Rieger Orgelbau

Rieger Orgelbau is an Austrian organ-building company based in Schwarzach, Vorarlberg, and commonly known simply as Rieger. It designs, manufactures, installs, restores and maintains pipe organs for churches, concert halls, educational institutions and other cultural venues. The company’s present identity is the post-1945 continuation of a much older Rieger tradition that began with Franz Rieger in Austrian Silesia. The original workshop developed from a local craft business into an internationally active manufacturer under Franz’s sons Otto and Gustav, later becoming known as Gebrüder Rieger. Franz Rieger completed his first documented organ in 1845 and was formally recorded as a master organ builder in the Austrian Monarchy in 1852. After Otto and Gustav took over in 1873, the business expanded rapidly. It exhibited at the Vienna World Exhibition, won a gold medal, opened a Budapest branch, and obtained commissions across Europe and beyond. The firm built instruments for locations including Norway, London, Gibraltar, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Rome and territories within the former Habsburg lands. Its product range included both large church and concert organs and comparatively small standardized instruments intended to provide an alternative to harmoniums. By the turn of the twentieth century, Rieger had built more than a thousand instruments and employed roughly two hundred people. The company adopted pneumatic and electric actions during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries while continuing to engage with changing ideas about organ tone and construction. It also contributed to the early twentieth-century movement that reassessed late-Romantic orchestral organs and renewed interest in mechanical action, slider chests and historically informed principles. Under Otto Rieger and later Josef von Glatter-Götz, the workshop combined Romantic and reform-oriented approaches and continued exporting widely. The Second World War brought a decisive rupture. Organ building was prohibited during part of the war, and the factory was assigned to wartime production. After 1945, the Jägerndorf workshop and its assets were appropriated by the Czechoslovak state and subsequently incorporated into the nationalized Rieger-Kloss concern. Members of the former ownership and workforce relocated westward. In 1946, Josef von Glatter-Götz and associates established a new workshop in Schwarzach, Austria, using the Rieger name and preserving the family and craft continuity. The Austrian company survived severe post-war conditions through restoration work and the manufacture of other goods before a small positiv organ exhibited at the 1950 World Exhibition in Chicago helped renew its international profile. Josef Glatter-Götz Jr. then guided the workshop toward a renewed classical orientation, using modern engineering and production methods without treating historical imitation as the sole objective. A larger Schwarzach facility opened in 1972. Three of his sons later joined the business, with Raimund contributing design expertise and Christoph serving as managing director until 2003. Wendelin Eberle, who entered Rieger as an apprentice in 1978, became works manager in 1992 and president and owner of Rieger-Orgelbau GmbH in 2003. The modern workshop remains vertically integrated: pipe making, metalwork, console and action components, design, voicing and tuning are coordinated on or around the company’s premises. Rieger states that its aim is not to reproduce one historical school mechanically, but to develop instruments capable of serving a broad repertoire in present and future performance. Its organs are therefore individually planned, with the voicer involved from specification and layout decisions through final tonal regulation. The company has also maintained a notable social-employment tradition, including the use of supported workers in the manufacture of action components.

Franz Rieger was born in 1812 in Zossen, Austrian Silesia, and trained in Vienna under organ builder Joseph Seybert. He returned as a master craftsman in 1844 and completed his first documented organ in 1845 for the Burgberg Church. His workshop gained recognition for organs rooted in the classical building tradition, and he entered the Austrian Monarchy’s trade and industry register in 1852. Two of his sons, Otto and Gustav, trained with him and later broadened their experience in Vienna, Bamberg and Würzburg. They assumed control in 1873, when the business became Franz Rieger & Söhne, and later moved to a larger site under the name Gebrüder Rieger in 1879. Their first jointly produced instrument received a gold medal at the Vienna World Exhibition. The brothers introduced mechanical cone chests, expanded production and developed small organs that helped drive a substantial increase in the opus count. Rieger soon received commissions in Vienna, Hungary and Norway, followed by overseas sales connected with the Paris Exposition of 1878. Expansion continued through the late nineteenth century. The firm established a Budapest branch, built increasingly large instruments and won commissions in Gibraltar, Istanbul, Jerusalem and Rome. It was appointed an organ supplier to the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Court in 1896. By 1900, approximately two hundred people worked for the firm. Pneumatic and electric actions were introduced alongside new Romantic tonal concepts, while Gustav Rieger also developed combination and extension systems. More than a thousand instruments had entered the firm’s opus record by 1903. After Otto Rieger’s death, his son Otto took over and built more than a thousand additional organs. The younger Otto promoted Art Nouveau case design and participated in the 1909 international organ-building discussions in Vienna that encouraged a return toward mechanical action and classical construction principles. Following the First World War, the business found itself in the newly created Czechoslovak state. Otto’s death in 1920 left no direct successor capable of managing the company, so Josef von Glatter-Götz, an engineer and former officer who had joined as works manager, purchased it in 1924. The reorganized company recovered during the interwar period. Josef’s sons Egon and Josef became partners in 1936, and the Jägerndorf factory was reportedly responsible for a large share of organ exports from the German Reich in 1938–39. The brothers divided artistic and technical responsibilities and accepted commissions from Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. The Second World War ended this growth: Egon was killed in 1940, organ building was prohibited from 1943 to 1945, and the factory was redirected to making military packing materials. In 1945 the Czechoslovak government appropriated the workshop as German property under the post-war decrees associated with President Edvard Beneš. The factory and assets were merged with Josef Kloss’s workshop and later formed the nationalized Rieger-Kloss enterprise. Josef von Glatter-Götz and some former employees relocated to Austria, where they founded a new Rieger workshop in Schwarzach in 1946. The early years were difficult, involving restoration work and unrelated manufacturing, but the sale of a six-stop positiv shown in Chicago in 1950 helped restore the company’s reputation. Josef Glatter-Götz Jr. led the post-war revival and developed compact organs while reasserting classical principles of construction, supported by contemporary technical methods. Orders returned from Austria, Germany and the United States, and the company eventually required a larger facility, opened in 1972. His sons Caspar, Raimund and Christoph joined the business. Christoph became managing director in 1977 and remained in that position until 2003; Caspar later left to lead another workshop, while Raimund contributed interior and industrial design and organ design. Wendelin Eberle began his apprenticeship at Rieger in 1978, advanced through technical, voicing and tuning roles, and became works manager in 1992. In 2003 he became president and owner. The contemporary company employs a relatively small specialist workforce and coordinates design, pipe manufacture, metalwork, console and action production, installation, voicing and tuning. Rieger’s stated design philosophy avoids treating any single historical style as a template. Instead, research into organs from different periods informs new instruments intended to interpret a wide repertoire and function as instruments for contemporary and future musical life.

• 2003

  Wendelin Eberle assumes ownership

  [1]Rieger Orgelbauen.wikipedia.org

  Wendelin Eberle becomes president and owner after a career that began with a Rieger apprenticeship.

• 1972

  Expanded Schwarzach facility opens

  [1]Rieger Orgelbauen.wikipedia.org

  A 2,000-square-metre, high-ceilinged workshop opens to accommodate growth.

• 1946

  Austrian Rieger workshop founded

  [1]Rieger Orgelbauen.wikipedia.org

  Josef von Glatter-Götz and former employees establish the present Austrian continuation in Schwarzach.

• 1896

  Appointed supplier to the Imperial Court

  [1]Rieger Orgelbauen.wikipedia.org

  The firm receives the designation of organ supplier to the court of Franz Joseph I.

• 1879

  Firm renamed Gebrüder Rieger

  [1]Rieger Orgelbauen.wikipedia.org

  The business moves to a larger site and adopts the Gebrüder Rieger name.

• 1878

  First overseas transaction

  [1]Rieger Orgelbauen.wikipedia.org

  Two salon organs are shown in Paris; one is sold to London.

• 1873

  Otto and Gustav take over

  [1]Rieger Orgelbauen.wikipedia.org

  Franz Rieger’s sons assume management and the firm becomes Franz Rieger & Söhne.

• 1852

  Workshop enters the Austrian trade register

  [1]Rieger Orgelbauen.wikipedia.org

  Franz Rieger is recorded in the Trade and Industry Register of the Austrian Monarchy.

• 1845

  Franz Rieger completes his first documented organ

  [1]Rieger Orgelbauen.wikipedia.org

  Rieger completes a twenty-stop, two-manual-and-pedal organ for the Burgberg Church, establishing the workshop’s documented opus tradition.

High-end, individually designed pipe-organ manufacture combining traditional craftsmanship, modern technology, broad repertoire support and carefully customized voicing.

• Church and concert organs

  Custom pipe organs

  Rieger’s principal offering is the individually designed pipe organ. Each project is developed around the building, acoustic conditions, intended repertoire, specification and visual setting. The company coordinates structural design, pipe scales, action systems, console construction, installation and final regulation rather than treating the instrument as a standardized catalog product.

• Small pipe organs

  Positiv organs

  Compact positiv instruments have been an important recurring product line, particularly during the post-war revival. Rieger developed small organs with carefully engineered mechanisms and used them to serve venues requiring a modest footprint, portability or lower capacity while retaining the expressive qualities of a pipe instrument.

• Services

  Organ restoration and maintenance

  The company undertakes restoration, tuning, voicing and technical maintenance. Its work draws on knowledge of historical construction while allowing decisions to be adapted to the condition, use and musical requirements of each existing instrument.

• 2003

  Transfer of ownership to Wendelin EberleOther

  Background

  Eberle had joined Rieger as an apprentice in 1978 and later managed its design and production activities.

  Action taken

  He became president and owner of Rieger-Orgelbau GmbH.

  Aftermath

  Ownership remained with an experienced internal craft and management figure, preserving continuity in the workshop’s design and production philosophy.

  Source

• 1946

  Re-establishment of Rieger in AustriaStrategy

  Background

  The original Jägerndorf workshop had been appropriated and merged into a nationalized Czech enterprise after the war, while the former owners and workers had been displaced.

  Action taken

  Josef von Glatter-Götz and associates founded a new workshop in Schwarzach using the Rieger Orgelbau name and continued the family craft tradition.

  Aftermath

  The Austrian workshop became the surviving basis of the present Rieger Orgelbau business, while a separately owned Rieger-Kloss lineage continued in the Czech Republic.

  Source

1. 1Rieger Orgelbauen.wikipedia.org