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Rieger Orgelbau is an Austrian firm of organ builders, known generally as Rieger. The firm was founded by Franz Rieger. From 1873 it was known as Rieger & Söhne, and from 1879 as Gebrüder Rieger, after his sons took over. At the end of World War II, the firm was nationalised by the Czech government and merged with another workshop as Rieger-Kloss. The Rieger tradition was also continued by the owners and workers of the original firm, who moved to Austria and founded a new workshop as "Rieger Orgelbau". History Franz Rieger Franz Rieger was born in Zossen (Sosnová) in Austrian Silesia on 13 December 1812, and was the son of a gardener. He received a good education and decided to become an organ builder, to which end he travelled to Vienna, where he was apprenticed to organ-builder Joseph Seybert. His apprenticeship and time as a journeyman being completed, he returned home in 1844 as a master organ-builder. He married Rosalia Schmidt, with whom he had nine children, and completed his opus 1, a twenty-stop, two-manual and pedal organ, for the Burgberg Church, in 1845. He was accepted on the Trade and Industry Register of the Austrian Monarchy in 1852. He built organs in the classical tradition, and gained a high reputation. Through the work of his sons under his name, he was awarded the Golden Cross for Service in 1879 by Imperial decree. He died in Jägerndorf on 29 January 1886. Otto and Gustav Rieger Two of Franz Rieger's sons followed their father in his craft: Otto Rieger (3 March 1847 – 12 December 1903) and Gustav Rieger (1 August 1848 – 1905), served apprenticeships with their father. They then spent time as journeymen in Vienna, where they trained from 1864 with Franz Ullmann, another builder in the classical tradition. They also spent time in Bamberg and Würzburg, where they visited the workshop of noted Franconian innovator Balthasar Schlimbach. Upon their return home in 1873, their father passed his workshop to them, remaining in a consultative capacity until 1880; the name of the firm became "Franz Rieger & Söhne" and the opus count was restarted at zero. Otto married in 1873 and Gustav followed suit in 1874. Their opus 1 was exhibited at the Vienna World Exhibition in Vienna, at which it won a gold medal; this organ is now in the church of St Peter & Paul in Jaktař. One of their first changes from their father's work was the replacement of slider chests with mechanical cone chests. Their first year saw the production of three organs. Their reputation grew apace: in 1874 they won their first commission in the Imperial Capital, Vienna, followed in 1875 by a commission in Hungary. Their first commission in a non-Habsburg country was in 1876 in Norway. They exhibited two salon organs at the 1878 Paris Exposition, one of which, sold to London, marked their first overseas transaction. They bought a new site in 1879 to cope with their expanding business, on which larger workshops and dwellings for their workers were built. With this move, the name was changed to "Gebrüder Rieger". They developed a series of twenty five small organs, with between two and twenty five stops and an optional second manual for those with more than eight stops, as an alternative to the much cheaper harmonium. These organs were responsible for the high opus count of Rieger organs of this period. By 1883, their annual production of organs had risen to sixteen. They built their first three-manual instrument in 1884. Their geographical reach widened further with commissions in Gibraltar in 1889, Istanbul in 1893, Jerusalem in 1896 (The Patriarch of Jerusalem made them Knights of the Order of the Holy Grave), and Rome in 1897, in addition to instruments built in Habsburg Crown Lands, Germany, and Russia. A branch of the firm was set up in Budapest in 1890. The brothers were appointed organ suppliers to the Imperial Court of Austria-Hungary by the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in 1896, which entitled them to bear the imperial eagle; this necessitated extensive enquiries, investigations, and inspections of the firm, which was comprehensively documented. Rieger was awarded the Austrian coat of arms by the Federal Republic in 1889, and the brothers were made Knights of the Franz-Joseph Order in 1899. The firm employed approximately 200 workers by 1900. The use of pneumatic and electric actions were introduced during this period, as the specifications and voicing became determined by the tonal and musical ideals of the romantic period. Innovations by Gustav Rieger included combined registers — using "extension" to get two stops out of one rank — and free stop-combination based on a mechanical action (used on the 1890 concert organ at the Deutsches Haus, Brno). There were 1072 organs on the firm's opus-list by the end of 1903, which saw the death of Otto and the end of an era. Otto Rieger and Josef von Glatter-Götz Otto Rieger (21 May 1880 – 28 March 1920) was the son of Otto Rieger (and grandson of Franz Rieger), and took over the firm after his father's death. Under his superintendence, over 1000 more organs were built. He introduced an art nouveau style for the organ cases, and adopted the ideals of organ design promulgated by Albert Schweitzer. He participated in the organ-building working committee at the 1909 Third Congress of the International Society of Music in Vienna which drew up a directive for the building of organs; the result was a decisive recommendation to move away from the late-romantic orchestral organ and towards the use of the slider chests and mechanical action typical of the classical traditions of organ-building, familiar from the many surviving baroque instruments. After World War I, Rieger, which had been in Austria, found itself in the new Czech state. During this time of adjustment as the established markets of the Danube Monarchy adapted to the newly created states, Otto Rieger died, leaving behind his wife and two daughters. Without a suitable heir, the company struggled. Otto's school friend, Josef von Glatter-Götz (17 November 1880 – 23 February 1948) had been taken on by Otto as works manager in 1918. He was an engineer and former officer to the Imperial General Staff; he completed an apprenticeship in organ building, and took over the running of the firm seven weeks after his friend's death. He bought the firm in 1924, and by the next year, the 100 employees of the firm were able to resume full-time organ building. A new branch of the firm was established at Mocker, Germany, in 1926. Josef von Glatter-Götz began a new family tradition with his sons Egon (24 June 1911 – 8 September 1940) and Josef (15 December 1914 – 1 May 1989). They served their apprenticeships with their father and studied at technical colleges in Breslau and Berlin; they were made partners in 1936. The rebuilt firm was again a success; in the year 1938/1939, the Jägerndorf factory accounted for 66% of all organ exports from the German Reich. Egon von Glatter-Götz took a.... Discover the Ben Rieger popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ben Rieger books.