Orgelbau Th. Kuhn AG, 1995
Restoration
www.orgelbau.ch/ope=801020
III/P/36
Germany, Baden-Wurttemberg
Kath. Pfarrkirche St. Maria
The «Pfarrkirche» of St. Maria in Schramberg in the Black Forest houses an early example of a cone-chest organ. It is Eberhard Friedrich Walcker's Opus 46, constructed in 1840/44, one of the oldest surviving cone-chest organs built by this company. The cone valves had not yet been fitted with guide-bars and pins, but simply attached with leather bands. The two lower manual divisions have mechanical cone chests but the pedals were still fitted with mechanical slider windchests. The third manual is solely for the Physharmonika 8 ' which is swellable at the free-standing console. Initially it was to be played on Manual II. In 1899/1900 the instrument underwent alterations carried out by the company which originally built it. The mechanical action was replaced by a pneumatic system, which meant that a new console was required. The third manual was dispensed with and the Physharmonica was not replaced. In 1948/49 the stop-list was changed to a Baroque style by Johannes Goebel from Rexingen, although luckily in 12 of the stops this was simply done by cutting the pipes shorter.
The restoration of 1994/95 brought the organ back to its original design of 1844. The many clues discovered in the instrument itself and the valuable information and plans found in the Walcker archives enabled the accurate reconstruction of parts which were no longer surviving to be carried out. A Barker machine for Manual I and II modeled on that of the Votivkirche in Vienna (Walcker 1878) led to the achievement of an acceptable key weight.
Translation 2008: SJR