The mystery of the Gottfried Silbermann organ 

Imagine a literary scholar finds a manuscript of poetry—and clearly identifies Johann Wolfgang Goethe as its author–until one of his colleagues demonstrates, quite convincingly, that the poem is actually by Friedrich Schiller. Such a story took place in Leipzig—only it wasn’t about a poem, but about a small organ, located in the Museum of Musical Instruments at the University. And instead of Goethe and Schiller, the focus is on the two most important organ builders of the Baroque era in Saxony: Gottfried Silbermann and Zacharias Hildebrandt.

“Saxony’s Splendour” — a rural gem in the big city  

Five sonorous pipe stops, installed in a beautiful case embellished with curves, adorned with cherubs and abundant gilding: built in 1724 for the village church in Hilbersdorf (Saxony), near the Ore Mountains town of Freiberg, this organ is indeed a little gem. It arrived at the Leipzig Museum of Musical Instruments in 1926 by winding paths, as the museum’s curator and deputy director Veit Heller explains: “At that time, it was listed as a Silbermann organ, and no one questioned that at first.” Gottfried Silbermann was named as the organ’s builder both in the Freiberger gemeinnützigen Nachrichten (which can be roughly translated as “Freiberg’s Public Interest Bulletin”) in 1800, and later in 1840, in the old Sächsischen Kirchengalerie (Saxon Church Gallery) …  

Ulrich Dähnert’s theory—An organ made by Hildebrandt, not Silbermann 

But in 1964, the Dresden organologist Ulrich Dähnert came forward as a doubter. In the journal Das Musikinstrument, he proposed a new theory. And now it gets exciting: “In his article, which is already quite dated now, Dähnert suggested that this instrument was built by Zacharias Hildebrandt and not by Gottfried Silbermann,” curator Heller recounts.  As evidence for his claim, Ulrich Dähnert cited two documents at the time. The first: the chronicle of Pastor Israel Löscher, who was serving in Hilbersdorf when the organ was built. The second: a handwritten letter from Zacharias Hildebrandt, in which he expressly mentions this positive organ intended for Hilbersdorf, suggesting that he was the builder. The organ would therefore be by Zacharias Hildebrandt and not Gottfried Silbermann. This opinion of Ulrich Dähnert quickly gained ground in research after 1964. But the written sources on which his discovery was based were apparently never re-examined…

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