From Kácsfalu to Paris

József Angster was born in 1834 in Kácsfalu (now Jagodnyak),located in today's Croatia, into a family of Catholic German immigrants. His life and youth are recorded in his diary. József was barely six years old when he learned the hardships of farming, but in his spare time he was already making a variety of small strings or wind instruments.

At the age of 16, he began his career as a carpenter's apprentice in Eszek, and then made a long journey. He went to Bácska, Vienna, Dresden and finally to Paris, where he worked for the organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was the inventor of rich symphonic organ playing, new types of timbre and new approaches to organ building. His name was a guarantee of quality work.

Angster was enjoying his time with the master, he had a growing body of independent work and he was expected to be a force to be reckoned with, but he wanted to return to his homeland and so he was returning home with 10 years of experience behind him.

Settling in Pécs

The organ builders in Pécs, József Lesnyik and Vince Unger, did not employ him because of the difficult economic situation, so he was forced to repair harmonies and barrel organs in his home town. Weiss, a Jewish shopkeeper in Kácsfalu, drew Angster's attention to the synagogue in Pécs, which was being built and for which the congregation had intended to build an organ too. With the letter, he contacted Weiss's brother-in-law, a haberdasher named Blau, who introduced him to Justus, a leader of the local Israelite community.

Justus had the young Anster tested with his son. Anster had to speak French to the boy. The qualifying reference letter, written in the Cavaillé-Coll workshop, proved very convincing, and after a month the congregation asked him to prepare an organ design blueprint, including the budget.

The budget was originally set at 3600 forints, but he finally accepted the job for 3000 forints. It was a very bold decision to take on the job for so little money, but he was encouraged by the fact that this work would generate new orders in the future. What the young organ builder needed mostly was reference.
Although the parish organ was indeed built for very few money, Anster was hired to maintain the organ, so that he could pay back the loans in a few years.

The synagogue organ was finally inaugurated on 21 March 1869. The record of the event shows that it was a unique instrument. Indeed, after that, both church (Catholic, Reformed, Lutheran, Israelite, Unitarian, Greek Catholic) and state orders came in from all over the country.

After settling down in Pécs, Angster did not work alone, he hired Lajos Brusch as a collaborator. In 1874, when the organ was built in Géderlak, he moved to his permanent location at 30 József utca, where he had his own pipe department, so he no longer had to order pipes from France.
In 1876, the twentieth organ was built, a three-manual, 45-register organ with more than 2,500 pipes built for the cathedral in Kalocsa, which was a great success. 1881 in February 1881, Dr. Lajos Haynald, Archbishop of Kalocsa, awarded the prestigious title of " The Organ Builder of the Primacy of Kalocsa" to Anster.

He made the 100th organ for the Cathedral of Pécs in 1887. The list of organs would be long, just to mention a few of the most famous: the Kálvin Square in Budapest, the Kossuth Square in Debrecen, the churches in Szabadka and Terézváros in Budapest, the Reformed Church in Fasor, the Cathedral in Győr and the Cathedral in Kassa has an Angster organs.

József Angster and Son

Of the six children of József Angster who lived to adulthood, the two sons, Emil, born in 1874, and Oszkár, born in 1876, chose organ building as their profession.

In 1896, the father registered his son Emil as a partner in the firm ("József Angster and Son"), and the three-manual console drawings for the 33 (opus 450) large-scale organ building in the basilica of Budapest were already made by his son Oscar. József, the founder of the factory, died in 1918.

The Angster sons surpassed even their father in productiveness. Until the First World War, nearly fifty organ pipes left the Organ and Harmonium factory of Joseph Angster and Son every year. In 1930, with the support of Kunó Klebelsberg, the Minister of Culture, the Angster factory built the magnificent five-manual, 136-register organ of the Assumption Church in Szeged.

Emil in 1939, and after the death of Oszkár in 1941, their sons continued to run the factory. József Angster, a mechanical engineer born in 1917, became the factory's technical manager, while his cousin Imre (1916-1990) became its commercial manager. In the few years following the Second World War, the market tightened and problems in obtaining materials meant that few organs were made. The Angster Factory became state-owned on 28 December 1949. The two managers, József and Imre Angster, were taken to show trial in 1951 and the family had to move out of their home. The Instrument and Tableware Factory of Pécs, which continued to produce a variety of wooden products, mainly coffins, ceased production in 1953.

It seems that the city of Pécs continues to excel in organ building. A majority owner of the Pécs Organ Building Manufactory Ltd, he was only 12 when he decided to become an organ builder.
This interest may be a family heritage, as his great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were both organ builders in the former Angster factory. A concert hall organ, one of the largest of its kind in the manufactory, can be heard in the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall of the MÜPA in Budapest.

TÉ

traslated by László Gönczi

Sources:

Műemlékvédelem, 2011 (55. évfolyam, 1-6. szám) 2011 / 2. szám / Hajdók Judit: Az Angster-orgonaépítők három generációja

https://www.hangster.hu/a-gyar-tortenete