Carl Alexander Schuke (14 August 1870 – 16 November 1933) was a German
organ builder
Organ building is the profession of designing, building, restoring and maintaining pipe organs.
The organ builder usually receives a commission to design an organ with a particular disposition of stops, manuals, and actions, creates a desig ...
and from 1894 to 1933 owner and manager of the . The company still exists today.
Life
Born in ,
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...
, Schuke was the son of the pastor Karl Schuke, who officiated in Stepenitz from 1867 to 1886, and Charlotte Margarethe Alexandrine Anna
von Wulffen. In 1885, he came to Potsdam and attended the Viktoria-Gymnasium, today . After graduating from high school, he learned the organ building trade from master organ builder
Carl Eduard Gesell. After Gesell's death in 1894, Schuke bought the company and thus took over the business. Through his temporary work at the organ building company Sauer from
Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt (Oder), also known as Frankfurt an der Oder (, ; Central Marchian: ''Frankfort an de Oder,'' ) is the fourth-largest city in the German state of Brandenburg after Potsdam, Cottbus and Brandenburg an der Havel. With around 58,000 inh ...
, he was able to gain experience in contemporary modern organ building techniques, which he brought into his company and thus made his workshop one of the best known organ building companies.
After his death in Potsdam at the age of 63, his sons
Karl Schuke
Karl Ludwig Alexander Schuke (6 November 1906 – 7 May 1987) was a German organ builder. The son of the organ builder Alexander Schuke, he continued, together with his brother Hans-Joachim Schuke, to run their father's company in Potsdam unti ...
and
Hans-Joachim Schuke continued to run the company together. Approximately 140 organs were built during Alexander Schuke's tenure. For example, Schuke built the organ at the .
References
Further reading
* Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau GmbH: ''100 Jahre Alexander Schuke Orgelbau in Potsdam''. Thomasius verlag – Thomas Helms, Schwerin 1994
External links
Schuke, Karl Alexanderon BMLO
All new constructions, alterations and repairs by Alexander Schuke, with details of the stops, manuals and pedals Catalogue raisonné
A (or critical catalogue) is an annotated listing of the works of an artist or group of artists and can contain all works or a selection of works categorised by different parameters such as medium or period.
A ''catalogue raisonné'' is normal ...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schuke, Alexander
German pipe organ builders
1870 births
1933 deaths