The Niehoff organ from Sint-Jan’s church in Gouda. From renaissance organ to the empty cases in Abcoude by Auke H. Vlagsma

Articles

Auke H. Vlagsma The Niehoff organ from Sint-Jan’s church in Gouda. From renaissance organ to the empty cases in Abcoude
Het ORGEL 113 (2017), nr. 3, 32-41 [summary]

Hendrik Niehoff and his son Nicolaes are among the most important Dutch organ builders of the Renaissance. They built several organs, but unfortunately the instruments in the Netherlands have disappeared; there remain only five organ cases. The cases were usually commissioned by Niehoff from the furniture makers and sculptors Adriaan and Jan Schalken. There is scarcely any information available about Niehoff’s organs, except for the 2-manual organ with pedals that they made in 1558 in St.-Jan’s church in Gouda.
The trustees of this church kept their records in good order. Moreover, there was no damage caused by the Reformation. So there is a lot of material available about the building of the organ and also about later repairs and changes. I know of no other church archive that contains so many contracts with and invoices from organ builders; this makes the continual adjustments to style changes in music visible. This article describes these changes.
Transcriptions (made by the author) from the archives can be found in the pdf-document

Photos Jan Smelik (Click to enlarge)