Offenflöte German Offenflöt German Tibia Aperta Latin

An ordinary open flute of wood or metal. Most sources liken it to the Clarabella. Williams defines it as a secondary 8' or 4' rank, wider than the 4' Prinzipal. Adlung claims that the name Viol is sometimes used for this stop, and cites an example in the Marienkirche at Danzig (Gdansk, Poland) at 3' (2-2/3') pitch, but this is probably an anomaly.

The name Tibia Aperta derives from the Latin word apertus, meaning “open”. While Adlung gives it as a synonym for Offenflöte, Wedgwood gives it as a synonym for Fugara.

Variants

Examples

Osiris contains nineteen examples of Offenflöte at 8' pitch, six at 4', two at 16', and one at 2'. No examples of Tibia Aperta or the spelling Offenflöt are known.

Offenflöte 8', Pedal; Dreifaltigkeitskirche, Liepaja/Libau (Lettland); Grueneberg 1885. This is the earliest known example.

Offenfloete 2', Hauptwerk; St. Franziskus, Pforzheim, Germany; Steinmeyer/Goeckel 1996.

Offenflote 4', Great; Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, USA; Fisk 1984.

Offenflote 8', Pedal; Maison de l'Immaculee-Conception, Montreal, Canada; Beckerath.

Offenfloete 16', Pedal; Dom, Muenster, Germany; Klais 1987.

Bibliography