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HAVING spoken
of the pipe, and of the possibility that the Hebrews knew of the double-pipe,
we naturally come to those instruments which place a number of pipes under the
control of the performer.
And first it
should be remarked that there is an essential difference between the flûte
à bec, or flute with a beak, and
the flauto traverso, which it was unnecessary to point out when these
instruments were previously mentioned.
It is this.
In the former class,
the performer has only to blow into the end, and the sound is produced by the
air being led by the form of the interior against a sharp edge of wood termed
the upper lip.
In the flauto traverso (now the common flute), the
player has himself, by adjusting the form of his lips, to force the air
against the edge of one of the holes, which he thus temporarily makes into an upper
lip.
By comparing a penny whistle with a common bandsman's fife this
difference of their construction will be very apparent.
In the former, a piece of wood placed in
the mouth-piece guides the column of air to the opening, where it is compelled
to pass the under lip (the lower edge of the opening), so as to strike against
the upper lip; but in the latter nothing of the sort is provided, the player
making his mouth the under lip, and, as before said, the side of the
hole the upper lip.
It is plain, therefore, that two classes of
"manifold-pipes" can exist, the one corresponding to a collection of flauti
traversi, the other to a collection of flûtes à bec.
Now,
if we take any piece of a tube open at both ends, and blow against the sharp
edge until a musical sound is produced, we are acting exactly on the same
principle as does the player on the flauto traverse.
And if now we place our hand so as to close the other end of the tube, the pitch will immediately fall to an octave lower
than it was before, for physical reasons which need not be entered into here.
In both cases, whether the tube is open or closed, we are blowing and producing
the sound on the same principle.
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A collection of tubes of different sizes stopped at one end, and
blown into at the other as above described, forms the musical instrument known
as Pan's-pipes, in the Greek syrinx (σῦρυγξ), Lat. fistula.
Whereas a collection of flutes a bee of different sizes placed
in a series of holes in a box, through which the air can be mechanically
forced, constitutes what has for centuries been distinctively called the organ.
This difference between these two
instruments is of the more importance, because it is a commonly received notion
that the syrinx is the parent of the organ.
Unquestionably, as regards antiquity, the former instrument must
be allowed to have priority, but this does not necessarily prove any connection
between the two.
From
what has been said, it will be easily imagined that a Pan's-pipe blown by
mechanical means would really be a very scientific instrument;
but on the other
hand, when flutes d. bee were once commonly used, it would not require
any special ingenuity or invention to suggest that several should be placed in
a row over a box, and be blown one after another from the same supply of wind.
Of course, as each organ-pipe was only required to give one sound, there would
be no necessity for finger-holes being made in it.
Again, it must have been
very soon discovered that pipes containing reeds could be as easily made
to speak over a wind-box as flue-pipes.
The
universality of the Pan's-pipe is as remarkable as its antiquity.
To find a nation where it is not in use is to find a remarkable exception.
In an ancient Peruvian tomb a syrinx was discovered and procured by
General Paroissen.
A plaster cast of
this interesting relic was lent for exhibition at South Kensington Museum in
1872, by Professor Oakeley of Edinburgh, by whose kind permission the
engraving ( Fig. 57) is given.
The
description of the original, as given in the catalogue, is as follows
:—
"It is made of a greenish stone, which is a species of talc.
Four of its
tubes have small lateral finger-holes,
which, when closed, lower the pitch a
semitone."
The Inca Peruvians called the syrinx huayrapuhura.
The
British Museum possesses one of these, consisting of fourteen pipes.
Was the ugab a syrinx or an organ?
As the former seems to have been the more ancient of the two, and as ugab is included in the very first allusion to musical instruments in the Bible, it
would seem reasonable to say at once that it was a syrinx, especially as
this instrument was, and is to this day, commonly met with in various parts of
Asia.
Yet it would indeed be strange if such an instrument were selected for
use in Divine worship; and that the ugab was so used is proved beyond a
doubt by its mention in Ps.cl.:
Praise Him with the minnim and ugab.
Its mention here in antithesis to a collective name for stringed instruments surely points to the fact of its being a more important instrument than a few river-reeds fixed together with wax.
Let us not forget that we have but one and
the same name for the single row of about fifty pipes, placed, perhaps, in a
little room, and the mighty instrument of 5,000 pipes, occupying as much space
as an ordinary dwelling-house, and requiring the daily attention of a qualified
workman to keep its marvellous complications properly adjusted.
Each is an
organ.
May it not have been the case that the ugab, which in Gen.iv.21
is mentioned as the simply-constructed wind-instrument, in contrast to the
simple stringed-instrument, the kinnor, was a greatly inferior
instrument to that which in Ps.cl. (before quoted) is thought worthy of mention
by the side of a term for the whole string-power?
Even
if it be insisted that the first-mentioned ugab was nothing more than a syrinx, are we, therefore, forbidden to believe that the mere name might have been
retained while the instrument itself was gradually undergoing such alterations
and improvements as to render it in time a veritable organ?
That men's minds have from the earliest time
striven to find out in what way many pipes could be brought under the control
of a single player, there are indubitable proofs.
A passage in the Talmud [Mishna, Tr. Erachin., Ch. II., sections
3, 5, 6.],
describing an instrument called magrepha, which was said to be used in the Temple, is exceedingly interesting.
The word magrepha, signifies "a
fork," and the instrument was so named because of the similarity of the
outline of its upright pipes to the prongs of a fork.
This organ, for it is
entitled to the name, had a wind-chest containing ten holes, each communicating
with ten pipes;
it therefore was capable of producing 100 sounds.
These were
brought under the control of the player by means of a clavier, or
key-board.
Its tones were said to be audible at a very great distance.
Supposing
that the whole of this account is apocryphal, it still shows that in the second
century such an instrument was not only considered possible, but
believed, rightly or wrongly, to have actually existed at some previous period.
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Let us now trace the various stages through which the organ has passed, while developing from what we should now consider a toy, to that noble instrument which makes our beautiful cathedrals and churches ring again with sweet sounds, and whose duty it is to guide and support the combined voices of many hundreds, or it may be thousands, of hearty hymn-singers.
Assuming
that a series of wood or metal flûtes à bec had been
constructed so as to give in succession the notes of a scale, and also that the
wind-chest was pierced with holes to receive them, the first thing required by
the player would be a contrivance for allowing him to make any one he wished
speak separately.
As might be supposed,
the simplest method of doing this is to place little slips of wood in such a
position that they can either be pushed under the foot of the pipe, and so stop
the current of air from passing into it, or be pulled out so as to admit the
air.
Fig. 59 exhibits this most simple piece of mechanism, and very possibly shows what the ugab might have been at some period of its existence. A pipe at the side of the wind chest points out the fact that the commonest bellows of the period was considered capable of supplying the required current of air.
While one bellows is being replenished, the other is still able to support the sounds, so there is no awkward pause while the instrument is taking breath.
In
the next illustration (Fig. 61),
which is from a MS. Psalter of Eadwine,
in the
library of Trinity College, Cambridge, the organ has begun to assume a more
dignified form.
There is an attempt at an ornamental case, and judging from the
number of blowers required, the music must have been rapid, or the sounds
powerful.
As
soon as these instruments became large and not easily movable, the terms positive and portative organ came into existence—
the former being an instrument
which, owing to its size, had to remain stationary; the latter, one that could
be carried about.
In the sixteenth century, these portable organs were called regals, the exact derivation of which is somewhat uncertain.
They formed a very important element in ecclesiastical
processions, as their cases were frequently elegantly decorated.
In attempting to form some opinion as to the degree of excellence
reached by builders of ancient (not mediaeval) organs, it is very necessary
to bear in mind that the principles on which instruments of this class are
constructed have not undergone any radical change since the earliest times.
Indeed, one of our huge modern organs exhibits an ingenious expansion of old
ideas, rather than the invention of new.
Let us suppose, for example, that we
have two rows of pipes (i.e., two stops), one set of metal, the other of
wood, standing in holes in the top of a box, which is supplied with air (more
or less compressed) from a bellows.
Only two problems present themselves:
first, how is the player to make any particular pipe speak while its neighbours
stand silent; next, how is the player to have power to play on whichever of the
two sets of pipes he may wish.
When these questions are answered we shall have
discovered the two important principles on which all organs have been
and are constructed.
The modern names
for the two pieces of mechanism which bring about these results are,
respectively, the pallet and the slider.
In Fig. 59 the simplest method of placing
particular pipes under the player's control was shown.
Slips were pulled in and
out from under the foot of the pipes.
The utter impossibility of obtaining from
such a
system a rapid succession of sounds, or the simultaneous movement of several
slips so as to produce a chord, will be at once evident.
In modern organs there
lies under the foot of the pipe, some little distance below it, a small
flat piece of wood covered with leather, which is hinged at one end and kept in
position by a spring.
Fig.
63.
(a) Chest of compressed air.
(b) Pull-downs of pallet connected
with the keys.
(c) Pallets which admit air into groove;
steadied by
moving between two wires,
(d) Grooves running from back to front under
pipes.
(e) Slider with holes corresponding to pipes, pulled from right to
left,
so as to admit or prevent admission of air to pipes;
connected with the
stop-handles.
This is the pallet.
A stroke on one of the keys pulls down the
free end of the pallet and allows air to rush into the pipe.
When the finger releases the key, the
spring immediately holds the pallet tightly against the orifice.
But
to have a pallet under every pipe in a large organ would be an absurdity;
therefore, in arranging two sets of pipes, those giving the same note
(or
likely to be required for simultaneous use)
are placed behind one another over
the groove into which the pallet admits the air.
If now a key is struck,
the pipes which give the same note in both our
stops will be sounding at once.
Hence the necessity for our slider-action,
which is constructed thus.
A
strip of wood runs continuously under each row of pipes, having holes at
distances exactly corresponding to the distances between the feet of the
pipes.
If we
push this strip, which is called the slider, into such a position that
its perforations and the openings leading to the feet of the pipes exactly coincide, then air can pass into the pipes when the pallet opens.
If, on the contrary, we
push this strip of wood so that none of its perforations coincide with the
entrances to the feet of the pipes, no air can reach a pipe, even if the pallet
be opened. In the former case we say a stop is out, in the latter that
it is in.
The diagram (Fig. 63) will make all this easily understood.
How
simple are these two great constructive principles of the organ!
And yet, when
once known to the ancients, there remained no obstacle to their building organs
of any magnitude, for the modern organ with its three or four manuals in tiers,
and its pedal-organ, is nothing more or less than a collection of as many
organs all built on these two principles;
and, as before remarked, the ability
and ingenuity of modem organ builders has been directed more to the easiest
means of bringing these manifold organs under one performer's control than to
the discovery of a radical alteration in the principles of their construction.
Who
can venture to say that these simple principles were never mastered by the
ancients?
If the reader will turn back to our mention of the magrepha, he will
find that such contrivances must have been known at least as early as
the second century;
and there seems little reason to believe that any sudden
and unexpected discovery led to their adoption.
In the case of all other
musical instruments, a gradual but very perceptible growth in the ingenuity of
their construction is to be traced. Why not so with the ugab.
The only conclusion to be drawn from all
this is, that the ugab must be considered as an instrument of importance
and magnitude in direct proportion to the period of its existence.
To some this may seem a very contemptible
conclusion, but it is not so.
The use
of the word extends over a vast period, and those writers, therefore, who
describe it as one unvaried, unchanging instrument are, judging from what the
history of music teaches us, treading on untenable ground.
It is
remarkable that the latest improvements in the construction of the organ should
have been in its bellows.
One would have supposed that so important an
element in its existence would have been perfected early in its use.
Such,
however, is not the case.
It must be generally known that as the top of a
common bellows, such as a blacksmith's, descends, if left to itself, the
pressure on the air contained inside it increases, because the weight of the
top and sides is resting upon a constantly diminishing quantity and therefore surface of air.
It is also a well-known fact that organ-pipes change in their pitch to
a considerable extent, according to the pressure of the air which is passing
through them.
The ancients, then, if they had only one such simply-formed
bellows, could have produced no sounds at all while the top of the bellows was
being raised by the blower, as this process took off the pressure on the inside
air;
and even supposing that several such bellows were adapted to one organ in
such a manner that while the contents of some were being utilised by the
organist the others were being re-filled, even then the pressure of the air
must have been far from constant, unless the ingenuity of the blowers counteracted
the influence of natural laws.
A
glance at Fig. 60, on page 100, will show this plainly.
These old-fashioned bellows were called diagonal.
The bellows of modern organs, called horizontal, practically consist of the old kind of bellows (now called the feeders) and a reservoir just above them, which, owing to valves at its under-side, cannot
drop while the feeders are being replenished.
And in order to still further equalise the pressure, the ribs of our
bellows are so arranged that while one set meet inwardly the others meet
outwardly.
It seems almost surprising
that horizontal bellows were not made until the sixteenth century.
Some ascribe their introduction to
Lobinger, of Nuremberg, in 1570.
The
weight of the human body was very soon utilised by blowers for the purpose of
inflating their bellows, in preference to the muscles of the arm.
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The
Saxon name for a bellows was bilig or blast-belg, and like it is
the old German Blasebalg.
Hence
a bellows-blower was called a bellows-treader (Balgentreter).
Fig. 64 in
which this process is rather amusingly illustrated, is given by Dr. Rimbault,
from Coussemaker's article in Didron's Annales Archeologiques.
The awkward pause which must have taken
place when the weight of the treaders had emptied the bellows, and
before it was refilled, can be imagined.
The diagonal bellows and their treaders remained in existence quite up to the end of last century.
The organ in the comparatively modem
cathedral of St. Paul's, London, was blown after this fashion.
It possessed
four such bellows, each measuring 8 feet by 4.
But other large organs had as
many as eight, ten, twelve, and even fourteen.
The bellows-treader used to walk
leisurely along, and throw his weight upon them in rotation.
To this day many
of the German organs are blown by the weight of the blower's body, although the
bellows themselves are of a modern form of construction.
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It would be quite unfair to the reader to leave the subject of
ancient organs without saying a few words on the much discussed water-organ or hydraulic-organ, which is carefully described by Vitruvius Pollio,
the celebrated architect of the Augustan aera.
As explanatory drawings were not
fashionable in those days, it is quite impossible to discover what his
elaborate and lengthy description really describes.
But there can be no doubt that the lasting popularity of
water-organs was owing to the fact that, by some agency of water, the pressure
of the air was equalised, and the defects just noticed as incidental to
diagonal bellows remedied.
Considering the natural dread which a modern
organ-builder has to the approach of water to his instrument, although he is
content to work a hydraulic-engine and fill his bellows at a distance, the
reader may well wonder how and why ancient organ-builders courted the use of
this hostile element.
Assuming that the builders of water-organs were aware of
that property of water which makes it, if enclosed in a small tube passing downwards
and into the base of a vessel of any given area, able to exert on every portion of that area equal to itself any weight equal to that added to itself,
we can, perhaps, offer some such explanation of their mechanism as the
following:—
Suppose two oblong reservoirs of air to be made with their tops
fixed, but with movable bottoms, and joined together with a cross-bar in such a
manner that the bottom of one must rise as the bottom of the other falls.
Suppose also that ordinary valves are placed
in the top of each, so that as the bottom rises the valves close, and the air
can only escape through a passage into the box on which stand the pipes;
while,
on the other hand, as the bottom falls the valves drop too, and admit a fresh
supply of air through their openings.
Now, if enclosed water were to be admitted below the bottoms of the
reservoirs with a mechanical arrangement which should not only stop the supply
of compressed water when the bottom of each reservoir had reached its highest
point, but also let the water escape through a waste-valve at the same time, it
is not difficult to conceive of a very equal and strong supply of air being
sent to the pipes as the two reservoirs were filled and emptied in turn.
As
long as the water continued to be pumped to the higher level, so long would the
supply of air last.
There is much in the account of the instrument, as given by Vitruvius, which carries out this view, but parts of his description are
unquestionably somewhat figurative.
In opposition to the explanation of
water-organs here attempted, it may be urged that had the Romans been aware of
the peculiar properties consequent on the gravity of liquids, they would never
have taken the trouble to build, as they did, massive and beautiful aqueducts
when a closed pipe or tube would not only have brought the water safely down
into the valley, but up the other hill-side to the same level.
Also, that a hydraulic-organ is sometimes
spoken of as playing by itself, and how can this be made consistent with
the account here given, unless the organ-blower used to be considered the real
player, while the man at the pipes was looked upon as a mere nonentity?
And,
again, it is occasionally mentioned that these instruments were worked by hot water, and if the water were simply used to obtain a force from its special
laws of gravity, why in the world need it first be boiled ?
Another
explanation of the structure of a water-organ may be hazarded.
If into a perfectly closed chamber of air a water-pipe is introduced, the air
will, of course, be compressed in proportion to the quantity of water forced
in.
If pipes were placed over such a chamber, with a slider under each pipe,
under the control of the player, the admission of the air from the chamber
would unquestionably cause them to speak, and with two such chambers a
tolerably constant supply of compressed air could be obtained, one providing
this while the other was being emptied of its water.
This
digression on the hydraulic organ is not altogether out of place here, as
enthusiasts are not wanting who would make us believe that this instrument was
among those known and used by the Jews in their Temple worship.
[Chappell states that it was invented in the
third century BC. See his History
of Music, p. 326.]
Several authors have attempted
to give pictures of them, and, it is not too much to say, have seriously taxed
their inventive powers in so doing.
Among them may be quoted Kircher, Isaac
Vossius, Perrault (Commentary on Vitruvius), and Optantianus.
A rude representation of one is also to be
seen on a coin of the time of Nero, preserved in the Vatican.
That here given
(Fig. 65) is from Hauser's Kirchen Musik, and is to be found, with much
more valuable information, including the text of Vitruvius' account, in
Rimbault's well-known History of the Organ.
It is probably purely fanciful;
the reader is therefore likely to
be, after studying it carefully, as wise as he was before.
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If we turn to that nation whose careful preservation of old traditions in art renders their present customs unusually valuable —the Chinese—we are struck by a remarkable fact, namely, that the organ they use is constructed on a totally different principle to that which has grown up in Europe. It is blown by being placed against the mouth of the performer, a truly primitive method, and one which, if adhered to, must have utterly prevented any great improvements in the instrument. The player finds room to pass his hand round into the back of the instrument, and so reaches the pipes which he has to stop, for by stopping the holes, the pipes are made to speak.
Fig.
66 represents a cheng or Chinese organ, 
and in Fig. 67 is shown the
position in which it is held when in use.
The most important difference between
the cheng and our organ is that its sounds are produced by free reeds.
The method by which sound is produced in an ordinary reed-stop on the
organ is this: the metal tongue of the reed is rather larger than the
orifice through which the air is forced, and is slightly curved at its
extremity.
When, therefore, the current of air is directed to it the tongue is
forced down over the orifice, but its own elasticity causes it to return, when
the air again forces it down, and so on; the number of these backward and
forward motions being of course the number of vibrations necessary to produce
the particular sound required.
But in the case of the free reed, the tongue is not so large as the orifice through which the air is forced; when,
therefore, the current of air is directed against it, it bends, and passes through the opening, but is
immediately restored to its position, as in the ordinary reed, by its own
elasticity.
That is to say, the tongue of the common reed beats against
the opening, that of the free reed passes in and out of it.
It is
almost incredible that such a simple source of obtaining sweet sounds should
have remained so long unused in Europe.
It is said that an organ-builder, by name Kratzenstein, of St. Petersburg, saw a cheng, and made some organ stops on
this principle, about the middle of the last century.
But the real value of free reeds does not seem to have been
appreciated until Grenie, of Paris, in 1810, discarded the pipes and used the
reeds alone, thus inventing the harmonium.
Perhaps few of the many thousands who play upon this cheap and
(now) sweet-toned instrument are aware that it is a true descendant of a
cheng.
Accordions and concertinas form
the connecting link between the cheng and harmonium, as they combine the
portability and free reeds of the former, with the bellows-system of the
latter.
The cheng contains from thirteen to twenty-one pipes, and is probably
one of the oldest wind-instruments now in use.
Some have gone so far as to call
it "Jubal's organ," but had it been in use among the jews, it is
difficult to believe that all traces of it would be lost among the nations
which were in close contact and inter-communication with them, especially as it
is exceedingly light and easily carried, and would therefore in all
probability have been preserved by them in their wanderings and
captivities.
It is improbable,
therefore, that the cheng, ancient as is its origin, is allied to the Hebrew ugab, and the latter was probably at the earliest times a collection of pipes of the
very simplest character, but growing into more importance as from time to time
improvements were made in its construction.
We have seen that the Jews were not unwilling to adopt the improved form
of stringed instruments which they sometimes found in neighbouring nations,
and there is no special reason for supposing that in the case of the ugab no attempts were made to improve upon the form invented by Jubal.
An organ, in our modern sense of the name,
it hardly could have been, unless keys were invented by the ancients;
but a collection of pipes it certainly was, which could be made to sound at
the-will of the player, albeit, perhaps, by clumsy mechanism.
In the Septuagint
the word ugab has three distinct renderings— κιθάρα (cithara) in
Gen.iv.21;
ψαλμός (psalmus) in Job xxi.12,
and xxx.31;
and ὄργανον (organuum) in Ps.cl.4.
That learned scholars should have ventured
to translate one Hebrew word by three names of such totally different
significations as "guitar," "psaltery," "organ,"
is a sufficient warning as to the danger of trusting to translations.
In our Authorised Version it is uniformly
rendered as "organ"—
Such as handle the harp and organ
(Gen.iv.21);
Rejoice at the sound of the organ
(Job xxi.12);
My harp (kinnor) also is turned to mourning,
and my organ (ugab) into the voice of them that weep
(Job xxx.31);
Praise Him with the timbrel and organ
(Ps.cl.4).
But in the Prayer-book version it is in this last passage rendered by "pipes:"
Praise Him in the strings (minnim) and pipes (ugab).
Here the word is perhaps used to express wind-instruments generally:
Praise Him with stringed instruments and wind instruments.
The German version of the Bible translates ugab in every case by "pipes" (Pfeifen).
As
organs form, in our days, such an important element in the musical part of
Christian worship, a few words on the probable date of their dedication to this
sacred function may not be unwelcome.
It is generally said that they were introduced into Church services by
Pope Vitalianus in the seventh century.
But on the other hand, mention is found of an organ which belonged to a
church of nuns at Grado, before the year 580.
This instrument has even been minutely described as having been two feet
long by six inches deep, and as possessing thirty pipes, acted upon by fifteen
keys or slides.
It is very doubtful if
they were familiar to the Romans, although an epigram of Julian the Apostate
alludes to them.
It seems, however, to
be tolerably authenticated that one was sent by Constantine in 766 as a present
to Pepin, King of France.
Improvements in their construction are attributed to
Pope Sylvester, who died 1003.
When we
reach the time of Chaucer their use must have been common, for he thus speaks
in his Nonnes Preestes Tale (Nun Priest's Tale) of a crowing cock
"highte chaunticlere."
His vois was merier than the mery orgon
On masse dales that in the chirches gon.