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".
The 1992 Rieger organ at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh.
A pedalboard is a keyboard played with the feet that is usually used to produce the low-pitched bass line of a piece of music. A pedalboard has long, narrow lever-style keys laid out in the same semitone scalar pattern as a manual keyboard, with longer keys for C, D, E, F, G, A, and B, and shorter, raised keys for C♯, D♯, F♯, G♯ and A♯. Training in pedal technique is part of standard organ pedagogy in church music and art music.
The 30-note pedalboard of a Rieger organ
This 1609 organ shows the short, button-style pedals of early pedal setups
This 1776 diagram depicts the setup of the manuals and pedal keyboard
AGO-spec.: concave/radiating