Hendrik Niehoff

Who was Hendrik Niehoff?

Hendrik Niehoff was a Dutch pipe organ builder, who learned with noted builder, Jan van Covelen. According to Liuwe Tamminga, Niehoff was born in Leeuwarden, the capital of Province Friesland. Following Jan van Covelen's death in 1532, Hendrik Niehoff established his shop in 's-Hertogenbosch to continue building new and upgrading organs throughout the Netherlands and in major Hanseatic cities and, thus, can be considered the most significant organbuilder in northwestern Europe in the middle third of the 16th century due both to the fabulous visual architectural quality of the cases and the exquisite sounds these instruments make for the eye and ear.nen

The pipes in Niehoff's organs are remarkable in that they use an alloy of over 98% lead, with only about 1.3% tin and minimal amounts of antimony, copper and bismuth - the latter probably due to the not highly refined ores available to the builders of that time. Pipes made of this alloy are noted for producing sounds with the "vocale" characteristic of the organs of the high Renaissance/early Baroque period. To enhance their appearance, the façade pipes usually were covered with thin, bright tin foil that was held to the underlying lead pipe with a glue made of duck egg white.