Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/614

602 'Lieblichs' of 16, 8, and 4 feet (Nos. 9, 11, and 13), the invention of Schulze, in the Choir organ, were singularly beautiful in quality of tone, and formed a most effective group of stops. The 'Flauto Traverso' (No. 11), like the French 'Flute Harmonique,' was composed of pipes of double length in the upper part; and the pipes being of wood, bored and turned to a cylindrical shape, were in reality so many actual flutes. The 'Gamba' and 'Geigen Principal' (Nos. 3 and 10), were open stops, metal in the treble and tenor, and produced the 'string tone' most effectively. The Hohlflöte (No. 5) was an open wood stop, with the mouth on the broad side of the pipe, and produced a thick, 'hollow' tone; hence its name. The 'Clarinette' and 'Posaune' (Nos. 8 and 15) were reed stops of the 'free' species, the latter having zinc tubes of half length, and producing an excellent quality of tone. The pedal coupler acted on a second set of pallets in the soundboard, and did not take down the manual keys—a great convenience, as it did not interfere with the hands. The pedal clavier was made in a form then quite new to this country, with the notes at the extreme right and left somewhat higher than those in the middle—concave. This shape and Elliott & Hill's radiating plan were afterwards combined by Mr. Henry Willis, in his 'concave and radiating pedal-board.' The flue-stops, that are usually intended to have great power, possessed considerable boldness and strength in this organ of Schulze's, which was partly due to the scales having been kept 'well up.' This effect was secured without any extra pressure of wind—for the wind only stood at the ordinary pressure of three inches—but simply by allowing twice or thrice the usual quantity of wind to enter at the feet of the pipes.

The French organ, then, brought the Harmonic flutes, the Gamba, the octave and suboctave couplers, and the reed-stops on a stronger pressure of wind, into prominent notice, although this latter was also illustrated in Willis's larger organ at the west end of the Exhibition building; while Schulze's organ drew attention to the sweet-toned (Lieblich) covered stops, the Harmonic flute, the string-toned stops, and the bold voicing and copious winding of full-scaled flue-stops, on the successful imitation of which latter Mr. T. Lewis has built a part of his reputation.

3. Messrs. A. and M. Ducci, organ-builders of Florence, exhibited a small organ, the bellows of which possessed a novelty, in that the feeder, consisting of a movable board swaying parallel between two fixed ones, supplied wind both by its upward and downward motion, and in double quantity, as it moved bodily instead of being hinged on at one end.

4. Mr. Willis's great organ had three manuals and pedal, seventy sounding stops and seven couplers. There were four different pressures of wind. The Swell had its own separate bellows placed within the swell-box, as in Green's organ at St. George's, Windsor, already noticed. It also presented several novelties, the principal of which was the introduction of studs or pistons projecting through the key-slips, acting on the draw-stops, operated upon by the thumbs, and designed as a substitute for the ordinary Composition Pedals. This was effected by the aid of a pneumatic apparatus on the same principle as that applied to the keys. A stud, on being pressed, admitted compressed air into a bellows, which immediately ascended with sufficient power to act, by means of rods and levers, on the machinery of the stops, drawing those which the given combination required, and pushing in those that were superfluous. In most cases there was a duplicate stud for each combination, so that it could be obtained by using either the right or the left thumb.

The leading improvements that have been introduced since the first Exhibition, are of too recent a date to belong to the History of the organ; and more properly belong to its Description.

Of the celebrated foreign organs we may mention the four following typical specimens.

This organ has long been celebrated as one of the largest and finest in the world. It was built by Christian Müller of Amsterdam, and was nearly three years and a half in course of construction, having been commenced on April 23, 1735, and finished on Sept. 13, 1738. It has 60 stops, of which the following is a list:-