Carl Eduard Gesell (11 May 1845 – 8 April 1894) was a German

organ builder Organ building is the profession of designing, building, restoring and maintaining pipe organs. The Organ builders , organ builder usually receives a commission to design an organ with a particular disposition of Organ stop, stops, Manual (mu ...

Life

Born in

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Re ...

, Gesell was trained in the Potsdam organ workshop of his father Carl Ludwig Gesell and with Franz Wilhelm Sonreck in Cologne. He then worked for Friedrich Meyer in

Herford Herford (; nds, Hiarwede) is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, located in the lowlands between the hill chains of the Wiehen Hills and the Teutoburg Forest. It is the capital of the district of Herford (district), Herford. Geography ...

. After his father's death in 1867, he took over his father's Potsdam firm. He continued the tradition of the firm and built mainly single-manual organs for churches in the

Mittelmark The Mittelmark (German for "Middle March") is a historical region in eastern Germany that was the core territory of the Margrave of Brandenburg between the Oder and Elbe rivers. The name refers to the location of the territory between the Altmark ...

region. In addition, he won orders from abroad and exported organs to Buenos Aires and Constantinople, now Istanbul. In addition, he carried out a large number of organ conversions and repairs. Carl Eduard Gesell remained childless. After his death in 1894, his pupil

Alexander Schuke Carl Alexander Schuke (14 August 1870 – 16 November 1933) was a German organ builder and from 1894 to 1933 owner and manager of the . The company still exists today. Life Born in , Kingdom of Prussia, Schuke was the son of the pastor Karl ...

took over the firm and developed it into the renowned

Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau Carl Alexander Schuke (14 August 1870 – 16 November 1933) was a German organ builder and from 1894 to 1933 owner and manager of the . The company still exists today. Life Born in , Kingdom of Prussia, Schuke was the son of the pastor Karl ...

company.

Works (selection)

Mittelmark and Argentina

Among Gesell's most extensive new buildings were the organs for the Klosterkirche St. Pauli in

Brandenburg an der Havel Brandenburg an der Havel () is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, which served as the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg until it was replaced by Berlin in 1417. With a population of 72,040 (as of 2020), it is located on the banks of the H ...

. (1868) with two manuals, 27

organ stop An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air (known as ''wind'') to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; each can be "on" (admitting the passage of air ...

s and

pedal A pedal (from the Latin '' pes'' ''pedis'', "foot") is a lever designed to be operated by foot and may refer to: Computers and other equipment * Footmouse, a foot-operated computer mouse * In medical transcription, a pedal is used to control p ...

, for the German Protestant church in Buenos Aires (1871) with likewise two manuals, twelve stops and pedal and for the churches in Herzberg (1885) and Golm (1886) each with two manuals, eleven stops and pedal. Village churches equipped with new instruments by Carl Eduard Gesell include the village church of , the village church of , the village church of

Siethen Siethen is a village and a part of the city of Ludwigsfelde in the district of Teltow-Fläming in the federal state of Brandenburg. The name Siethen means "land of corn". Demographics The village has a population of 600 inhabitants (2004), a siz ...

and the village churches of , and . In 1867 he extended the organ of the company founder Gottlieb Heise from 1847 in the

Church of Peace, Potsdam The Protestant Church of Peace (german: Friedenskirche) is situated in the Marly Gardens on the Green Fence (''Am Grünen Gitter'') in the palace grounds of Sanssouci Park in Potsdam, Germany. The church was built according to the wishes and w ...

from 18 to 25 stops. In 1882, he carried out a further conversion on the Joachim Wagner organ of 1731 in the Garnisonkirche. In 1887 he rebuilt the organ he himself had made in 1874 in the

Neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

brick church in Paaren im Glien.

Organ of the Istanbul Kreuzkirche

On the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the Gesell organ in the Evangelical Church of the Holy Cross in Istanbul, the German-speaking congregation in Turkey published a commemorative publication in 2004. The organ was built in 1883 by Carl Eduard Gesell and installed and inaugurated in 1884. It was equipped with two manuals, one

and a total of twelve

s and two .Evangelical Congregation of German Language in Turkey: ''120 Years of Gesell Organ ...'' The annual report of the congregation from the year 1882/83 notes among other things: In 1964/65, the organ was redesigned by Werner Bosch and in the 2000s the congregation turned to the builder's workshop to have it overhauled. Schuke was not aware of the organ's whereabouts until that time; the instrument was listed in the catalogue of works, but with the note "receipt unknown". In 2003, during a visit to Istanbul, Matthias Schuke discovered that of all the surviving Gesell organs, only the Istanbul one still had an original stop (Principal 8′) and the original casing.

References

External links

Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau GmbH

catalogue raisonné A ''catalogue raisonné'' (or critical catalogue) is a comprehensive, annotated listing of all the known artworks by an artist either in a particular medium or all media. The works are described in such a way that they may be reliably identified ...

. The list contains all new constructions, alterations and repairs by Carl Eduard Gesell, with details of the stops, manuals and pedals. {{DEFAULTSORT:Gesell, Carl Eduard German pipe organ builders 1845 births 1894 deaths People from Potsdam