Organ music

“ The propriety of this limitation will be manifest, when we consider that in organ music, the chords are generally played more full, and are more protracted, than in music for other keyed instruments. It is harmony which constitutes its character, in a higher degree than in music for other instruments. Hence the harmony of the organ ought not to be impaired by including in our computations any music not adapted to it. ”

“ Ah! there's the mistake. Though my organ is as full of melody, as a hive is of bees; yet no organ can make music in unmusical breasts; no more than my native winds can, when they breathe upon a harp without chords. ”

“ Ignoring the emotional element in organ music to a great extent, and substituting the purely intellectual and technical. In their melodies we recognize the true inspiration of the great composers. The scientific setting they may give them, the technical dress in which they may clothe them, thus often greatly enhancing their beauty, is, after all, a matter of pure science acquired through schooling and dignified by talent. This appeals to the intellect, and is a most desirable object of study ”

“ Even the untrained will find some interest in the timbre of the notes and the qualities of sound emitted with the pulling of different stops. The lingering sounds and the novelty of playing an organ which is no longer a commonplace in the home, are great incentives to playing. Instruction on the organ, which has a smaller keyboard and slower manipulation than the piano, is pleasant and simple. For combined upper and lower extremity disabilities, the organ is an excellent instrument. Every hospital music department should own one. ”

“ At the end of the seventeenth century organ music was independent of vocal style. Free of the old church modes, built solidly upon an impressive, harmonic foundation, animated by strong rhythm and varied by a thousand devices of virtuosity which had their being in the nature of the instrument itself, it makes evident the great changes which had come into music during the century. ”

“ There can be no doubt that this treatment of the organ has had a mischievous effect upon organ building, organ music, and organ playing.
The employment of the organ with the orchestra is not without its dangers, but the main principles are clear. Never use imitation stops or mixtures and hardly ever 4-ft. or 2-ft. work. The Diapasons and the pedal stops are the only effects which can be used without clash and harshness. A pedal alone has often a wonderfully fine effect. ”

“ In the case of the organ, the pressure with which the keys are struck does not need to be recorded or reproduced, but instead of this, we have to operate the various stops or registers and the various swell shades if we would obtain a faithful reproduction mechanically of the piece of music played by an artist on the organ. ”

“ The process became inverted, and music began to affect the organ, rather than the organ it. To this we owe the vast improvements in the construction of the instrument, the many additions of new qualities of tone, and numberless new inventions of value still going on in our day, with a rapidity difficult to keep pace with. To fairly appreciate this past or present relation of things, it becomes necessary to take a hasty and necessarily superficial glance backward at the origin of the organ,—its invention and development. ”

“ No two of these instruments are precisely alike. The organ is only a theme with innumerable variations, determined by the place in which it is to be installed, by the amount of money at the builder’s disposal, by his inventiveness, and, often, by his personal whims. As a result time is required for the organist to learn his instrument thoroughly. After this he is as free as the fish in the sea, and his only preoccupation is the music. Then, to play freely with the colors on his vast palette, there is but one way—he must plunge boldly into improvisation. ”

“ Inasmuch as the organ was the instrument for which the most suitable style was clearly to be found in a modification of the old vocal polyphony, organist-composers were spared much of the difficulty which hindered composers who strove to write for other instruments, or for combinations of instruments. We have seen that organ music, set upon its way by the [Pg 362] Italians, was dropped by them before the middle of the century. All their interest in instrumental music came very early in the century to be centred upon music for the violin and instruments of that family. ”

“ Over all pealed the full-voiced organ, sounding like music that belongs not to earth, now high, now low, near or remote, as the reverberated sound rose to the dome or traversed the aisles, coming in and out like wavering light between the pillars and shadowy recesses, spots in which old echoes seem to sleep, old voices to linger, which only broke forth at intervals to join in the solemn anthem that rose up and floated away, and would only become indistinct when it reached the star-paved courts above. ”

“ So with the education of the organ student; first the broad foundation, and then a judicious liberalism. His auditors will always remain the great public, and that public to the end of time will never be so versed in musical science that it can appreciate the stricter forms of organ music. But very many among the public can appreciate, or at least enjoy ”

“ Modern Organ Music.—Organ playing and composition have kept pace with the mechanical and artistic evolution of the instrument, and the lines between the various schools are becoming less closely drawn. The tendency of builders to imitate orchestral tone and effects has had influence on composers and players alike. This tendency is less noticeable in the works of the German school, where a modified polyphony still flourishes, based on the principle of the classic treatment of the chorale and growing out of the music of the Lutheran Church. ”

“ Inasmuch as no other kind of music so closely resembles the human voice, we can fancy ourselves communing with the thoughts and feelings of the human soul. We naturally compare the organ to man's vocal apparatus. The organ has a bellows, we have lungs; in the organ is a "sound-board" the trachea performs the same function; the vibrating tongue of the organ has its counterpart in our vocal cords; and the pharynx and the mouth answer to the resonating cavities of the organ. Yet the natural instrument is immensely superior to the artificial one. ”

“ Following Hope-Jones' lead, all the best builders have now extended their boards to g, 32 notes, this range being called for by some of Bach's organ music and certain pieces of the French school where a melody is played by the right foot and the bass by the left. The chief reason is that g is the top note of the string bass, and is called for in orchestral transcriptions. Henry Willis & Sons have also extended the pedal compass to g in rebuilding the St. George's Hall organ in 1898. ”

“ Seated one day at the Organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.
I do not know what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then;
But I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen. ”

“ In France and England it has been different, the organ having been employed to accompany many anthems and other extended pieces of music, which in Germany (at least in the larger cities) would be given with the orchestra. [Pg 31] It should be noticed that to England we owe one great improvement, which, especially for the rôle the organ is called upon to fill in this country, can scarcely be overrated. I refer to the invention of the swell, and the great variety of effects we are enabled to achieve by its means in both accompaniment and solo playing. ”

“ So we see how one invention led to another until the organ became an instrument of almost unlimited possibilities, and how keyed instruments had shown the composers how to develop music along new lines. By the end of the 16th century, organ compositions and organ-playing had made rapid progress all over Europe, and you will recall the great organists in all the churches and cathedrals in the Netherlands, in England, Italy, France, Spain, and even in Germany which up to this time had not been on the “musical map.” ”

“ When an organ in itself tuned to the right pitch can be shifted a tone higher or lower, it is a great advantage to both organist and singers. I have heard years ago of a Positive so made, but I only know of one complete organ, and that one I use daily, which together with its positive, two back manuals, pedals, and all its many and rare registers, may be shifted higher and back again as often as necessity requires. ”

“ While the improvement of the organ, as respects both tone, mechanism and general capabilities, continued, and still continues at the present day, it is noteworthy that from the time of Bach, of all others, the influence of the organ upon music at large began to diminish. From this point we have to consider the decline of this influence, showing that music began to emancipate itself, each instrument claiming and receiving its own especial rights and treatment, long before a similar dawn of liberty began in the political world. ”

“ Finally, there is in the labyrinth an organ, discovered426 by the Marchese Corti, which is to all appearance a musical instrument, with its chords so stretched as to accept vibrations of different periods, and transmit them to the nerve-filaments which traverse the organ. Within the ears of men, and without their knowledge or contrivance, this lute of 3,000 strings76 has existed for ages, accepting the music of the outer world and rendering it fit for reception by the brain. ”

“ All the musical instruments in the world, from the penny whistle to the grand piano, are but poor imitations of the human music box. The bellows, of course, of the human pipe organ are the lungs; while the tongue furnishes the stops; and the throat, mouth, and nose, the resonance, or sounding, chambers. ”

“ Turning from the rules of the past to the custom of the present, it is found that 'an organ' of to-day sometimes consists really of as many as five separate and distinct organs—Great, Swell, Choir, Solo, and Pedal; but all being enclosed in one case, or at any rate brought under the control of one performer, they are spoken of collectively as constituting a single instrument. ”

“ No Art in Early Organ Playing.—The organs of the early Christian period were of such a character that playing, in the sense in which we now understand the word, was out of the question. For some time the span of the hand possible to players did not exceed the distance of a fifth. If an octave was to be struck, a second player was necessary. Only with the narrowing of the keys did artistic playing become possible. In fact, organ playing has invariably reflected the style and development of contemporary musical art. ”

“ When we compare Bach's Clavier compositions with those written for the Organ it is at once apparent that they differ essentially in melodic and harmonic structure. Hence we conclude that a good organist must select fitting themes for his instrument, and let himself be guided by its character and that of the place in which it stands and by the objects of its use. Its great body of tone renders the Organ ill-adapted to light and jaunty music. ”

“ In church music, the organ is perhaps the first instrument to be considered. In 951, Elfeg, the Bishop of Winchester had built in his cathedral a great organ which had four hundred pipes and twenty-six pairs of bellows, to manage which seventy strong men were necessary. ”

“ Hence in improvisation or in the performance of previously arranged numbers he never failed to delight his audience. It was the same upon the organ. The art of obligato pedal playing he brought to a point which it had never before reached and scarcely afterward surpassed. He comprehended the full extent of organ technique, and with the exception of a few tricks of quasi-orchestral imitation, made possible in modern organs, he covered the entire [Pg 268] ground of organ playing in a manner at once solid and brilliant. ”

“ The development of the Opera and its influence towards a freer style in vocal and instrumental composition and the tendency of instrumental music to develop along harmonic lines had the effect of relegating polyphonic music to the Church with the organ as its chief vehicle. It is only of comparatively recent years that the organ has become a concert instrument. Bach’s treatment of the instrument serves as a model for the composers of all time and the study of his works is indispensable to the development of technical command of the organ and the cultivation of the true organ style. ”

“ Considering the degree of perfection attained in our contemporary manufacture, we must be careful not to become dazzled in the midst of the wealth of resources thereby offered us, and thus led far astray from the right path. Let us not forget that upon the organ, as in the orchestra or chorus, all music is based upon the quartet. It is the true foundation of the language. With the organ, our quartet is embodied in the noble and flowing sonority of the 8-foot foundation stops. ”

“ This gave a greater resource, for what was often technically impossible with the human voice became easy with the organ. The mechanical improvement of this instrument immediately gave greater freedom and range of technic, and it proved so well suited to polyphonic development that it aided the evolution more than any other one agency. The use of the organ must not be accounted as the beginning of instrumental music, for the organ used only adapted voice-forms, such as the Canon, Fugue, Madrigal, etc. ”