The year 2022 marked the 150th anniversary of the death of the famous German organ master Eberhard Friedrich Walcker (1794–1872), heir and founder of the German organ tradition, whose technical innovations and aesthetics of sound had a significant influence on the world organ culture.
Photo: Wikipedia
Eberhard Friedrich was born on 3 July 1794, in Cannstatt. He spent much of his childhood in his father’s organ workshop, where he showed an early interest in the organ profession. The interest was further encouraged by the famous Abbé Vogler (1749-1814), organ virtuoso and one of the most important music theorists of the 18th century when he visited Walcker’s workshop in Cannstatt in the summer of 1807. A key milestone for both his father Johann Eberhard and his son Eberhard Friedrich was the testing of Vogler’s simplification system (Simplifikationssytem) on the organ of the Cannstatt town church.
In 1820 E. F. Walcker moved his workshop from Cannstatt to Ludwigsburg, where it was first renamed Walcker und Spaich in 1842, and then E. F. Walcker & Cie. in 1854.
Innovation, impact and the legacy of E.F. Walcker
During Eberhard Friedrich’s lifetime, the workshop produced 274 organs. The first major work was the organ for St. Paul’s Church in Frankfurt (1833, III/74), which attracted significant public interest. This was followed by the organs in the Collegiate Church in Stuttgart (1839, IV/70), the Evangelical Church in St. Petersburg (1839, III/63), St. Nicholas Cathedral in Helsingfors (1847, III/54), Zagreb Cathedral (1855, III/52), and the workshop’s largest instrument was installed in 1857 in the main church in Ulm (1857, IV/100). The organ in the Evangelical Church of St. Stephen in Mühlhausen (1865, III/62), which was later also of great importance to Albert Schweitzer, the great German theologian, physician, writer, and organist, is worth mentioning.
Walcker’s organ workshop trained almost all the major German organists of the time, including Johann Nepomuk Kuhn, Johann and Paul Link, Wilhelm Sauer, Georg Friedrich Steinmeyer and Carl Gottlob Weigle. Walcker’s innovations can therefore be found in many 19th-century organs.
Important Walcker innovations:
- the use of the combination of tones principle
- the first successful mensuration of 32′ pedal register ratios
- design of a separate air inlet for the Physharmonics register
- piano pedal (second pedal keyboard)
- semicircular design of the console
- collective register pulls (precursor to the crescendo roller)
- patent for a sheet metal planing machine (1850)
- and the famous cone windchest
The first organ with a mechanical cone chest was the Ludwigsburg salon organ (1840), followed by several generations of technical refinement of the tracker and the windchest.
The organ in the Evangelical Church in Hoffenheim (1846, II/27) is one of the most important preserved technical-sound treasures of German early Romantic organ building.
Photo: Organistica
Eberhard Friedrich Walcker had also an important influence on the French organist Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (1811-1899), with whom he exchanged many letters and made mutual visits. They shared new ideas, Cavaillé-Coll adopted the basics of Vogler’s system, the principle of tone combination, the semicircular design of the console and the mechanical cone chest, which he used twice, while Walcker adopted Barker’s pneumatic lever from France and very likely the pipe regulating slots (expressions).
At the end of the 19th century, the Walcker workshop made an important contribution to the formation of the German Organ Association (1895), and as the 20th century began, demonstrated an interest in a new aesthetic of sound.
The tradition of the Walcker Workshop was passed down through several generations until the end of the 20th century, with its oeuvre comprising more than 5000 musical instruments. Only 22 organs from the period of Eberhard Friedrich Walcker survived worldwide, providing us a partial insight into the sound ideal of his time.
The cultural legacy of the Walcker Organ Workshop, which significally influences part of the Slovenian organ landscape, has shaped the meaning of today’s view of organ building. The technical, as well as sonic characteristics of Walcker’s innovations have been taken up by many famous Slovenian organ builders, such as Peter Rumpel, Franc Goršič, the Zupan brothers, Ivan Milavec, Anton Dernič, Ivan Naraks and others, who have developed their own visions and ideas regarding the technical and sonic aspects of the organ.
By researching the preserved documents and historical organs of the German cultural area, we will be able to better understand the developments of the time also on Slovenian soil, and thus the importance and influence that Walcker had on both world and Slovenian organ building.
