Frederiksborg, Slotskirke

Esaias Compenius 1610 (Praetorius erroneously gives 1612)

State of preservation: all relevant parts original

Presumably the organ was designed and made in a cooperation of Compenius and the court chapel director Michael Praetorius.
Originally built for duke Heinrich Julius of Brunswick for his castle Hessen near Wolfenbüttel it was presented to king Christian IV of Denmark in 1616/17 and transfered to Frederiksborg north of Copenhagen. A first description was published by Michael Praetorius in his Syntagma Musicum II: De Organographia (Wolfenbüttel 1619, p. 189). By a happy coincidence it was not damaged when the castle caught fire in 1859.

All pipes are made of wood, the front diapason 4' of ivory, front-plated with ebony. This rare peculiarity gave this organ an aura of excellence from the start which kept it from later modernisations.

The number of 9 stops in every division represents an ideal of harmony and balance typical for the Northern Renaissance. This concept offered the technical and musical options eg for playing chorales with a slow treble melody line taken by the pedal. Therefore the pedal offers a variety of suitable stops from 4' to 1' as well as a 16' in the manual to give a bass fundament.