Not much can be said with certainty about the oldest organ, now the Hinsz main organ. It is believed that the Bovenkerk came into the possession of a large organ built by Johan van Kovelens (or J. van Covelen) between 1520 and 1523. The oldest pipework in the organ (especially the flutes 4′ and 2′ of the Bovenwerk) probably comes from Jan Morlet (1629). In 1676 Jan Slegel completed a new organ, using materials from the old organ. In the years 1694-1712 Johan Duyschot made some changes and had the organ in maintenance.

Albertus Anthoni Hinsz carried out extensive work on the organ in the years 1741 – 1743: he designed a new case, renovated all the wind channels, the windchests and the key and stop actions. The existing disposition was also expanded somewhat on this occasion. This made it the largest organ made by Hinsz.

In the years 1788/1790 H.H. Freytag and F.C. Schnitger Jr. added an independent pedal of 8 stops and added a Borstwerk of 4 stops playable from the Bovenwerk keyboard. They placed the Dulciaan 8′ of the Rugwerk on this new Borstwerk, and a Fagot 16′ was placed on the vacant place in the Rugwerk. During the nineteenth century, the organ builders Van Gruisen, Scheuer and Naber worked on the instrument. In 1866 the Kamper organ maker Zwier van Dijk gave the Borstwerk its own keyboard. He also added some stops.

Source: https://debovenkerk.nl/orgels/

Keyboard compass
As with many historic organs, the keyboard compass of this organ is limited to c”’ (49 keys) and pedal to d’ (27 keys) . We have maintained this limited keyboard compass. This requires some creativity when making music and selecting the repertoire to be played. This is the same on the real organ and can be heard well in live concerts or CD recordings. There are a number of ways to deal with the limited keyboard compass:

1. Simply omit the top note. This is most commonly done and because of the organ’s high brilliant voices, it is often barely noticeable
2. Certain chords or runs can be played an octave lower
3. The whole piece can be played 1 or more notes lower (not easy).

There are of course more ways but these are roughly the most important ones.
We do not offer an extended version with extended keyboard size.

Number of divisions and keyboards
This organ has 5 divisions and 4 keyboards. The 2nd upper division can be coupled to the 1st upper division and thus has no independent keyboard. For users with 2 and 3 manual organs, we advise setting the Borstwerk to the Hoofdwerk. We are currently working on a “floating division” option in Sweelinq where any physical keyboard can be linked to the virtual keyboard of choice. This option is expected to be released this year.

8 GB of RAM (excl. operating system) is required to load this organ.

Pictures: Sweelinq and Jan-Willem van Braak Fotografie