Qualla: Organ in the Jacobikerk at Uithuizen

Organ in the Jacobikerk at Uithuizen: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Baykedevries, CC BY-SA 4.0. 'I do not deserve anything from these two works,' Arp Schnitger wrote about his organs at Uithuizen and the Academiekerk in Groningen, 'because I had two rogues and idlers in those places who probably consumed a lot, but have not earned anything for me. God will give them their reward.' It is one of the great backhanded compliments in the history of organ building - the master himself dismissing one of his masterpieces because the local crew drank too much and worked too little. Three hundred and twenty-five years later, the organ at Uithuizen is still here, still playable, still considered one of the finest surviving Schnitger instruments in the world. The rogues, presumably, got whatever reward God decided on.

Image: Baykedevries | CC BY-SA 4.0

Organ in the Jacobikerk at Uithuizen: A Village Organ, Oversized

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fransvannes, CC BY-SA 4.0. The congregation of the Jacobikerk in Uithuizen - a market village on the Groningen coast - signed their contract with Arp Schnitger on 26 April 1699. They were buying twenty-seven stops on two manuals and pedal, for 1,600 Caroli guilders, plus another 900 to the furniture maker ...

Image: Fransvannes | CC BY-SA 4.0

Organ in the Jacobikerk at Uithuizen: Lions and Angels

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wutsje, CC BY-SA 3.0. Look up at the Rückpositiv - the smaller chest of pipes that hangs over the gallery rail - and the central tower is crowned by the coat of arms of the Alberda van Menkema family, the patrons whose nearby borg still stands. Two upright lions hold the shield. The carvings on either...

Image: Wutsje | CC BY-SA 3.0

Organ in the Jacobikerk at Uithuizen: The Hinsz Repairs

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A. J. van der Wal, CC BY-SA 4.0. Schnitger's workshop did the original build, but the man whose name is most associated with later northern Dutch organ work is Albertus Antonius Hinsz, his successor's successor. Hinsz repaired the Uithuizen organ in 1747 and restored it more thoroughly in 1785, renewing both the...

Image: A. J. van der Wal | CC BY-SA 4.0

Organ in the Jacobikerk at Uithuizen: What Was Lost, and Found Again

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Michielvd assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0. The nineteenth century was rough on the Uithuizen organ. Between 1854 and 1856 the workshop of Petrus van Oeckelen replaced ten of Schnitger's stops in whole or in part, widened the case, and broadened the pedal division to suit nineteenth-century tastes. In 1891 the same worksho...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Michielvd assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY-SA 3.0

Organ in the Jacobikerk at Uithuizen: A Template for the World

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michielverbeek, CC BY-SA 4.0. What makes the Uithuizen organ extraordinary today is not just that it survived - many baroque organs survived in some form - but that what survived is so largely original. Schnitger's pipework, Schnitger's windchests for the Rückpositiv and pedal, Hinsz's keyboards from 1785, an...

Image: Michielverbeek | CC BY-SA 4.0