Zwolle, 1721 [Hauptwerk]

The Schnitger organ of the “Grote of St. Michaelskerk” in Zwolle (1721)

The history and the fate of the Zwolle St. Michaelskerk organ is quite typical of almost all important European instruments: Built by the prestigious baroque organbuilding family Schnitger, subject to  alterations mirroring the changeable fashion of different periods and finally restored back to its supposed baroque form.

In 1718 Bernard Hüte, physician and town mayor of Zwolle donated 12.000 guilders for the construction of a new organ. His brother Thomas added another 2.000 guilders. At that time, a Zwolle merchant, in Hamburg on bussiness, met Vincent Lübeck, organist at St. Nicolai, Hamburg, who recommended Arp Schnitger to the Zwolle authorities as builder for the new organ. This resulted in the assignment to construct a new organ in Zwolle. Because Arp Schnitger died in 1719, some months after the beginning of the construction, his sons completed the new organ in 1721.

Over the course of time the organ experienced numerous detrimental modifications. Especially notable are the extensive restoration and modifications, carried out in 1837 by Petrus van Oeckelen (Groningen), including changing the organ to equal temperament. 

After the Second World War, a comprehensive renovation turned out to be indispensable. After many discussions it was decided to return the organ very close to the original situation in 1721, recovering also the original high pitch ( a’= 502 Hz). In 1950, organ builder Dirk Andries Flentrop (Zaandam), was charged with this task, which he carried out in the period 1953-1955. It appeared that the chaos of pipes over centuries, made by different organ builders, still contained sufficient original material to reconstruct the original Schnitgerian scales.