Compenius.

German family of organ builders (possibly a branch of the Low Countries family of Kompen or ten Compe), active 1546–1671. Timotheus Compenius lived at various times in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) and Staffelstein (both in Upper Franconia) and worked in the diocese of Würzburg. In 1596–7 he added a pedal-board to the organ (built 1572–3 by Rodensteen) in the Stadtkirche, Bayreuth, and wrote a guide to the instrument’s registration, Ordentliche Specification und Verzeichnung zur Zusammenziehung der unterschiedlichen Register (included in Hofner). In 1602 he built an organ for St Michael, Hof, with two manuals and 20 stops.

Timotheus’s brother, Heinrich the elder (d Nordhausen, 2 May 1611), is mentioned as organist of St Andreas, Eisleben, in 1546 and 1572, but by 1579 he had moved to Nordhausen, which remained his base while he built organs for such places as the Predigerkirche in Erfurt (1579), the Stadtkirche in Cönnern (1580–82) and, with Timotheus, the cathedral in Fritzlar (1588–90). He wrote a composition manual, Musica teutsch in kurze Regulas und Schriftstücke verfasst, in 1567 (now lost), and a cantata, Gib Glück und Heil, Herr Jesu Christ, for the Erfurt council election in 1572 (the cantata survives in manuscript).

Organs by Heinrich’s son Esaias (b Eisleben; d Hillerød, 1617) included those for St Martin, Kroppenstedt (1603–13); Hessen Castle (between Wolfenbüttel and Halberstadt) (1605–10; two manuals, 27 stops, based on the ideas of the Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg, under the supervision of Michael Praetorius and now in the chapel of Frederiksborg Castle at Hillerød; see illustration); and the Stadtkirche in Bückeburg (1615). Esaias held the official position of organ builder and instrument maker to the court of Brunswick. He assisted Praetorius in the writing of his Organographia and was co-author with him of the Kurzer Bericht, was bei Überlieferung einer Orgel zu observieren, published in Blume.

Heinrich’s son Heinrich the younger (b Eisleben; d Halle, 22 Sept 1631) was official organ builder to the Archbishop-Elector of Magdeburg. He made instruments for such buildings as Magdeburg Cathedral (1604–5), the monastery at Riddagshausen, near Brunswick (c1610), the Stadtkirche, Markranstädt (1617), and St Ägidien, Oschatz (1627).

Esaias’s son Adolph (d Hanover, 1650) built an organ for the court chapel in Bückeburg (1620) and was active in Bremen between 1636 and 1644. He was organist of St Ägidien, Hanover, 1626–36 and 1644–50.

Johann Heinrich (b Halle; d Halle, 11 Dec 1642), son of Heinrich the younger, built the organ of the Moritzkirche, Halle (1624–6), for Samuel Scheidt, under Scheidt’s supervision.

Heinrich the younger’s son Ludwig (b Halle; d Erfurt, 11 Feb 1671) was official organ builder to the chapter of Naumburg Cathedral. His instruments included those in St Johannis, Gera (1645–7), the Predigerkirche in Erfurt (1647–9) and the Schlosskirche in Weimar (from 1657). He designed the organ at the Brüderkirche in Altenburg (from 1655).

Jakob (d Sorau, 1602; his exact relationship to the others is unknown) worked with Michael Hirschfeldt of Nordhausen on an organ with transmissions and extensions for St Maria Magdalena in Breslau (1595–1605).

The Compenius family carried on the craft of the Beck family, with whom they had personal connections. They emulated in particular David Beck’s wealth of foundation stops and reeds, using finely shaded individual colours. But in the layout of their instruments (with the exception of the Magdeburg Cathedral organ) they followed the less elaborate model of Esaias Beck, providing a comprehensive Principal chorus only for the Hauptwerk, and leaving the Pedal in a largely ancillary state. Heinrich the elder built spring-chests, his sons slider-chests. Ivory and ebony were sometimes used for the pipes. The wind pressure of the Compenius organ at Hillerød, all the pipes of which are either wood or ivory, amounts to 55 mm. The manuals of Compenius organs were C to c''' (sometimes to f'''), the pedal-board C to d' (occasionally to e'); C and D were often absent, and sometimes F and G too. On the other hand they often had double keys for D/E and G/A. The German Orgelbewegung was indirectly inspired by the Compenius organ, through the building of the ‘Praetorius Organ’ in the university of Freiburg (1921; Gurlitt/Walcker). The only surviving Compenius organ is that in Frederiksborg Castle at Hillerød; the Gedeckt 8', Quintaden 8' and Rohrflöte 4' stops from the Magdeburg Cathedral organ are incorporated in the present organ of St Martin, Kroppenstedt.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (H. Klotz) PraetoriusSM, ii

H. Hofner: ‘Eine Registrieranweisung aus der Zeitwende zwischen Renaissance und Barock’, Zeitschrift für evangelische Kirchenmusik, viii (1930), 152 only

H. Klotz: Über die Orgelkunst der Gotik, der Renaissance und des Barock (Kassel, 1934, 3/1986)

F. Blume, ed.: M. Praetorius: Orgeln Verdingnis (Wolfenbüttel and Berlin, 1936)

T. Schneider: ‘Die Orgelbauerfamilie Compenius’, AMf, ii (1937), 8–76

J. Laumann: Compeniusorgelet i Frederiksborg Slotskirke (Hillerød, 1955)

A. Hammerich: Et historisk orgel pa Frederiksborg slot (Hillerød, 1981)

P.K. Frandsen: ‘Restaureringen af Compeniusorglet’, Orglet, (1987), no.1, 52–3

K.P. Koch: ‘Samuel Scheidt als Orgelgutachter’, Musik und Kirche, lxii (1992), 198–208

HANS KLOTZ