Over two centuries of Caspari(ni) activity: from North to South

ENAn important imprint in the organ building of historical territories of Silesia and East Prussia, as well as the Lithuania, Italy, and Austria of today was made by members of five generations of the Caspari(ni) family. The dynasty produced numerous organ builders—over 10 known members, who were descended from organ builder and mathematician Adam Caspar, born c. 1590, and were most active in the Silesian area over the span of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The collected factual information on masters’ lives and organs is based on the texts published at various times—from historically valuable compilations of organ stoplists to the current encyclopedic and biographic entries. Eugenio Casparini is singled out as the key figure in this chapter. He was an organ master of German origin (from Silesia) who lived and worked in Italy for over 50 years. His intricate experiments in the improvement of mechanical parts of organs and his search for new qualities of sound were introduced to his direct successors—his son and grandsons as well as masters like the Silbermann brothers and later individuals who went to Italian churches to study Eugenio’s creations. The chapter concludes with an overview of the career of Adam Gottlob Casparini, who directly stepped into the organ building arena of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, thus motivating the discussion about the links between Italian and Lithuanian organ building traditions. [From the publication]