The Recent Revolution in Organ Building Part 6

Hope-Jones showed that by increasing the weight of metal, bellying all flue pipes in the centre, leathering their lips, clothing their flues, and reversing their languids, he could obtain from heavy pressures practically unlimited power and at the same time actually add to the sweetness of tone produced by the old, lightly blown pipes. He used narrow mouths, did away with regulation at the foot of the pipe, and utilized the "pneumatic blow" obtained from his electric action.

He also inaugurated "an entirely new departure in the science of reed voicing." [4]

He employs pressures as high as fifty inches and never uses less than six. His work in this direction has exercised a profound influence on organ building throughout the world, and leading builders in all countries are adopting his pressures or are experimenting in that direction.

Like most revolutionary improvements, the use of heavy pressures was at first vigorously opposed, but organists and acousticians are now filled with wonder that the old low-pressure idea should have held sway so long, in view of the fact that very heavy wind is employed for the production of the best tone from the human voice and from the various wind instruments of the orchestra.

Karl Gottlieb Weigle, of Stuttgart, was a little in advance of many of his confreres in using moderately heavy pressures, but he departed from the leather lip and narrow mouth used by Hope-Jones and has obtained power without refinement.

In employing these heavy pressures of wind, increased purity and beauty of tone should alone be aimed at. Power will take care of itself.

MECHANICAL BLOWERS.

The "organ beater" of bygone days was invariably accompanied by the "organ pumper," often by several of them. There is a well-known story of how the man refused to blow any longer unless the organist said that "_we_ had done very well to-day." The organ pumper's vocation is now almost entirely gone, especially in this country, although we know of organs in England which require four men "to blow the same" unto this day.

When Willis built the great organ in St. George's Hall, Liverpool, in 1855, he installed an eight-horsepower steam engine to provide the wind supply. There is a six-horse steam engine in use in Chester Cathedral (installed 1876).

Gas and petrol (gasoline) engines have been used extensively in England, providing a cheaper, but, with feeders, a less controllable, prime mover. By far the commonest source of power has been the water motor, as it was economical and readily governed, and as water pressure was generally available, but the decline of the old-time bellows, with the fact that many cities to-day refuse to permit motors to be operated from the water mains, have given the field practically to the electric motor, now generally used in connection with some form of rotary fans.

The principle of fans in series, first introduced by Cousans, of Lincoln, England, under the name of the Kinetic Blower, is now accepted as standard. This consists of a number of cleverly designed fans mounted in series on one shaft, the first delivering air to the second at, say, 3-inch pressure, to be raised another step and delivered to the next in series, etc., etc. This plan permits tapping off desired amounts of air at intermediate pressures with marked economy, and as it is slow speed, and generally direct connected with its motor on the same shaft, it is both quiet and mechanically efficient.

[1] One object of this was to prevent what was called "robbing." While the pressure of the wind might be ample and steady enough with only a few stops drawn, it was found that when all the stops were drawn the large pipes "robbed" their smaller neighbors of their due supply of wind, causing them to sound flat. By giving each pipe a pallet or valve to itself, the waste of wind in the large grooves was prevented.

Another object was to get rid of the long wooden slides, which in dry weather were apt to shrink and cause leakage, and in damp weather to swell and stick.

[2] A striking instance of the difference between the two kinds of pallet can be seen in All Angels' Church, New York. The organ was built originally by Roosevelt, with two manuals and his patent wind-chest. In 1890 the church was enlarged and Jardine removed the organ to a chamber some thirty feet above the floor and fitted his electric action to the Roosevelt wind-chest. At the same time he erected an entirely new Choir organ, in the clerestory, with his electric action fitted to long pallets. The superiority of attack and promptness of speech, especially of the lower notes, of the Choir over the Great and Swell organs is marvelous. The same thing can be seen at St. James' Church, New York, where the Roosevelt organ was rebuilt with additions by the Hope-Jones Organ Co. in 1908.

[3] Some congregations could not stand them and had them taken out.

[4] Wedgwood: "Dictionary of Organ Stops," p. 167.

CHAPTER IX.

TRANSFERENCE OF STOPS.

At the commencement of the period of which we are treating, the stops belonging to the Swell organ could be drawn on that keyboard only; similarly the stops on the Great, Choir and Pedal organs could be drawn only on their respective keyboards. It is now becoming more and more common to arrange for the transference of stops from one keyboard to another.

If this plan be resorted to as an effort to make an insufficient number of stops suffice for a large building, it is bound to end in disappointment and cannot be too strongly condemned. On the other hand, if an organ-builder first provides a number stops that furnish sufficient variety of tonal quality and volume that is ample for the building in which the instrument is situated, and then arranges for the transference of a number of the stops to other manuals than their own, he will be adding to the tonal resources of the instrument in a way that is worthy of commendation. Many organs now constructed have their tonal effects more than doubled through adoption of this principle.

It is difficult to say who first conceived the idea of transference of stops, but authentic instances occurring in the sixteenth century can be pointed out. During the last fifty years many builders have done work in this direction, but without question the leaders.h.i.+p in the movement must be attributed to Hope-Jones. While others may have suggested the same thing, he has worked the system out practically in a hundred instances, and has forced upon the attention of the organ world the artistic advantages of the plan.

His scheme of treating the organ as a single unit and rendering it possible to draw any of the stops on any of the keyboards at any (reasonable) pitch, was unfolded before the members of the Royal College of Organists in London at a lecture he delivered on May 5, 1891.

When adopting this system in part, he would speak of "unifying" this, that or the other stop, and this somewhat inapt phrase has now been adopted by other builders and threatens to become general.

Extraordinary claims of expressiveness, flexibility and artistic balance are made by those who preside at "unit (Hope-Jones) organs,"

but this style of instrument is revolutionary and has many opponents.

Few, however, can now be found who do not advocate utilization of the principle to a greater or less degree in every organ. For instance, who has not longed at times that the Swell Bourdon could be played by the pedals? Or that the Choir Clarinet were also in the Swell?

Compton, of Nottingham, England, employs this plan of stop extension and transference, or unifying of stops, in all the organs he builds.

As additional methods facilitating in some cases the transfer of stops must be named the "double touch" and the "pizzicato touch." The former, though practically introduced by Hope-Jones and found in most of his organs built during the last fifteen years, was, we believe, invented by a Frenchman and applied to reed organs. The pizzicato touch is a Hope-Jones invention which, though publicly introduced nearly twenty years since, did not meet with the recognition it deserved until recently. The earliest example of this touch in the United States is found in the organ at Hanson Place Baptist Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., 1909.

In the French Mustel reed organ the first touch is operated by depressing the keys about a sixteenth part of an inch. This produces a soft sound. A louder and different tone is elicited upon pus.h.i.+ng the key further down. In the pipe organ the double touch is differently arranged. The first touch is the ordinary touch. Upon exerting a much heavier pressure upon the key it will suddenly fall into the second touch (about one-eighth of an inch deep) and will then cause an augmentation of the tone by making other pipes speak. The device is generally employed in connection with the couplers and can be brought into or out of action at the will of the organist. For instance, if the performer be playing upon his Choir Organ Flute and draws the Oboe stop on the Swell organ, he can (provided the double-touch action be drawn), by pressing any key or keys more firmly, cause those particular notes to speak on the Oboe, while the keys that he is pressing in the ordinary way will sound only the Flute.

The pizzicato touch is also used mostly in connection with the couplers. When playing upon a soft combination on the Great, the organist may draw the Swell to Great "pizzicato" coupler. Whenever now he depresses a Great key the Swell key will (in effect) descend with it, but will be instantly liberated again, even though the organist continue to hold his Great key. By means of this pizzicato touch (now being fitted to all Hope-Jones organs built in this country) a great variety of charming musical effects can be produced.

THE UNIT ORGAN.

The Unit organ in its entirety consists of a single instrument divided into five tonal families, each family being placed in its own independent Swell box. The families are as follows: "Foundation"--this contains the Diapasons, Diaphones, Tibias, etc.; "woodwind"--this contains Flutes, Oboes, Clarinets, etc.; "strings"--this contains the Gambas, Viols d' Orchestre, Dulcianas, etc.; "bra.s.s"--this contains the Trumpets, Cornopeans and Tubas; "percussion"--this contains the Tympani, Gongs, Chimes, Glockenspiel, etc.

On each of the keyboards any of the stops, from the "foundation" group, the "woodwind" group, the "string" group, the "bra.s.s" group and the "percussion" group, may be drawn, and they may be drawn at 16 feet, at 8 feet, and, in some instances, at 4 feet, at 2 feet, at twelfth and at tierce pitches.

Arranged in this way an organ becomes an entirely different instrument.

It is very flexible, for not only can the tones be altered by drawing the various stops at different pitches, but the various groups may be altered in power of tone independently of each other. At one moment the foundation tone may entirely dominate, by moving the swell pedals the strings may be made to come to the front while the foundation tone disappears; then again the woodwind a.s.serts itself whilst the string tone is moderated, till the opening of the box containing the bra.s.s allows that element to dominate. The variety of the tonal combinations is practically endless.

The adoption of this principle also saves needless duplication of stops. In the organ at St. George's Hall, England, there are on the manuals 5 Open Diapasons, 4 Princ.i.p.als, 5 Fifteenths, 3 Clarinets, 2 Orchestral Oboes, 3 Trumpets, 3 Ophicleides, 3 Trombas, 6 Clarions, 4 Flutes, etc., etc. In the Hope-Jones Unit organ at Ocean Grove effects equal to the above are obtained from only 6 stops. The organist of Touro Synagogue, New Orleans, has expressed the opinion that his ten-stop Unit organ is equal to an ordinary instrument with sixty stops.

SYMPATHY.

A strong reason against the duplication of pipes of similar tone in an organ is that curious acoustical phenomenon, the _bete noir_ of the organ-builder, known as _sympathy_, or interference of sound waves.

When two pipes of exactly the same pitch and scale are so placed that the pulsations of air from the one pa.s.s into the other, if blown separately the tone of each is clear; blown together there is practically no sound heard, the waves of the one streaming into the other, and a listener hears only the rus.h.i.+ng of the air. That the conditions which produce sound are all present may be demonstrated by conveying a tube from the mouth of either of the pipes to a listener's ear, when its tone will be distinctly heard. In other words, one sound destroys the other. Helmholtz explains this phenomenon by saying that "when two equal sound waves are in opposition the one nullifies the effect of the other and the result is a straight line," that is, no wave, no sound. "If a wave crest of a particular size and form coincides with another exactly like it, the result will be a crest double the height of each one" (that is, the sound will be augmented).

* * * "If a crest coincides with a trough the result will be that the one will unify the other," and the sound will be destroyed.[1] That is why in the old-style organs the builder, when he used more than one Diapason, tried to avoid this sympathy by using pipes of different scale, but even then the results were seldom satisfactory; the big pipes seemed to swallow the little ones. In the big organ in Leeds Town Hall, England, there was one pipe in the Princ.i.p.al which n.o.body could tune. The tuner turned it every possible way in its socket without avail, and at last succeeded by removing it from the socket and mounting it on a block at a considerable distance from its proper place, the wind being conveyed to it by a tube. This is only one instance of what frequently occurred.

In the Hope-Jones organ the usual plan of putting all the C pipes on one side of the organ and all the C# pipes on the other, is departed from. The pipes are alternated and in this ingenious way sympathy is largely avoided.

[1] Broadhouse: "Musical Acoustics," p. 261.

CHAPTER X.

THE PRODUCTION OF ORGAN TONE.

We now come to the department of the organ which will be of more interest to the listener, viz., the various organ tones. The general shape and construction of the pipes now in use, judging from the earliest drawings obtainable, have not changed for hundreds of years.

The ancients were not wanting in ingenuity and we have pictures of many funny-looking pipes which were intended to imitate the growling of a bear (this stop was sometimes labeled Vox Humana!), the crowing of a c.o.c.k, the call of the cuckoo, the song of the nightingale, and the twitter of the canary, the ends of these pipes being bent over and inserted in water, just as the player blows into a gla.s.s of water through a quill in a toy symphony. Then there was the Hummel, a device which caused two of the largest pipes in the organ to sound at once _and awake those who snored during the sermon_! Finally there was the Fuchsschwanz. A stop-k.n.o.b bearing the inscription, "Noli me tangere"

(touch me not), was attached to the console. As a reward for their curiosity, persons who were induced to touch the k.n.o.b thereby set free the catch of a spring, causing a huge foxtail to fly into their faces--to the great joy and mirth of the bystanders.

In order to understand what follows we must make a short excursion into the realm of acoustics. We have already remarked upon the extreme antiquity of the Flute. The tone of the Flute is produced by blowing across a hole pierced in its side; in other words, _like a stream of wind striking upon a cutting edge_. It is possible to produce a tone in this way by blowing across the end of any tube made of any material, of gla.s.s, or iron, or rubber, or cane, or even the barrel of an old-fas.h.i.+oned door key. The primitive Flutes found in the Egyptian tombs and also depicted on the ancient hieroglyphics are made of reed or cane, about 14 inches long, possessing the usual six finger-holes.