The Recent Revolution in Organ Building Part 2

As before stated, Cavaille-Coll and Willis worked as pioneers in perfecting and in introducing the pneumatic action.

The pneumatic action used by Willis, Cavaille-Coll and a score of other builders leaves little to be desired. It is thoroughly reliable and, where the keys are located close by the organ, is fairly prompt both in attack and repet.i.tion. Many of the pneumatic actions made to-day, however, are disappointing in these particulars.

TUBULAR PNEUMATICS.[1]

In the year 1872 Henry Willis built an organ for St. Paul's Cathedral, London, which was divided in two portions, one on each side of the junction of the Choir with the Dome at an elevation of about thirty feet from the floor. The keyboards were placed inside one portion of the instrument, and instead of carrying trackers down and under the floor and up to the other side, as had hitherto been the custom in such cases, he made the connection by means of tubes like gaspipes, and made a pulse of _wind_ travel down and across and up and into the pneumatic levers controlling the pipes and stops. Sir John Stainer describes it as "a triumph of mechanical skill." He was organist of St. Paul's for many years and ought to know. This was all very well for a cathedral, where

". . . . the long-drawn aisles The melodious strains prolong"

but here is what the eminent English organist, W. T. Best, said about tubular pneumatic action as applied to another organ used for concert purposes: "It is a complete failure; you cannot play a triplet on the Trumpet, and I consider it the most d----nable invention ever placed inside an organ." Notwithstanding these drawbacks this action became very fas.h.i.+onable after its demonstration at St. Paul's, and was used even in small organs in preference to the Barker lever. One builder confessed to the writer that he had suffered severe financial loss through installing this action. After expending considerable time (and time is money) in getting it to work right, the whole thing would be upset when the s.e.xton started up the heating apparatus. The writer is acquainted with organs in New York City where these same conditions prevail.

The writer, however, will admit having seen some tubular actions which were fairly satisfactory, one in particular in the factory of Alfred Monk, London, England, where for demonstration purposes the tubes were fifty feet long. Dr. Bedart informs us that Puget, the famous organ builder of Toulouse, France, sets fifty feet as the limit of usefulness of this action.

Henry Willis & Sons in their description of the organ in the Lady Chapel of Liverpool Cathedral state that their action has been tested to a repet.i.tion of 1,000 per minute, quicker than any human finger can move. This is a square organ in one case, but we note they have adopted the electric action for the great cathedral organ where the distance of the pipes from the keys is too great for satisfactory response.

In view of the wide use at present of this action we give a drawing and description of its operation as patented and made by Mr. J. J. Binns, of Bramley, Leeds, England. J. Matthews, in his "Handbook of the Organ," says that this action is very good and free from drawbacks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 5. Tubular Pneumatic Action]

The tubes, N, from each key are fixed to the hole connected to the small puffs P in the puff-board E. Air under pressure is admitted by the key action and conveyed by the tubes N which raises the corresponding b.u.t.ton valves S|1|, lifting their spindles S and closing the apertures T|2| in the bottom of the wind-chest A, and opening a similar aperture T in the bottom of the cover-board F, causing the compressed air to escape from the exhaust bellows M, which closes, raising the solid valve H in the cover-board F and closing the aperture J|1| in the wind-chest A, shuts off the air from the bellows, which immediately closes, drawing down the pallet B, which admits air (or wind) to the pipes.

No tubular-pneumatic action is entirely satisfactory when the distance between the keys and the organ is great. This is often due to a law of nature rather than to imperfection of design or workmans.h.i.+p.

Pneumatic pulses travel slowly--at a speed which does not reach 1,100 feet per second. In large organs where necessarily some of the tubes are short and some have to be long, it is impossible to secure simultaneous speech from all departments of the instrument, and in addition to this the crisp feeling of direct connection with his pipes, which the old tracker action secured for the organist, is lost.

It is generally thought amongst the more advanced of the builders and organists qualified to judge, that the tubular-pneumatic action will sooner or later be entirely abandoned in favor of the electro-pneumatic action. Certain it is that the aid of electricity is now called in in practically every large instrument that is built in this country, and in an increasing proportion of those constructed abroad.

THE CRYING NEED FOR ELECTRIC ACTION.

The instance of St. Paul's Cathedral cited above shows the demand that existed at that time for means whereby the organ could be played with the keyboards situated at some distance from the main body of the instrument. In the Cathedrals the organ was usually placed on a screen dividing the Choir from the Nave, completely obstructing the view down the church. There was a demand for its removal from this position (which was eventually done at St. Paul's, Chester, Durham, and other Cathedrals). Then in the large parish churches the quartet of singers in the west gallery where the organ was placed had been abolished. Boy choirs had been installed in the chancel, leaving the organ and organist in the west gallery, to keep time together as best they could.

In the Cathedrals, too, the organist was a long way off from the choir.

How glorious it would be if he could sit and play in their midst!

Henry Willis & Sons stated in a letter to the London _Musical News_, in 1890, that they had been repeatedly asked to make such arrangements but had refused, "because Dame Nature stood in the way,"--which she certainly did if tubular pneumatics had been used. The fact was that up to this time all the electric actions invented had proved more or less unreliable, and Willis, who had an artistic reputation to lose, refused to employ them. As an instance of their clumsiness we may mention that the best contact they could get was made by dipping a platinum point in a cell containing mercury! Other forms of contact rapidly oxidized and went out of business.

Dr. Gauntlet, about the year 1852, took out a patent covering an electric connection between the keys and the pallets of an organ,[2]

but the invention of the electro-pneumatic lever must be ascribed to Barker and Dr. Peschard. The latter seems to have suggested the contrivance and the former to have done the practical work.

Bryceson Bros. were the first to introduce this action into English organs. They commenced work along these lines in 1868, under the Barker patents, their first organ being built behind the scenes at Her Majesty's Opera House, Drury Lane, London, the keys being in the orchestra. This organ was used successfully for over a year, after which it was removed and shown as a curiosity in the London Polytechnic Inst.i.tute, recitals being given twice daily.

Schmole and Molls, Conti, Trice and others took a leading part in the work on the European continent, and Roosevelt was perhaps its greatest pioneer in the United States.

Various builders in many countries have more recently made scores of improvements or variations in form and have taken out patents to cover the points of difference, but none of these has done any work of special importance.

Not one of the early electric actions proved either quick or reliable, and all were costly to install and maintain.[3]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The First Electric Organ Ever Built. In the Collegiate Church at Salon, Near Ma.r.s.eilles, France (1866).]

This form of mechanism, therefore, earned a bad name and was making little advance, if not actually being abandoned, when a skilled electrician, Robert Hope-Jones, entered the field about 1886. Knowing little of organs and nothing of previous attempts to utilize electricity for this service, he made with his own hands and some unskilled a.s.sistance furnished by members of his voluntary choir, the first movable console,[4] stop-keys, double touch, suitable ba.s.s, etc., and an electric action that created a sensation throughout the organ world. In this action the "pneumatic blow" was for the first time attained and an attack and repet.i.tion secured in advance of anything thought possible at that time, in connection with the organ or the pianoforte.

Hope-Jones introduced the round wire contact which secures the ideally perfect "nibbing points," and he makes these wires of dissimilar non-corrosive metals (gold and platinum).

He replaced previous rule-of-thumb methods by scientific calculation, recognized the value of low voltage, good insulation and the avoidance of self-induction, with the result that the electro-pneumatic action has become (when properly made) as reliable as the tracker or pneumatic lever mechanism.

DESCRIPTION OF THE ELECTRIC ACTION.

The electric action consists substantially of a small bellows like the pneumatic lever, but instead of the valve admitting the wind to operate it being moved by a tracker leading from the key, it is opened by an electro-magnet, energized by a contact in the keyboard and connected therewith by a wire which, of course, may be of any desired length. We ill.u.s.trate one form of action invented and used by Hope-Jones.[5]

Within the organ, the wires from the other end of the cable are attached to small magnets specially wound so that no spark results when the electric contact at the key is broken. This magnet attracts a thin disc of iron about 1/4 inch in diameter, (held up by a high wind pressure from underneath) and draws it downward through a s.p.a.ce of less than 1/100 of an inch.

The working is as follows: The box A is connected with the organ bellows and so (immediately the wind is put into the organ) is filled with air under pressure, which pa.s.ses upwards between the poles of the magnet N. Lifting the small iron disc L it finds its way through the pa.s.sage L into the small motor M, thus allowing the movable portion of the motor M to remain in its lower position, the pallet C|1| being closed and the pallet C|2| being open. Under these conditions, the large motor B collapses and the pull-down P (which is connected with the organ pallet) rises.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 6. The Electro-Pneumatic Lever]

When a weak current of electricity is caused to circulate round the coils of the electro-magnet N, the small armature disc J is drawn off the valve-seat H on to the zinc plate K.

The compressed air from within the small motor M escapes by way of the pa.s.sage L, through the openings in the valve seat H into the atmosphere. The compressed air in the box A then acts upon the movable portion of the small motor M in such a manner that it is forced upwards and caused (through the medium of the pull-wire E) to lift the supply pallet C|1| and close the exhaust pallet C|2|, thus allowing compressed air to rush from the box A into the motor B and so cause this latter motor to open and (through the medium of the pull down P) to pull the soundboard pallet from its seat and allow wind to pa.s.s into the pipes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 7. Valve and Valve Seat, Hope-Jones Electric Action]

The valve-seat H has formed on its lower surface two crescent shaped long and narrow slits. A very slight movement of the armature disc J, therefore, suffices to open to the full extent two long exhaust pa.s.sages. The movement of this disc is reduced to something less than the 1/100 part of an inch. It is, therefore, always very close to the poles of the magnet, consequently a very faint impulse of electricity will suffice (aided by gravity) to draw the disc off the valve-seat H.

The zinc plate K being in intimate contact with the iron poles of the magnet N, protects the latter from rust by well-known electrical laws.

All the parts are made of metal, so that no change in the weather can affect their relative positions. R is the point at which the large motor B is hinged. G is a spring retaining cap in position; O the wires leading from the keys and conveying the current to the magnet N; Q the removable side of the box A.

Fig. 7 represents a larger view of the plate K in which the magnet poles N are rigidly fixed--of a piece of very fine chiffon M (indicated by a slightly thicker line) which prevents particles of dust pa.s.sing through so as to interfere with the proper seating of the soft Swedish charcoal iron armature disc J--of the distance piece L and of the valve seat H.

On the upper surface of this valve seat H another piece of fine chiffon is attached to prevent possible pa.s.sage of dust to the armature valve J, from outside.

As all parts of this apparatus are of metal changes in humidity or temperature do not affect its regulation.

The use of this action renders it possible for the console (or keyboards, etc.) to be entirely detached from the organ, moved to a distance and connected with the organ by a cable fifty or one hundred feet or as many miles long. This arrangement may be seen, for example, in the College of the City of New York (built by the E. M. Skinner Co.), where the console is carried to the middle of the platform when a recital is to be given, and removed out of the way when the platform is wanted for other purposes.

As all the old mechanism--the backfalls, roller-boards and trackers--is now swept away, it is possible by placing the bellows in the cellar to utilize the _inside of the organ_ for a choir-vestry, as was indeed done with the pioneer Hope-Jones organ at St. John's Church, Birkenhead.

DIVISION OF ORGANS.

Before the invention of pneumatic and electro-pneumatic action, organs were almost invariably constructed in a single ma.s.s. It was, it is true, possible to find instruments with tracker action that were divided and placed, say, half on either side of a chancel, but instances of the kind were rare and it was well nigh impossible for even a muscular organist to perform on such instruments.

The perfecting of tubular pneumatic and especially of electro-pneumatic action has lent wonderful flexibility to the organ and has allowed of instruments being introduced in buildings where it would otherwise have been impossible to locate an organ. Almost all leading builders have done work of this kind, but the Aeolian Company has been quickest to seize the advantage of division in adapting the pipe organ for use in private residences.

Sound reflectors have recently been introduced, and it seems likely that these will play an important part in organ construction in the future. So far they appear to be employed only by Hope-Jones and the firms with which he was a.s.sociated. It has been discovered that sound waves may be collected, focussed or directed, much in the same way that light waves can. In the case of the Hope-Jones organ at Ocean Grove, N. J., the greatest part of the instrument has been placed in a bas.e.m.e.nt constructed outside the original Auditorium. The sound waves are thrown upward and are directed into the Auditorium by means of parabolic reflectors constructed of cement lined with wood. The effect is entirely satisfactory. In Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland, Ohio,[6]

Hope-Jones arranged for the Tuba to stand in the bas.e.m.e.nt at the distant end of the nave. Its tone is directed to a cement reflector and from that reflector is projected through a metal grid set in the floor, till, striking the roof of the nave, it is spread and fills the entire building with tone. In St. Luke's Church, Montclair, N. J., he adopted a somewhat similar plan in connection with the open 38-foot pedal pipes which are laid horizontally in the bas.e.m.e.nt. We believe that the first time this principle was employed was in the case of the organ rebuilt by Hope-Jones in 1892 at the residence of Mr. J. Martin White, Balruddery, Dundee, Scotland.