Gottfried Fritzsche

Gottfried Fritzsche (real name Frietzsch) (1578 – 1638) was a German organ builder.

Life
Born in Meissen, Frietzsch wrote himself with a stretched IE. Research in the 20th century, however, consistently referred to him as "Fritzsche". He was born the son of the goldsmith Jobst Fritzsche (died 1585). His grandfather Johannes Fritzsche (1508-1586) was cathedral syndic in Meissen. Before 1603 he probably learned organ building from Johann Lange in Kamenz. Fritzsche was an organ builder in Meissen until 1612, then in Dresden. There he was appointed court organ builder to the Elector of Saxony around 1614. From 1619 to 1627, he worked in Wolfenbüttel and from 1628 to 1629 in Celle, before coming to Ottensen in 1629. He succeeded Hans Scherer the Younger and remained there until his death.

His first marriage to a woman who is no longer known by name produced three sons and three daughters, including the organ builder Hans Christoph Fritzsche. Through his second marriage in 1629 to Margarete née Ringemuth, widowed Rist, he became the stepfather of the poet Johann Rist. His pupils (and later sons-in-law) were Friederich Stellwagen and Tobias Brunner.

Work
Fritzsche stood on the threshold from the Renaissance to the early Baroque. He further developed Brabant organ building and introduced numerous innovations, for example, on the Zungenregister the rackett regals such as dulzian, regal, sordun and the long-beaked crumhorn. Fritzsche not infrequently placed stops of the same stop family but with contrasting scales (wide and narrow) in one work or chose unusual foot pitches. In the Brustwerk and pedal he regularly used one-foot voices, which were still unknown with Scherer. Also characteristic is his double zill, which takes the place of Scherer's high-lying Scharff, as well as the use of various aliquotregister as single voices. For example, the simbel installed by Fritzsche in 1635 in the organ of the St. James' Church, Hamburg was the first of its kind in northern Germany. He also liked to use secondary stops such as tremulant and "drum", which do not yet appear in Scherer's work, and Effect stops such as "Cuckoo", "Birdsong", and "Nightingale". While hammered lead pipes had been the rule in northern Germany until then, Fritzsche planed the pipes and used an alloy with a higher tin content; for the cups of the trombones and trumpets he added marcasite. Compared to Scherer, the use of Subsemitones (double upper keys) was new. During his time in Hamburg, he carried out alterations to the organs of all four main churches. Fritzsche's extensions made the organs in St. Jacobi and St. Katharinen among the first organs ever to have four manuals.

Fritzsche died in Ottensen, modern-day Hamburg.