Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/903

Rh ORGAN 837 the single notes a powerful and dominating character, so as to enable them to lead the church song. Pedal The invention of the pedal may be set down to the 15th century. About that time the organ assumed on the Con tinent the general form which it has retained till lately, more especially in Germany. This may be described generally as having a compass of about four octaves in the manuals and of two octaves in the pedal, with occasionally extra notes at the top in both, and frequently &quot;short octaves&quot; at the bottom. German short octaves are as follows. The manual and pedal appear to terminate on E instead of C. Then the E key sounds C, F = F, F# = D, G = G, G# = E, and the rest as usual. There were often three, sometimes four, manuals in large organs. The character of all these was in general much the same, but they were more softly voiced in succession, the softest manual being sometimes spoken of as an echo organ. There are one or two examples of the echo as a fourth manual in England at the present time, in organs which have been designed more or less under German inspiration. The old echo was long ago superseded by the swell in England. Cases. A few ancient cases survive in a more or less altered condition. 1 Of these the following are worthy of mention, as bearing on the question of date. Sion (Switzerland). Gothic. A small instmment 1 390 Amiens. Originally Gothic. Large, with 16-foot pipes 1429 Perpignan. Gothic. Large, with 32-foot pipes 1490 Liibeck. One of the finest Gothic organs in Europe. 32s. ..1504 (or, according to Hopkins, 1518). In all these the cases are sufficiently preserved to make it almost certain that pipes of the same lengths were origin ally employed. The actual pipes are generally modern. Shortly after this date we find Renaissance cases. At La Ferte Bernard (dep. Sarthe) part of the substructure is Gothic, and is known to be of date 1501 ; the organ above is Renaissance, and is known to be of date 1536. At St Maurice, Angers, an organ was built in 1511, with Renais sance case, two towers of 32 -foot pipes, 48 stops, and a separate pedal. An account of the instrument in a proces verbal of 1533 furnishes good evidence. In the 16th cen tury, therefore, the organ had attained great completeness, and the independent pedal was general on the Continent. German &quot;y e cannot follow the history of German organs through organ. j.j ie intervening centuries ; but Ave propose to give the items of one of the principal organs of the Silbermanns, the great builders of the 18th century, namely, that stand ing in the Royal Catholic Church, Dresden. Without being an enormously large instrument it is complete in its way, and gives a very good idea of the German organ. The account is taken from Hopkins. The date is 1754. Great. Octave 2 Principal 16 Bourdon 16 tone Principal 8 Viola da Gamba 8 Rohrflote 8 tone Octave 4 Spitzflote 4 Quinta 2| Quintaton 16 tone Principal 8 Gedackt 8 tone Unda Maiis ... 8 tone Octave 4 Rohrflote 4 tone Nassat 2 Gedackt 8 tone Principal 4 Rohrflote 4 tone Nassat 2| Octave 2 Tertia 1 Mixtur iv ranks Cymbel in Cornet v Fagott 16 Trumpet 8 Clarin 4 Echo. Octave 2 Tertia If Flageolet 1 Mixtur iv ranks Echo v Vox humana. , . 8 tone Choir. Quinta 1J Sifflote 1 Mixtur in ranks Sesquialtera n Chalumeaux 8 tone 1 In the remarks next following the writer is indebted for informa tion to Hill s work on organ-cases. Pedal. Untersatz 32 tone Principal 16 Octav-bass 8 Octave ... .. 4 Mixtur iv ranks Pausan (trombone) 16 Trompctte 8 Clarin .. ,.4 Accessories. Echo to great. Tremulant echo. Great to pedal. Tremulant great. Compass. Manuals C to d &quot; in alt. | Pedal Cj, to tenor c. The chief difference between English organs and those English of the Continent was that until the present century the organs, pedal was absolutely unknown in England. The heavy bass given by the pedal being absent, a lighter style of voicing was adopted, and the manuals were usually con tinued down below the 8-foot C so as to obtain additional bass by playing octaves with the hands. Thus the old or gan (date 1697) of Father Smith in St Paul s Cathedral had manuals descending to the 16-foot C (C,), with two open diapasons throughout. Green s old organ at St George s, Windsor, had manuals descending to the 12-foot F, also two open diapasons throughout, no F$. But the more usual practice was to make the manual descend to the lOf G, leaving out the G$. At the Revolution most of the organs in England had been destroyed. Shortly afterwards Bernard Smith, a German, commonly called Father Smith, and Thomas and Rene Harris, Frenchmen, were largely employed in building organs, which were wanted everywhere. Father Smith perhaps had the greatest reputation of any builder of the old time, and his work has lasted wonderfully. There is a list in Rimbault of forty-five organs built for churches by him. The list of Rene Harris is scarcely less extensive. The most important step in the development of the old English organ was the invention of the swell. This was first introduced into an organ built by two Jordan s, father and son, for St Magnus s church near London Bridge, in 1712. Burney writes (1771) * &quot; It is very extraordinary that the swell, which has been intro duced into the English organ more than fifty years, and which is so capable of expression and of pleasing effects that it may be well said to be the greatest and most important improvement that was ever made in any keyed instrument, should be utterly unknown in Italy ; and, now I am on this subject, I must observe that most of the organs I have met with on the Continent seem to be inferior to ours by Father Smith, Byfield, or Snetzler, in everything but size ! As the churches there are very often immense, so are the organs ; the tone is indeed somewhat softened and refined by space and distance ; but, when heard near, it is intolerably coarse and noisy ; and, though the number of stops in these large instruments is very great, they afford but little variety, being for the most part duplicates in unisons and octaves to each other, such as the great and small 12ths, flutes, and loths ; hence in our organs, not only the touch and tone, but the imitative stops, are greatly superior to those of any other organs I have met with.&quot; (As to these opinions, compare section on great organ open diapasons above, p. 830.) In the course of the 18th century most of the old echoes were altered into swells, and the swell came into almost universal use in England. The development of the swell is inseparably associated with the peculiar quality _ of English swell reeds. These must have originated during the development of the swell. We hear of a &quot;good reed voicer&quot; named Hancock, who worked with Crang, changing echoes into swells. However it originated, the English reed is beautiful when properly made. It has recently entirely superseded the free reed, which had been long used in Germany. The original swells were usually short in compass downwards, frequently extending only to fiddle q. It is only lately that the value of the bass of the swell has been properly appreciated. Short-compass swells may be said to have now disappeared.