"Gottfried Frietzsch [Fritzsche] and the Subsemitones in the Large Organ of Hamburg, St. Catherine's." (Translated by the author from the German version )
In: A Festschrift for Prof. Kerala J. Snyder, ed. by Johann Norrback, Joel Speerstra, and Ralph Locke.
Göteborg: University of Gothenburg (Göteborg Organ Art Center), 2019, 13. p.
= GOArt Publications, vol. 4.
[See even Addenda to my previously published catalogue of organs with subsemitones.]
NOTE:
This article has been substantially revised in the Dutch and in the German versions, due to new evidence:
The Dutch version appeared in March 2020:
"Gottfried Frietzsch en het grote orgel in Hamburgse St.-Katharinen. Het aantal manualen, hun omvang en subsemitoetsen." (Gottfried Frietzsch and the large organ in Hamburg’s St.-Katharinen. The number of manuals, their compass, and their subsemitones.)
Translated into Dutch by Jan Smelik. Het Orgel [Netherlands, ISSN 0166-0101] 116, no. 2 (2020), p. 20-27.
Abstract in English and Dutch.
The German version appeared in September 2020
"Gottfried Frietzschs Orgelbau in Hamburg: St. Katharinen und die Subsemitonien."
Ars Organi [Germany, ISSN 0004-2919] 68, no. 3 (2020), p. 146-156.
The English version was based primarily on the sources as provided and discussed in an article by Ulf Grapenthin (“The Catharinen organ during Scheidemann’s tenure.” In Scheidemann’s Keyboard Music: Its Transmission, Style and Chronology, edited by Pieter Dirksen, 170–198. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007.)
My article evaluates the information provided in Grapenthin's article, and from that perspective my article doesn't need a revision.
New and substantial information, however, reached me after the publication of the English version. This new information is presented in the Dutch and (even more) in the German versions of the article.
The main updates concern:
New evidence shows that the new Brustwerk, the fourth division, added by Frietzsch in 1631, had the compass CDEFGA-c3, differing from the three already existing divisions (Oberwerk, [Haupt]-Werk and Rückpositiv), which had the compass CDEFGA-g2a2.
New evidence shows that Frietzsch actually added subsemitones in the Brustwerk (and most likely not in the other divisions).
New evidence shows that the organ had between 1631 and 1674 in the Brustwerk at least the subsemitones for a-flat – and according to Frietzsch's practice elsewhere - also for d-sharp.
From 3. follows that at least two subsemitones must have existed, but the scant sources do not allow to deduct an exact number of subsemitones with certainty.
There are, however, no organs by Frietzsch known to have had so few subsemitones. The known Frietzsch's organs that included subsemitones for a-flat had at least four subsemitones, which appears possible in this case, too. The two organs in Braunschweig that Frietzsch built in the 1620s and that were examined by the Hamburg organists, Scheidemann and Praetorius respectively, had four subsemitones, too (a-flat0, d-sharp1, a-flat1, d-sharp2).
Other distributions of the subsemitones are possible, though, even 'asymmetrical' distributions that include an a-sharp. The large organs of Hamburg, St. Jacobi (here: the Rückpositiv) and St. Petri (here: all divisions except the Rückpositiv) got also subsemitones for a-sharp by Frietzsch).
From 1.-4. follows that the organ got almost certainly a fourth manual keyboard in 1631, i.e. a new manual for the new Brustwerk.
The other three keyboards for the already existing divisions got (re)new(ed) keyboards, partly from boxwood.
(In detail only in the German version) The historical information about the large organ in Hamburg St. Petri indicates, that Frietzsch equipped this instrument as well with a fourth manual keyboard.
(That the organ in St. Jacobi got a fourth manual keyboard by Frietzsch was already known.)
Hypothesis:
It might be that the rebuilt of the four large organs of the main four churches in Hamburg, carried out by Frietzsch within 6 years from 1631 onwards, followed a 'program', a plan, which might have been designed by the Hamburg organists (at that time all former students of Sweelinck!) in close cooperation with Frietzsch. The 'program' included the enlargement to four divisions respectively four manual keyboards and the application of subsemitones. The unknown in the hypothesis is Frietzsch's rebuilt of the organ of St. Nicolai, about which's details we have until now no evidence except of that the rebuilt cost a sizeable amount.
The reason for adding subsemitones would be their usefulness for transposition and the added value for the extended tonality in ensemble music. This would appeal both to directores musices and/or cantores like Christoph Bernhard as well as to organists like Matthias Weckman who would be able to accompany demanding ensemble music (see 8.)
(Only in the German version) A "subsemitone network":
In an already known treatise about temperament ("Propositiones ...", 1666) the cantor Otto Gibelius/Gibel (Minden), presents subsemitones as a self-evident component of a keyboard, and he describes (only) standard meantone temperament (i. e. with pure major thirds). In support of his views, Gibelius quotes from an approving letter by Henrich Schütz (Dresden).
As the music historian Heiko Maus found, Gibelius dedicated one of three editions of this treatise (which appeared all in the same year) to four musicians: Christoph Bernhard and Matthias Weckman in Hamburg, Delphin Strunck in Braunschweig, and Franz Tunder in Lübeck.
Four of the musicians addressed or quoted by Gibelius had regularly and direct access to large organs with subsemitones built by Gottfried Frietzsch. Only Tunder in Lübeck would have to walk to the neighbouring church St. Aegidien, that had been equipped with subsemitones in its new Brustwerk division built in 1645-1648 (rebuilt of the organ) by Frietzsch's son-in-law, Friederich Stellwagen.
Corrigenda list for the current English version
p. 5, paragraph 1, line 6
Replace "Anthon Henrich Uhtmöller (1720–52),"
"Anthon Henrich Uhtmöller (1720–52)."
p. 5, footnote 11, line 4
Replace "and 250." by
Harald Vogel, “Tuning and Temperament in the North German School of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Charles Brenton Fisk, Organ Builder: Essays in His Honor, vol. 1, ed. Fenner Douglass, Owen Jander, and Barbara Owen, Easthampton: Westfield Center for Early Keyboard Studies, 1986), 250.
p. 10, paragraph 1, line 4
Replace "Hinrich Scheidemann (ca. 1586–1663)" by
"Hinrich Scheidemann (ca. 1596–1663)"
p. 11, footnote 21, line 1
Replace "Mathias Weckmann" by
"Matthias Weckmann"
p. 12, add item to "Bibliography"
Moe, Bjarke. “Schütz und Dänemark.” In Schütz-Handbuch, edited by Walter Werbeck (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, forthcoming in 2020).