The Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau is a company to build pipe organs, founded in 1820 in Potsdam. It was taken over by Alexander Schuke in 1894, and by his sons Karl Schuke and Hans-Joachim Schuke in 1933. From 1950, Hans-Joachim Schuke ran the workshop, now in East Germany, from 1953. It became a VEB, Potsdamer Schuke-Orgelbau in 1972, but Matthias Schuke was able to reprivatise it in 1990 after German reunification, naming it after his grandfather Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau. He moved the workshop to Werder (Havel) in 2004 and passed leadership to his sons in 2018.
The organ builder Gottlieb Heise founded the company in Potsdam in 1820, with a workshop in a courtyeard of a complex of buildings in the historic Dutch Quarter.[1] In 1848, his pupil Carl Ludwig Gesell[de] took over, first together with Gustav Schulz who soon founded his own workshop. His son Carl Eduard Gesell became head of the company in 1868. When he died without children in 1994, Alexander Schuke baught the company and made it one of the best-known organ building workshops in Brandenburg.[2] When he died in 1933, his two sons, Karl Schuke and Hans-Joachim Schuke led the company jointly.[3]
Duting World War II, Hans-Joachim Schuke was a Soviet prisoner of war.[4] In 1950 the brothers decided to found a second workshop in West Berlin because of deteriorating conditions, both polically and economically, for manufactoring in the GDR. Hans-Joachim Schuke led the Potsdam section, while Karl Schuke moved to the new Karl Schuke Berliner Orgelbauwerkstatt. In 1972, the Potsdam branch became a state-owned Volkseigener Betrieb VEB Potsdamer Schuke-Orgelbau.
After German reunification, Matthias Schuke, in the third generation and working in the company from 1974, was able to reprivatise the workshop in 1990. He named it after his grandfather Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau. He moved the company to new premises in Werder (Havel) in 2004.[2] In October 2018, Matthias Schuke passed leadership to his sons Johannes und Michael Schuke.
Musicologists appreciated the "romantic and symphonic sound" of Schuke organs, caused by diligent choice of material for the pipes and the production in their own workshop.[1]
List of works
The company's list of works has more than 630 new organs built between 1895 und 2024, more than 60 restoration works as of 2017, and expansions of existing organs.[1]
The following selected works list features their year of completion, opus location, name of the building, an image, the numbers of manuals, pedals (P) and stops and, if available, an additional reference, notes, a link, and an external link to the entry on the organindex.de website.
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