and managing the unnumbered tongues of the field of brazen tubes, can with nimble finger cause a mighty sound; and can rouse to song the waters stirred to their depths by the massive lever.' The reference to water implies that the organ was a Hydraulic one.
A Greek [1]epigram, attributed to the Emperor Julian the Apostate (died A.D. 363), conveys some particulars concerning another kind of 4th-century organ, of which the following is a literal translation: 'I see a strange sort of reeds they must methinks have sprung from no earthly, but a brazen soil. Wild are they, nor does the breath of man stir them, but a blast, leaping forth from a cavern of ox-hide, passes within, beneath the roots of the polished reeds; while a lordly man, the fingers of whose hands are nimble, stands and touches here and there the concordant stops of the pipes; and the stops, as they lightly rise and fall, force out the melody.' This account describes a Pneumatic organ, and one which had no keyboard. Both accounts particularise the material of which the pipes were made bronze, and it is not improbable that pipes of metal were at that time a novelty.
Theodoret (born about 393, died 457) also refers to musical organs as being furnished with pipes of copper or of bronze.
On an obelisk at Constantinople, erected by Theodosius (died 393), is a representation of an organ, which is here copied.
Fig. 5.
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The pipes are eight in number, and appear to be formed of large reeds, or canes, as those of Chinese organs are said to be at the present day. They are not sufficiently varied in length to indicate the production of a proper musical scale, which is possibly an error of the sculptor. They are supported like those shown in Fig. 2. This example is very interesting as affording the earliest illustration known of a method of compressing the organ wind which some centuries afterwards became common—namely, by the weight of human beings. From the drawing it seems as if the two youths were standing on the same bellows, whereas they were more probably mounted on separate ones placed side by side. St. Jerome, a little later (died 420), is said [2]to mention an organ at Jerusalem, with twelve brazen pipes, two elephants' skins, and fifteen smiths' bellows, which could be heard at the Mount of Olives,—it is nearly a mile from the centre of the city to the top of the mount,—and therefore must have been an instrument of great power. Cassiodorus, who was consul of Rome under King Vitigas the Goth in 514, described the organ of his day as an instrument composed of divers pipes, formed into a kind of tower, which, by means of bellows, is made to produce a loud sound; and in order to express agreeable melodies, it is constructed with certain tongues[3] of wood from the interior, which the finger of the master duly pressing or forcing back, elicits the most pleasing and brilliant tones.
The exact period at which the organ was first used for religious purposes is not positively known; but according to Julianus, a Spanish bishop who flourished A.D. 450, it was in common use in the churches of Spain at that time. One is mentioned as existing 'in the most ancient city of Grado,' in a church of the nuns before the year 580. It is described as being about two feet long, six inches broad, and furnished with fifteen playing-slides and thirty pipes, two pipes to each note. Sir John Hawkins has given a drawing of the slide-box of this organ in his History of Music (i. 401). the 'tongues' of which are singularly ornate. The number of notes on the slide-box (fifteen in a length of two feet) would show that the pipes were of small diameter, and therefore that the notes were treble ones.
The advantage of using the organ in the services of the church was so obvious that it would soon be perceived; and accordingly in the 7th century Pope Vitalian, at Rome (about the year 666), introduced it to improve the singing of the congregations. Subsequently, however, he abolished the singing of the congregations, and substituted in its place that of canonical singers.
At the commencement of the 8th century the use of the organ was appreciated, and the art of making it was known in England. The native artificers had even introduced the custom of pipe decoration, for, according to Aldhelm, who died A.D. 709, the Anglo-Saxons ornamented the front pipes of their organs with gilding. Organ-making was introduced into France about the middle of the same century. Pepin (714–768), the father of Charlemagne, perceived that an organ would be an important aid to devotion; and as the instrument was at that time unknown either in France or Germany, he applied (about the year 757) to the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Copronymus the Sixth, requesting him to send one to France. Constantine not only complied with this solicitation by presenting him with a large organ, but forwarded it by a special deputation, headed by the Roman bishop Stephanus. The organ was deposited in the church of St. Cornelius at Compiégne. It was a Pneumatic organ, with pipes of lead; and is said to have been made and played by an Italian priest, who had learnt the method of doing both at Constantinople.
The first organ introduced into Germany was one which the Emperor Charles the Great, in 811
- ↑ Palatine Anthology, Bk. iv. No. 365.
- ↑ Kitto, Cyc. Bib. Lit. 3rd ed. ii. 255b. Kitto's reference (Ad Dardanum). however, does not appear to be correct.
- ↑ The term 'tongues' (linguæ) remained in use for the sliders up to the time when the slide-box was superseded by the spring-box about the end of the 11th century.
