Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/645

 music. Each of these eminent musicians assisted in the improvement of the instrument by suggestions given to the celebrated builders of his time. The builders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were great enthusiasts in their art, and every fresh development in the region of tones and effects was introduced with considerable éclat. Of the old effects still in use, the Kremhorn (Cremona), the Gemshorn, and Hohl flute stops are most generally known. As we behold to-day the magnificent instruments in European and American churches and concert auditoriums from the workshops of the representative builders of both continents, we are given much to contemplate from a mechanical and artistic point of view, while the wonderful musical effects that they are capable of producing tend to fill us with awe and profound pleasure.

Among the most famous of the old organs in Europe is the Haarlem instrument, built by Christian Müller, of Amsterdam (1735-'38). This is celebrated as one of the largest and finest in the world. It has a manual compass of 51 notes, CC to D in alt, and a pedal compass of 27 notes, CCC to tenor D. It has 60 stops and 4,088 pipes, divided as follows: Great organ, 16 stops, 1,300 pipes; choir, 14 stops, 1,268 pipes; echo, 15 stops, 1,098 pipes; pedal, 15 stops, 513 pipes. The chief accessory stops, movements, etc., are: (1) Coupler choir to great; (2) coupler echo to great; (3, 4) two tremulants; (5) wind to great organ; (6) wind to choir organ; (7) wind to echo organ; (8) wind to pedal organ—with twelve bellows nine feet by five. This magnificent instrument lacks the advantages of modern organs in the general action mechanism. The Haarlem organ can not be played without the expenditure of considerable muscular energy. The organist has to strip to his duties like a wrestler, and when the performance is over he withdraws covered with perspiration. Though endowed with wonderful musical effects in the extent and variety of its stops and combinations, these have been lost hitherto, owing to the disabilities of the manual and pedal action. Modern