Built in 1624 by Hans Scherer the Younger, the organ in St. Stephen's Church in Tangermünde is one of the most important historical organs in Europe. It is one of the rare surviving testimonies to the work of the famous and very productive Scherer family, which had a decisive influence on organ building in northern Germany for three generations. The second and third generations were strongly influenced by Hendrik Niehoff, whose great instruments in Hamburg (St. Petri, 1548) and Lüneburg (St. Johannis, 1551-53) pointed the way for the development of the great three-manual North German Renaissance organs. In many contracts, explicit reference was made to the organ of St. Petri in Hamburg as a model. The organ in Tangermünde was reconstructed in 1991-94 by Alexander Schuke Potsdam after several alterations in the 18th and 19th centuries in an exemplary manner for the time. Since then, it was the only organ that was once again representative of the great three-manual Scherer concept and, at the same time, the only historical organ that could still convey an impression of the great Dutch tradition of Hendrik Niehoff in many respects. The only thing missing were the characteristic reed stops in the Rückpositv, which were otherwise not missing in any large Niehoff or Scherer organ. Preserved mixtures of the old windchest clearly showed that the mixtures had stood on the back of the windchest, and the depth of the case also offered no space for a disposition with reed voices. Organ researchers outside the Netherlands were hardly aware of the possibility of distributing the stops between the upper and lower chest, and our study Het Nederlandse Orgel in de Renaissance en de Barok had not yet been published. On re-examination, I was able to identify some parts displayed outside the organ in Tangermünde as fragments of an Oberlade of the Oberwerk. And a re-examination of the traces in the Rückpositiv case revealed that there had also been an Oberlade there. In the course of a major cleaning in 2018-19, the two stops common in the large Scherer organs, the Brass Regal and the Krummhorn 8', were reconstructed.

Restorer: Alexander Schuke Orgelbau Potsdam (Werder (Havel), D)