# Gottfried Fritzsche

Gottfried Fritzsche (sometimes spelled Frietzsch) (1578 – 1638) was a German organ builder.

## Life

Gottfried Fritzsche was born in Meissen in 1578. He was the son of goldsmith Jobst Fritzsche (died 1585), and began his professional life learning and working in his father's craft. His grandfather Johannes Fritzsche (1508-1586) was cathedral syndic in Meissen.
Before 1603 Fritzsche probably learned organ building from Johann Lange (sometimes given as Hans Lange) in Kamenz. Fritzsche was an organ builder in Meissen from 1604 until 1612 when he relocated to Dresden. There he was appointed court organ builder to the Elector of Saxony around 1614. From 1619 to 1627, he worked in Wolfenbüttel and from 1628 to 1629 in Celle, before coming to Ottensen in 1629. He succeeded Hans Scherer the Younger in Hamburg upon Scherer's death in 1631, taking over the Scherer family's organ business. He remained there until his death in 1638.
His first marriage to a woman who is no longer known by name produced three sons and three daughters, including the organ builder Hans Christoph Fritzsche. Through his second marriage in 1629 to Margarete née Ringemuth, widowed Rist, he became the stepfather of the poet Johann Rist. His pupils (and later sons-in-law) were Friederich Stellwagen and Tobias Brunner.

## Work

Fritzsche stood on the threshold from the Renaissance to the early Baroque. He further developed Brabant organ building and introduced numerous innovations, for example, on the Zungenregister the rackett regals such as dulzian, regal, sordun and the long-beaked crumhorn. Fritzsche not infrequently placed stops of the same stop family but with contrasting scales (wide and narrow) in one work or chose unusual foot pitches. In the Brustwerk and pedal he regularly used one-foot voices, which were still unknown with Scherer. Also characteristic is his double zill, which takes the place of Scherer's high-lying Scharff, as well as the use of various aliquotregister [de] as single voices. For example, the simbel installed by Fritzsche in 1635 in the organ of the St. James' Church, Hamburg was the first of its kind in northern Germany. He also liked to use secondary stops such as tremulant and "drum", which do not yet appear in Scherer's work, and Effect stops such as "Cuckoo", "Birdsong", and "Nightingale". While hammered lead pipes had been the rule in northern Germany until then, Fritzsche planed the pipes and used an alloy with a higher tin content; for the cups of the trombones and trumpets he added marcasite. Compared to Scherer, the use of Subsemitones (double upper keys) was new. During his time in Hamburg, he carried out alterations to the organs of all four main churches. Fritzsche's extensions made the organs in St. Jacobi and St. Katharinen among the first organs ever to have four manuals.
Fritzsche died in Ottensen, modern-day Hamburg.

## List of work

| Year | Location | Church | Manual | Stops | Notes |
| 1603 | Meissen | Meissen Cathedral | II/P | 17 | Swallow's nest organ; destroyed by lightning on 27 April 1647. |
| 1609–1610 | Meißen | Frauenkirche | | | not preserved |
| 1612–1614 | Dresden | Schlosskapelle | II/P | 33 | in collaboration with Hans Leo Hassler; transferred to St. Matthew's Church in 1737; not preserved; disposition by Michael Praetorius: Syntagma Musicum. Vol. 2: De Organographia |
| 1615–1617 | Sondershausen | Trinitatiskirche | II/P | 33 | Burnt in 1621 |
| 1617 | Wolfenbüttel | St. Trinitatis | II/P | 21 | Originally built for the castle chapel Schöningen; transferred and rebuilt in 1722/23; façade preserved much altered |
| 1618–1619 | Bayreuth | Stadtkirche | II/P | 35 | not preserved |
| 1621–1622 | Harbke | St. Levin | I/P | 18 | Addition of a rückpositiv by Christoph Treutmann in 1728; front and pipe material preserved. |
| 1619–1623 | Wolfenbüttel | Marienkirche | III/P | 39 | Reconstructed front and 6 stops preserved |
| 1621–1623 | Braunschweig | St. Katharinen | III/P | | 6 stops preserved and integrated in the new building by Rudolf von Beckerath Orgelbau (1980) |
| 1622–1625 | Clauen [de] | Village church | I/p | | Originally built for Wolfenbüttel Castle Church; rebuilt by Johann Andreas Graff in 1725/26; transferred to Clauen in 1796; baroque facade and parts of pipework and wind chests preserved; restored by Bernhardt Edskes in 1995 |
| 1620er | Coswig | Alte Kirche | I | 9 | Builder unknown, possibly Frietzsch or Tobias Weller; moved to Coswig around 1735, repainted in 1760; preserved → Orgel |
| 1626–1627 | Braunschweig | St.-Ulrici-Kirche | III/P | 26 | not preserved |
| 1627 | Dresden? | | I | 1 | Attribution; positiv with parchment pipes; today preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.. |
| 1629–1630 | Hamburg | Maria Magdalena | II/P | 23 | not preserved |
| 1630 | Hamburg-Ottensen | Christianskirche | | | Extension conversion of an older organ; some stops taken over in 1744/1745 in new building by Johann Dietrich Busch. |
| 1630 | Hamburg | Ehemalige Hauptkirche Sankt Nikolai | | | Transfer from the space above the north door to a new gallery "under the tower in the west"; extension and conversion of unknown size. |
| 1624–1631 | Torgau | Torgauer Schlosskapelle | | | not preserved |
| 1630–1631 | Braunschweig | St. Martini | II/P | 24 | Draft for a disposition, which Jonas Weigel executed in a modified form |
| 1632 | Hamburg | Hauptkirche Sankt Katharinen | IV/P | 56 | Extension reconstruction; Frietzsch pipes in four Brustwerk stops preserved; 2013 reconstruction of the state of 1720 (photo) |
| 1633–1634 | Hamburg | St.-Petri-Kirche | IV/P (three manuals) | | Renovation, extension and conversion. New: Brustwerk (attached to Oberwerk), all Rückpositiv stops, individual stops in Hauptwerk and pedal. New keyboards or extension of the manual range up to c$^3$, with divided upper keys, sub-semitones, in all (linkable) manual keyboards for the additional notes dis, as und ais. Not preserved. |
| 1634 | Neuengamme | St. Johannis | I/P | | 1803 by Johann Paul Geycke and later rebuilt several times; 5 stops complete and 6 partly preserved. |
| 1634 | Altengamme | St. Nicolai | | | New building; replaced by Johann Dietrich Busch in 1751 |
| 1635–1636 | Hamburg | St.-Jacobi-Kirche | IV/P | 56 | Expansion to four manuals with a range of 4 octaves (in the Rückpositiv from dis° up to and including dis$^2$ seven divided upper keys, subsemitones, for the additional notes dis, as and ais); during the new construction in 1693, Schnitger took over 20 stops from Frietzsch in varying ranges. |
| 1637 | Hamburg-Allermöhe | Dreieinigkeitskirche | | | New building; later rebuilt several times, front burnt in 1900. |
| 1636–1638 | Trittau | | | 12 | remained unfinished. |
| 1637–1638 | Borstel (Jork) | St. Nikolai | II/P | etwa 20 | Repair of the organ by an unknown builder (2nd half of the 16th century); organ rebuilt several times, intervened in 1770-1772 by Johann Paul Geycke, who also created a new casing; soundboards of two reed stops by Frietzsch preserved. |