Orgelbau Th. Kuhn AG, 1998
Restoration
www.orgelbau.ch/ope=801090
II/P/18
Switzerland, Fribourg
Cathédrale St-Nicolas, Orgue de Choeur
The chancel organ, located on a wood gallery which was specially built for this purpose above the choir stalls, was constructed by the organ builder Sebald Manderscheidt of Nuremberg. The work contract dating from 10 October 1654 was preserved but it is a little misleading because it only describes an organ with one manual (9 manual stops and 2 pedal stops). Thanks to a longer Latin inscription which was also preserved and dates from the time immediately after the blessing of the organ at the feast of Corpus Christi in 1657, we nevertheless know that the organ was finally built with two manuals and 18 stops in total.
It is notable that the second manual, the positive, was not constructed as an ober-werk as the front might indicate. Instead, it was planted in the floor of the gallery inside the organ case as a choir organ. What appears to be an oberwerk comprises two stops which belong to the great organ and have their own windchest. Due to this ingenious arrangement the depth of the organ case of 27.56 inches was suffi-cient for 18 stops.
In 1881/82 Heinrich Spaich of Rapperswil SG built a new organ (I/10) with cone chests and an enlarged compass to F5 concerning the manual and D3 concerning the pedal. However, he reused the case and most of the pipework. Fortunately nu-merous important traces of the old organ survived in spite of this ample interfer-ence. Therefore in 1996/98 it was possible to justify reconstruction of the original instrument retaining all the main parts and reusing the original manual which was stored in the Swiss National Museum in Zurich.
There is a strong Italian influence evident in the design of the organ case as well as in the tonal conception. The Principal beating stop «Fiffera» is located in the front and is the earliest stop of this sort known until now north of the Alps.
Translation 2008: RS