Organ building tradition

The safeguarding of the spirit of the Saxon
Silbermann school combined with the newest
artistic and technical knowledge is
characteristic for our organ building workshop.

When HERMANN EULE registered his trade as an organ builder in Bautzen on 26 January 1872 an
apprenticeship of many years lay behind him. His journeyman years led him to Balthasar Schlimbach
in Würzburg, where he became familiar with the most modern form of the windchest, the mechanical
kegellade (or cone valve chest), which he built from then on. His basic principle of the highest possible
solidity quickly gained him a good reputation in the Oberlausitz, later in the whole of Saxony and in
Bohemia. Numerous examples of his work are still in existence today. In terms of his sound he followed
the contemporary currents of organ romanticism. Sonorous, broad mensural notation principles,
melodious woodwind and pronounced strings characterise the tone of these organs. At the turn of the
century he moved away from the mechanical kegelade and subsequently built precisely functioning
pneumatic taschenlade organs on the flow-back principle.

Hermann Eule died in 1929 at the age of 83. His daughter JOHANNA EULE continued to run the company.
The influences of the organ movement also reverberated in Bautzen. Thus, in 1936 the first new
"schleiflade" organ in Saxony was built for the Pauli-Kreuz Church in Chemnitz (III / 39).
At this time restoration activities also began on significant historical organs, largely in Saxony and
Thuringia.

1957 HANS EULE took over the management of the company. He brought it to a new peak with
considerable personal commitment. He created 134 new organs, one of which was the largest church
organ built in the GDR in Zwickau Cathedral. The creation of his works also took him beyond the border
to Sweden, the former Soviet union and to West Germany.

After his premature death in 1971 his wife and long-term staff member INGEBORG EULE carried on the
running of the company. She even ran it as a “People’s Workshop” during the years of dispossession
between 1972 - 1990 in such a far-sighted and forward-looking manner that the company was able to
return to family ownership in summer 1990 almost undamaged. The Managing Director from 1987
to 2005 was the organ builder master craftsman ARMIN ZUCKERRIEDEL. Between 1971 and 2005
231 new organs were built and 43 historical instruments were restored.

At the beginning of 2006 leadership of the company passed into younger hands. Since then the managing
Director has been ANNE-CHRISTIN EULE, Ingeborg Eule’s granddaughter, a qualified organ builder with
a diploma in business administration, along with the master organ builder CHRISTOPH KUMPE, who has
been employed by the company since 1978 and has been a constructor and workshop manager for many
years.

New construction and restoration carry the same weight at Eule Orgelbau allowing knowledge gained
from activities involving historical organs to be brought to bear on new constructions. The tone palette,
experienced with the involvement of historical mensures, which are integrated in a developing inventory
through a process of synthesis, provide a welcome enrichment.