Gottfried Frietzsch and the Subsemitones in the Large Organ of Hamburg, St. Catherine’s

Abstract

In 1629 Gottfried Frietzsch1 (1578–1638), court organ builder at the Saxon Electoral Court, began the final important phase of his professional life with his first organ for the Hanseatic town of Hamburg: the monastery church of St. Maria Magdalena acquired the first new organ that Frietzsch built within Hamburg’s city walls, and it was equipped with subsemitones.2 In meantone temperament subsemitones were added in Frietzsch’s time to increase the number of usable keys (i. e. tonalities), while retaining the purity of the thirds in major chords. Subsemitones were primarily desired to aid in necessary transposing when accompanying ensemble music. Organs with subsemitones customarily had one or two, but sometimes there were three, and even four extra keys.3 According to today’s knowledge, Frietzsch was the first organ builder to successfully introduce subsemitones into organbuilding in Germany (with his new organ for the Dresden court chapel), and subsemitones went on to become one of his distinctive trademarks. By 1629, the year he finished the organ for St. Maria Magdalene’s, he had already built at least six more organs in other places with subsemitones: Table 1. Frietzsch organs with subsemitones 1612–29 1612 Dresden, Castle chapel (Schlosskirche) 1616 Schöningen, Castle chapel (Schlosskirche) 1616–17 Sondershausen, Trinitatis- or Dreifaltigkeitskirche 1618–19 Bayreuth, Stadtkirche „Heilig Dreifaltigkeit“ 1621–23 Braunschweig, St. Catherine’s (St. Katharinen) 1620–24 Wolfenbüttel, Hauptkirche Beatae Mariae Virginis 1626 Braunschweig, St.-Ulrici- or Brüdernkirche In the planning or examination of these organs, influential musicians of his time were regularly involved, such as Hans Leo Haßler (1564–1612), Michael Praetorius (1571–1621), Henrich Schütz (1585–1672) and Samuel Scheidt (1587–1654).