Schwerin - Dom, Ladegast Organ (1868-1871)

The organ in Schwerin Dom was built by the prominent German organbuilder Friedrich Ladegast (1818-1905). It has 84 speaking stops distributed across 4 manuals and pedal. There is a well-defined dynamic hierarchy among divisions, where the 1st Manual is the strongest, and the 4th Manual is almost an Echo division. An interesting element of the instrument is that the manual numbering does not follow the usual conventions (from bottom up), rather, it denotes the hierarchy of the divisions. Thus, the 1st Manual (the most important and the most powerful division) is played from the 2nd keyboard, the 2nd Manual (less mighty than the 1st) is played from the 3rd keyboard, 3rd Manual is played from the lowest (1st) keyboard, and the 4th manual - finally - is played from the 4th (upmost) keyboard. It could be confusing at first, but this the reality of the instrument, and for this reason it was mirrored in the sample set exactly. If you prefer a different manual order, Hauptwerk allows for any MIDI keyboard assignment, so, it is extremely easy to swap the manuals if necessary when you auto-detect your keyboards.

To balance the variety of the sound colors and dynamics of the manuals, the pedal alone has 22 stops! They are divided into three parts, there is the Piano Pedal with 6 piano stops to accompany the quieter stops, there is the Pedal Forte division with the majority of the pedal stops, while 6 biggest stops are still on a separate windchests, forming the "strong" (starken Bässen) division of the pedal.

The Schwerin Dom organ is an organ with many firsts.

First organ with crescendo in the world. A mechanism driven by two pistons, one accelerating the crescendo, one accelerating the decrescendo, the mechanism has 7 steps. More in the description of J. Massmann (Orgelbauten des Grossherzogthums Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 1875, p. 67-68):

The crescendo consists of 7 main stations with 21 steps, so that 21 different timbres can be graudually heard, activated automaticaly. You can stop at these stations or reverse, or move on. During the crescendo, you can change all the claviers while playing, and also couple or uncouple them to allow the individual timbres to take effect. However, the stops must not be touched during the crescendo moves. Once the crescendo movements have stopped again, you can register as you wish. Neither the two crescendo foot switches, nor the two crescendo drawknobs may be changed in quick succession, but only when the crescendo movements have stopped.

The two crescendo foot switches (and corresponding drawknobs) are obviously called crescendo  and decrescendo, each push of any of them advances (or reverses) the hidden crescendo roller by one Station, gradually going through its 3 steps. The crescendo roller is operating directly on the tracker of the stops, therefore, it affects also the stops pre-drawn by hand.

First organ with a kind of Barker machine in Germany (so called Pneum. Werk).

First organ with pneumatic stop action.

First organ with combination system in Germany. The system allows stops to be drawn before they are triggered, via a combination piston. J. Massmann explains the then new device using these words (p. 66-67):

The combination foot switches operate the sliders of the drawn stops of the respective manual, thus enabling any group of voices of any manual to be made to sound or be silenced. Each manual and also the pedal board has a foot switch for this purpose, located directly above the pedal. If, for example, you play on a certain manual, for instance with a Bordun 16, Salicional 8, Gedackt 8, etc., and later wish to play a group of other stops on the same keyboard, you can first switch off the corresponding foot switch, then add other stops at will simply by drawing them while playing, but the previously drawn stops will continue to sound without interruption, and the newly drawn stops will start to speak at the moment when you have switch on the corresponding foot switch again, and vice versa. If you now want to form individual groups of voices from different manuals, you only need to use the corresponding couplers. This combination device was of course only possible thanks to the pneumatic stop levers. Any expert will be able to appreciate the value of this for an experienced, capable organist.

First organ with no less than 6 free reed stops: Fagott 16, Oboe 8, Clarinette 8, Aeoline 16, Posaune 32, Dulcian 16. Their sound is milder and the attack not so fast, compared to the traditional (beating) reeds. They can be used as a solo stops, or mixed with the flues. It is exactly their mixing capability with the flue stops which was highly valued at that time.

It also was the first large romantic organ in the Mecklenburg region and in whole North Germany, the first large organ of Fr. Ladegast, and the first Ladegast organ in a cathedral.