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A variety of instruments were used in worship at the beginning of the 17th Century. The organ was most important. It had become an instrument of great complexity, size, power and versatility. Praetorius’ Syntagma musicum (1614-1620) records and details some impressive specifications. The art of organ building, particularly in solving mechanical and tonal problems, progressed to a level of great sophistication. Impressive organs were often built as symbols of court, ecclesiastical, or civic pride. Important developments in organ design and construction took place in Germany, the Netherlands, and France. Organs were all built with mechanical "tracker" action and operated at low wind pressure.
Praetorius wrote in 1596 that the Groningen Court organ had more than 60 ranks of pipes located in three distinct divisions. It was playable from a console of three manuals and pedals. The famous organ built between 1682 and 1687 by Arp Schnitker for the Nicolaikirche in Hamburg was of similar size with divisions called:
Not all organs were so large, but these and many smaller instruments of the time possessed a tonal design purity and quality of construction that, in many regards, remains the envy of modern builders. Other Instruments The brass, wind and stringed instruments, described by Praetorius and drawn to scale in Syntagma musicum, were made in families whose members ranged in pitch according to their size and construction. The title page of Musae Sionae by Praetorius shows the instruments grouped together. Brass instruments were represented by those with cup-shaped mouthpiece, such as the sackbut (trombone) and the cornetto or the trumpet. Flute-like instruments by the recorder and the transverse flute. Double-reed oboe-like instruments used the shawm and crumhorn. Stringed instruments included the viols. All of these families of instruments, each with their distinctive, pungent or gentle character, were used in worship. As the century passed, instrument construction began to narrow in variety as the modern families of instruments gradually took shape. Before the end of the century, the string family gained prominence with the violin as a dominant member.
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Families
of pipes were formed as principals, flutes, and reeds, with crowns of
multiple ranks of pipes called "mixtures." Pipes ranged in length
up to 32 feet. The pipe tome was incisive, in most cases capable of blending
well in ensemble, yet able to carry the solo melody of a cantus firmus. 