A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Treatment of the Organ

by Walter Parratt

TREATMENT OF THE ORGAN. The organ, as the most powerful, complicated, and artificial instrument, is naturally the most difficult to manage. The pleasure of producing large volumes of sound is a snare to almost all players; the ability to use the pedals with freedom tempts many to their excessive employment; the bitter brilliance of the compound stops has a surprising fascination for some. Draw all the stops of a large organ and play the three notes in the bass stave (a).

At least one pipe speaks each note of the bunch of sounds placed over the chord. If this cacophony is the result of the simplest chord, some idea, though faint, may be formed of the effect produced by the complex combinations of modern music. Of course no sound-producing instrument is free from these overtones, but their intensity does not approach that of their artificial imitations. We have all grown up with these noises in our ears, and it would be impossible to catch a first-rate musician and make him listen for the first time to an elaborate fugue played through upon a full organ; if we could, his opinions would probably surprise us.

The reserve with which great musicians speak of the organ, and the unwillingness to write music for it (the latter, no doubt, to be accounted for partly on other grounds) are noticeable; but we meet occasionally with expressions of opinion which probably represent the unspoken judgment of many and the half-conscious feeling of more.

The mechanical soulless material of the organ. (Spitta, Life of Bach, vol. i. p. 284.)

Another day he (Mendelssohn) played on the organ at St. Catherine's Church, but I confess that even Mendelssohn's famous talent, like that of many other eminent organists, left me quite cold, though I am far from attributing this to any want in their playing. I find it immensely interesting to stand by an organist and watch the motions of his hands and feet whilst I follow on the music, but the excessive resonance in churches makes it more pain than pleasure to me to listen from below to any of those wonderful creations with their manifold intricacies and brilliant passages. (F. Hiller, 'Mendelssohn,' Transl. p. 185.)

With reference to compound stops, Berlioz says (Traité d'Instrumentation, p. 168):—

Les facteurs d'orgue et les organistes s'accordent à trouver excellent l'effet produit par cette résonnance multiple … En tout cas ce singulier precedé tendrait toujours à donner à l'orgue la resonnance harmonique qu'on cherche inutilement à éviter sur les grands pianos à queue.

In the same connexion Helmholtz (Sensations of Tone, Ellis's translation) writes:—

The latter (compound stops) are artificial imitations of the natural composition of all musical tones, each key bringing a series of pipes into action which correspond to the first three or six partial tones of the corresponding note. They can be used only to accompany congregational singing. When employed alone they produce insupportable noise and horrible confusion. But when the singing of the congregation gives overpowering force to the prime tones in the notes of the melody, the proper relation of quality of tone is restored, and the result is a powerful well-proportioned mass of sound.

It may be well then, without writing an organ tutor, which is beyond the scope of such a work as this, to give a few hints on the management of the organ.

The selection and combination of stops is a matter of considerable difficulty, partly because stops of the same name do not produce the same effect. Undoubtedly much larger use should be made of single stops. The most important stop of all—the open Diapason—is very seldom heard alone, being nearly always muffled by a stopped Diapason, and yet when used by itself it has a clear distinctive tone very pleasant to listen to. Reeds too, when good, are much brighter when unclouded by Diapason tone, and this is especially the case with a Clarinet or Cremona, though both are coupled almost always with a stopped Diapason. Organ-builders seem to have a craze on this point. The writer has often noticed that they ask for the two to be drawn together. The employment of single stops has this further advantage in an instrument of such sustained sound, and which it is almost impossible to keep quite in tune, that the unison beats are then not heard. Families of stops should be oftener heard alone. These are chiefly (1) stops with open pipes, such as the open Diapason, Principal, Fifteenth; (2) stops with closed pipes, such as the stopped Diapason, Flute and Piccolo; (3) Harmonic stops; (4) Reeds. Stops of the Gamba type nearly always spoil Diapason tone. 16-feet stops on the manuals should be used sparingly, and never when giving out the subject of a fugue, unless the bass begins. The proper place for the mixture work has already been indicated in the extract from Helmholtz. It would be well if organs possessed composition pedals, drawing classes of stops, rather than, or in addition to, those which pile up the tone from soft to loud.

Couplers are kept drawn much more than they ought to be, with the effect of half depriving the player of the contrast between the different manuals. The writer knew a cathedral organist who commenced his service by coupling Swell to Great, and Swell to Choir, often leaving them to the end in this condition. Another evil result of much coupling is that the pipes of different manuals are scarcely ever affected equally by variations of temperature, and the Swell of course being enclosed in a box is often scarcely moved, so that at the end of an evening the heat of gas and of a crowd will cause a difference of almost a quarter of a tone between the pitch of the Great and Swell Organs. On this account every important instrument ought to have a balanced Great Organ which does not need supplementing by the Swell Reeds for full effect.

The Pedal Organ is now used far too frequently. The boom of a pedal Open, or the indistinct murmur of the Bourdon, become very irritating when heard for long. There is no finer effect than the entrance of a weighty pedal at important points in an organ-piece, but there are players who scarcely take their feet from the pedal-board, and so discount the impression. Care should be taken to keep the pedal part fairly near the hands. The upper part of the pedal-board is still too much neglected, and it is common to hear a player extemporising with a humming Bourdon some two octaves away from the hand parts.

The old habit of pumping the Swell Pedal with the right foot, and hopping on the pedals with the left, has now probably retired to remote country churches, but the Swell Pedal is still treated too convulsively, and it should be remembered in putting it down that the first inch makes more difference than all the rest put together.

In changing stops it is important to choose the moment between the phrases, or when few keys are down. One finds still a lingering belief that repeated notes should never be struck on the organ. Nothing can be further from the truth. These repercussions are a great relief from the otherwise constant grind of sound. Again, the great aim of the old organist was to put down as many notes as possible, not merely those belonging to the chord, but as many semitones as could conveniently be held below each. This at all events does not suit the modern organ, and now one occasionally detects with pleasure even an incomplete chord.

Few organists have the courage to leave in its thin state the chord which is to be found on the last page of J. S. Bach's 'Passacaglia' (a), and yet the effect is obviously intentional. In Wesley's Anthem 'All go to one place,' at the end of the phrase 'eternal in the heavens,' we find a beautiful chord which would be ruined by filling up, or by a pedal (b).

Here, as in management of stops, contrast and variety are the things to be aimed at. Thus trio-playing, such as we see in the 6 Sonatas of J. S. Bach, gives some of the keenest enjoyment the instrument can afford. The article Phrasing should be read by the student. [Vol. ii. p. 706.] Much of it applies with almost greater force to the organ than to the piano. Extemporising on the organ will frequently become an aimless, barless, rhythmless wandering among the keys to which no change of stops can give any interest.

So much oratorio music is now sung in churches and in other places, where on account of the expense or from other reasons, an orchestra is unattainable, that the organ is often called upon, to supply the place of a full band. It cannot be said that the artistic outcome of this treatment of the instrument is good. The string tone, in spite of stops named Violin-Diapason, Gamba-Violoncello, and others, has no equivalent in the organ. The wind is susceptible of closer imitation, but the attempt to produce with two hands and feet the independent life and movement of so many instruments is obviously absurd. The organist does his best by giving the background of the picture, so to speak, upon one manual and picking out the important features upon another. Doubtless clever feats may be performed with a thumb upon a third keyboard, but in this case phrasing is usually sacrificed. The string tone is best given by stops of the Gamba type, but of these no organ possesses enough to furnish the proper amount, and Diapasons coupled even to Swell Reeds have to be called into requisition. Some stops of the small open kind fairly give the horn-tone. Flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and trumpets have all been copied by the organ builder, with more or less success, but their hard unvarying tone contrasts unfavourably with that of their orchestral prototypes. Moreover the instrument itself varies the quality with the intensity; the Swell-box, though regulating the intensity, leaves the quality untouched. On this point an almost complete analogy may be found in the case of painting, engraving, and chromo-lithographs. The piano may be said to give the engraving of an orchestral work, the organ the chromo-lithograph with all its defects of hard outline and want of delicate shading. 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. Instances in Mendelssohn's organ parts (which are models) will readily occur. There is a long D at the end of the first chorus of Sullivan's 'Martyr of Antioch,' again another in Brahms's Requiem, at the end of No. 3, where the pedal may be introduced with the happiest results. [See Registration, vol. iii. p. 94.]

[ W. Pa. ]