Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nieh Êrh.

See Nie Er.

Niehoff [Nyhoff; Nyeuwenhoff or ‘Nyeuwenhuys’ in the Low Countries, Niegehoff in Lower Saxony and Neuhoff in Franconia].

North Netherlandish family of organ builders of German origin. Active in the Low Countries, the Rhineland, Hessen and Franconia, it includes the brothers Heinrich [Hendrik] (b c1495; d ’s-Hertogenbosch, Dec 1560) and Hermann (b c1495; d after 1546), Heinrich’s son Nikolaus (b Amsterdam, c1525; d ’s-Hertogenbosch, c1604) and Nikolaus’s son Jakob (b ’s-Hertogenbosch, c1565; d ?Cologne, 1626). The family originated in Münster; in 1540 Heinrich was called ‘Hendrik van Munster’ in ’s-Hertogenbosch, and the authentic form of the name, Niehoff, is even now more common in Münster than anywhere else.

About 1520 Heinrich went to work for Jan van Covelens (d Amsterdam, 1532), whose workshop was in Amsterdam though the type of organs he built suggests that he originally came from the Rhine valley north of Cologne (the assertion that his surname was Franckens and that he came from Koblenz is erroneous). Heinrich won the master’s approval and took over the business in 1533. He moved to ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1538. In 1537 or 1538, on the instructions of the church of St Jan in ’s-Hertogenbosch, he visited Maastricht and Liège to study the new type of organ being introduced to the Low Countries by Peter Breisiger, who was working in Maastricht, and Hans Suys (see Suisse), who was probably at Liège. He returned to ’s-Hertogenbosch accompanied by Suys as his business partner. After Suys’s death, at the latest in 1544, he took Jasper Johannsen [Brouckmann] (d 1558) of Münster as his associate. In 1561 Nikolaus Niehoff took over the business, which he conducted in partnership with Arnold Lampeler until 1573; he was eventually succeeded by his son Jakob.

Together with Suys, Heinrich Niehoff built the organ in the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (1539–45; three manuals, 25 stops), which was later played by Sweelinck. Instruments built with Johannsen include those at Zierikzee (1547–9; two manuals, c18 stops), the Petrikirche, Hamburg (1548–51; three manuals, c35 stops), the Johanniskirche, Lüneburg (1551–3; three manuals, 26 stops; the case and several stops survive), and St Janskerk, Gouda (1556–8; two manuals, 18 stops; the case is preserved at Abcoude). Nikolaus worked in Cologne Cathedral (1569–73; three manuals, 25 stops), in Mainz Cathedral (1584–5) and elsewhere, and perhaps built the organ of the Johanniskirche in Hamburg (1567) which, rebuilt by Arp Schnitger, is now in Cappel, Wursten. Jakob built organs in the abbey at Steinfeld, Eifel (c1600; 13 stops extant), St Johann Baptist, Cologne (1613–15), and Würzburg Cathedral (1615–18; two manuals, 20 stops).

Heinrich Niehoff adopted the type of organ developed by Johann Kovelens, the first builder deliberately to incorporate a group of wide-scale pipes to contrast with the Principal chorus. Johann had taken up the store of new, ‘alien’ stops imported by Suys and had added these, together with the spring-chest principle, to the basic scheme of the north Rhineland organ. He divided the Hauptwerk into Principal (with Diapason, Principal, full Mixture and sharp Mixture) and Oberwerk (comprising the remainder of the flues – including the flute upperwork – and the reeds). There were, in addition, a Rückpositiv (with the same three groups of stops) and Pedal (with Trumpet 8' and Flute 2'). The keyboard ranges were F' to a'', C to a'', F to a'' and F to d'; and there were couplers from Oberwerk to Rückpositiv and from Principal to Pedal. This was the model also followed by two other Brabantine families of organ builders: the Lampelers of Mill (the brothers Arnold, Reinhard and Dietrich), who built instruments at St Lamberti, Münster (1573–9; three manuals, 25 stops), and Münster Cathedral (1585–8; three manuals, 26 stops), and the Hocque(t)s of Grave (Florenz and the brothers Nikolaus and Florenz), who built instruments at Cleves Abbey (1575), Trier Cathedral (1590–93, three manuals, 25 stops), Echternach Abbey (1605), and St Janskerk, ’s-Hertogenbosch (1618–34; the case and some ranks of pipes survive). Heinrich Niehoff exercised a powerful influence on organ building in Hamburg.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (‘Niehoff’, ‘Orgel’, §V, 1; M.A. Vente)

PraetoriusSM

W. Lootens: Beschryving van het oude en nieuwe orgel in de Groote- of St. Lievens Monster-kerk der stadt Zierikzee (Zierikzee, 1771/R)

H. Klotz: Über die Orgelkunst der Gotik, der Renaissance und des Barock (Kassel, 1934, 3/1986), 93ff, 174f

G. Fock: ‘Hamburgs Anteil am Orgelbau im niederdeutschen Kulturgebiet’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für hamburgische Geschichte, xxxviii (1939), 289–373

H. Klotz: ‘Die Kölner Domorgel von 1569/73’, Musik und Kirche, xiii (1941), 105

M.A. Vente: Bouwstoffen tot de geschiedenis van het Nederlandse orgel in de 16de eeuw (Amsterdam, 1942)

H. Klotz: ‘Niederländische Orgelbaumeister am Trierer Dom’, Mf, ii (1949), 36–49

B. Bijtelaar: ‘De orgels van Sweelinck’, Het orgel, xlix (1953), 137, 151, 165; l (1954), 1ff, 21ff

M.A. Vente: Proeve van een repertorium van de archivalia betrekking hebbende op het Nederlandse orgel en zijn makers tot omstreeks 1630 (Brussels, 1956)

M.A. Vente: Die Brabanter Orgel (Amsterdam, 1958, enlarged 2/1963)

R. Reuter: Orgeln in Westfalen (Kassel, 1965)

W. Schlepphorst: ‘Die westfälische Orgellandschaft in ihren Beziehungen zu anderen Gebieten’, Orgelkunst und Orgelforschung: Gedenkschrift Rudolf Reuter (Kassel, 1990)

HANS KLOTZ