Stamp of the Silbermann Organ in Frauereuth

This article features the East German stamp of the Silbermann organ in Frauereuth. It is the third in a set of four stamps from 1976 celebrating baroque organs by the famous German organ builder Gottfried Silbermann. Make sure to check out my other posts about the stamps depicting the Silbermann organs in Rötha, Freiburg, and Dresden.

Organs on Stamps

Pipe organs are among the most prevalent specific instruments that appear on stamps. In other words, while other stamps might feature a generic violin, a generic guitar, or a generic piano, stamps with organs feature very specific instruments. Organs are usually very large and expensive and custom built for a specific church or cathedral. Large pipe organs can even be in use for several centuries (with regular maintenance and restoration work). Organs can become elements of pride for a parish, a community, or even a country.

You can read other posts about organs on stamps from Hamburg, Germany; Wasquehal, France; Oaxaca, Mexico; and from the Vatican City.

The Fraureuth Village Church

The wonderful thing about the survival of so many Silbermann organs in Germany is that they can be found in grand cathedrals as well as small churches. There is just a tremendous diversity in the sizes and sounds of the instruments. The organ on this stamp is from the village church in Fraureuth, in the district of Zwickau, in Saxony. The present church dates from 1733 and stands on the site of a church that was built in 1570.

The stately baroque church is rather austere, in the Lutheran tradition, but with beautifully ornate moments of detail. The bell tower, for example, rises from a square tower and has a curved dome at the top. Inside, the church is plastered, but features Rococo paintings and an ornate pulpit. In 1742, the members of the church were able to secure a contract with Silbermann for an organ for their church and they built a vestibule on the western side of the church to house the bellows for the instrument.

The Organ

Silbermann (1683-1753) was the son of Michael Silbermann, a carpenter in Frauenstein. Beginning in 1702, Gottfried apprenticed with his older brother Andreas, learning organ building in Strasborg, in the Alsace region of France bordering Germany. There, Silbermann was able to study the organs of both the German and French schools. In 1711, Gottfried established his own workshop in the city of Freiburg. It is thought that he built around fifty organs, of which, incredibly, thirty-five survive. Silbermann instruments characteristically have a bright tone and lots of reeds.

The Fraureuth organ has two manuals and a pedal board with twenty stops. While much of the original organ remains, the organ did have significant repairs in 1850, 1862, 1928, and 1978. As a result of changing pitch standards, the entire temperament and pitch of the organ was altered in the twentieth century. In 2018 and 19, the organ builder Christoph Rühle was responsible for a complete restoration of the instrument to its original construction, pitch, and disposition.

According to Frank-Harald Greß, Michael Lange: Die Orgeln Gottfried Silbermanns (= publications of the Society of Organ Friends. No. 177). 2nd Edition. Sandstein-Verlag, Dresden 2001 the disposition of the organ is as follows:

The Stamp

The four stamps in the Silbermann organ series are rather simple. In each, the organ is drawn using bright colors and depicted with a straight on perspective. The instruments are set against a bright, strong color, for the 35 pfenning stamp featuring the Frauereuth organ, the stamp is a bright blue. The entire set is the design of Gerhard Voigt.

Here is a recording of the organ from 2009, so before the last restoration of it back to its baroque configuration. Still, it is a really wonderful instrument: