Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/598

586 frequent and very difficult repairs, and for it was substituted the soundboard with sliding registers.



In this soundboard were ingeniously combined the chief features of the two kinds of wind-controlling apparatus that had been in use in previous centuries. Between the holes in the top of the grooves, and those now made parallel therewith in the pipe-stocks, into which the feet of the pipes fitted, were now introduced the slides, shown in profile in the following cut; which were now laid the length-way of the soundboard, instead of the cross-way as in the old spring-box; and as they were placed in the opposite direction they likewise operated in the reverse way to what they formerly did; that is, each slide opened or closed one pipe of the several notes, whereas before it acted on the several pipes of one note, as shown in Fig. 7, p. 578. The pallets and springs in the windchest were of course retained; but the forest of valves etc. which had been imbedded in the grooves was done away with, and the soundboard simplified and perfected in the form in which it still continues to be made. (Fig. 17.)



In the early part of the 16th century (1516–1518) a large and handsome organ was erected in St. Mary's church, Lübeck, which had two Manuals from D to A above the treble stave, and a separate pedal down to C. The latter had a great Principal of 32 feet, and a second one of 16 feet, made of the finest English tin, and both 'in front.' This organ however was tuned to a very sharp pitch—a whole tone above the highest now in use. Its largest pipe therefore, although named C, really sounded D, and was therefore scarcely so long as the biggest pipe at Halberstadt, made a century and a half earlier. This organ received the addition of a third Manual (then called 'Positiv im Stuhl') in 1560 and 1561, and subsequently underwent many other enlargements and improvements; so that by the beginning of the 18th century, when the celebrated Buxtehude was organist, its disposition stood nearly as follows; though the list may possibly include a few subsequent additions of minor importance.

This is the organ, to visit which and to hear Buxtehude play, Sebastian Bach walked 50 miles in 1705. Two years earlier (in 1703), Handel visited Lübeck, as a candidate for the office of organist to one of the other churches in that ancient Hans town; but finding that one of the conditions was that the successful competitor must become the husband of the daughter of the late organist—an appointment for which Handel had certainly sent in no application—he excused himself from continuing the contest, and retreated to Hamburg.

Both the musicians just named, then so young and afterwards so greatly venerated, very probably not only listened to but played upon this