers, who created the first encyclopaedic survey of the organ inSweden (Hülphers 1773). Travelling extensively to mapthe organculture of Sweden in themiddle ofthe 18th century, he became the Carl von Linné of the organ, and recorded a particularperiod ofSwedish organ history in which many things had been lost after the Great Northern War. Insomecases his survey provides the only documentation of parts of this intangible culture that had already been permanently lost.
OS, a three-year project, will result in a digital Hülphers for our time, which will preserve not only new knowledge of Sweden’s organ landscape but contribute strategies to ensureits long-term preservation and development.We will collaborate with the Swedish National Heritage Board, the Church of Sweden, and partners within Göteborg University,among others to create this resource.
Anabel Taylor Chapel Organ for Cornell University
GOArt’s most recent research organ for Cornell University in Ithaca, New York is a reconstruction of the organ built by Arp Schnitger for the Charlottenburg Court in Berlin in 1706 combining features of both the North German and the Bach schools in one case. The project has three partners. GOArt is responsible for the overall design and project coordination, the production of the pipework, which is almost completed, and the voicing. A very talented local craftsman from Ithaca named Christopher Lowe has already completed the case, and the Parsons Organbuilding firm of Canandaigua, New York are responsible for the construction of the windchests and action and the installation of the organ in the Chapel. The installation will begin in January of 2010.
Arp Schnitger was the most important organ builder of late-seventeenth-century North Germany, and was active mainly in its northwestern corner. Yet his work was well known in all of the German speaking lands and he built several organs in the eastern cities as well. The interesting thing is that those organs he built for the eastern cities have unique features that the northwestern counterparts do not possess. Many of his works in the northwestern areas survive today and are well-known, but none of his instruments in the eastern areas are extant today, with the one exception of the organ case in Clausthal-Zellerfeld. The organ in Berlin Charlottenburg existed until the last war, and we have access to the documentation that was made before its loss.
Arp Schnitger’s Work in Magdeburg and Berlin
Arp Schnitger (1648-1719) is widely regarded as the best North German organbuilder of the second half of the seventeenth century. His reputation grew to the point that he could no longer run his business from a single workshop. He carried out multiple projects simultaneously by setting up several workshops run by foremen who had long enough experience and technique so that they could work partly independently from Schnitger at the construction site.
It is not certain how much Arp Schnitger himself worked on the actual construction of his organs and also on designing the specification and construction method. As far as the specification was concerned, a Schnitger organ contains specific features of the particular area in which it was built. It is natural to think that this is partly dependent on the local requirements for how the organ would be used in that specific area. Another possible reason is simply a practical one. Part of the payment for the new organ was quite often the old organ that the customer had. Organbuilders used old pipes whenever possible as long as they were in good condition and still usable for contemporary musical demands. This was fairly common practice in those days (with some exceptions of course, like in case of Gottfried Silbermann) and this is the reason why in Schnitger’s work an older local style was continually being integrated into the new style.
Schnitger organs in the Berlin and Magdeburg areas were no exceptions to this rule. having local elements that were different from the “home-grown” elements well-known from his instruments in the Hamburg area. For that matter, this integration of older styles was also present in the Hamburg organs we know so well, where his predecessor’s pipework such as the Scherer family and Gottfried Fritzsche were integrated into his new organs. It is in fact quite an irony that the great organbuilder in early seventeenth century Germany, Gottfried Fritzsche, actually migrated to North Germany from his own central German tradition. Fritzsche gained his fame at the court of Dresden. Unfortunately, no organs by Schnitger built in central and eastern German cities exist today. The few organs that survived until the twentieth century were completely destroyed in the Second World War. It is still possible however to list the peculiar features that one would never find in his northwestern instruments by studying primary archival sources. -the use of Floite dues as a wooden conical flute. Both 8 foot and 4 foot stops. -the use of Viola da gamba both in 8 foot and 4 foot. -the use of wood for the Subbaß 16 foot. In one case this is even an open stop. -the independent wind system for the pedal division. -the use of evergreen wood like pine for the organ’s interior parts. -the name of the stops like Hoboy, Viola da gamba and Violone. (These could be completely distinctive stops but there is a possibility that they are the same as the stops that he built for his northwestern instruments labeled with local names.) -the reed stops. The fact that much fewer numbers of reed stops appear especially in the manuals. -a completely different case design and style of ornamention.
The following list gives the Schnitger organ features that do appear in his instruments both in Eastern and Central Germany. The seventeenth-century North German features throughout his organs. -the presence of a typical principal chorus. -the presence of variously pitched flute stops for every division. -the presence of Schnitger’s typical sesquialtera and other mutation stops. -a very complete pedal divison from low-pitched to high-pitched stops. -even though there are very few examples in Eastern and Central Germany, the use of the Rückpositiv is also present in both areas.
After looking at all of the features of the Schnitger organs built in Eastern and Central Germany through the eyes of today’s purist, these instruments seem to have compromises that depart from what has come to be thought of as Schnitger’s pure style, but stylistic compromise itself does not necessarily create an artistic imbalance. One must admit his immense success in integrating and mixing different styles and creating a well-balanced, integrated musical instrument while maintaining an extremely high quality.