playing octaves with the hands. Thus the old organ (date 1697)
of Father Smith in St Paul’s Cathedral had manuals descending
to the 16-ft. C (C1), with two open diapasons throughout.
Green’s old organ at St George’s, Windsor, had manuals descending
to the 12-ft. F, also two open diapasons throughout, no
F♯. But the more usual practice was to make the manual
descend to the 1023 G, leaving out the G♯. At the Revolution
most of the organs in England had been destroyed. Shortly
afterwards Bernard Smith, a German, commonly called Father
Smith, and Thomas and René Harris, Frenchmen, were largely
employed in building organs, which were wanted everywhere.
Father Smith perhaps had the greatest reputation of any builder
of the old time, and his work has lasted wonderfully. There is a
list in Rimbault of forty-five organs built for churches by him.
The list of René Harris is scarcely less extensive.
The most important step in the development of the old English organ was the invention of the swell. This was first introduced into an organ built by two Jordans, father and son, for St Magnus’s church near London Bridge, in 1712.
Burney writes (1771):—
“It is very extraordinary that the swell, which has been introduced into the English organ more than fifty years, and which is so capable of expression and of pleasing effects that it may be well said to be the greatest and most important improvement that was ever made in any keyed instrument, should be utterly unknown in Italy; and, now I am on this subject, I must observe that most of the organs I have met with on the Continent seem to be inferior to ours by Father Smith, Byfield or Snetzler, in everything but size! As the churches there are very often immense, so are the organs; the tone is indeed somewhat softened and refined by space and distance; but, when heard near, it is intolerably coarse and noisy; and, though the number of stops in these large instruments is very great, they afford but little variety, being for the most part duplicates in unisons and octaves to each other, such as the great and small 12ths, flutes and 15ths; hence in our organs, not only the touch and tone, but the imitative stops, are greatly superior to those of any other organs I have met with.”
(As to these opinions, compare what is said on great organ open diapasons above.)
In the course of the 18th century most of the old echoes were altered into swells, and the swell came into almost universal use in England. The development of the swell is inseparably associated with the peculiar quality of English swell reeds. These must have originated during the development of the swell. We hear of a “good reed voicer” named Hancock, who worked with Cranz, changing echoes into swells. However it originated, the English reed is beautiful when properly made. The original swells were usually short in compass downwards, frequently extending only to fiddle 𝑔. It is only lately that the value of the bass of the swell has been properly appreciated. Short-compass swells may be said to have now disappeared.
The organ in St Stephen’s, Coleman Street, was probably nearly in its original condition at the date when it was described by Hopkins. It was built by Avery in 1775. At all events the following arrangements might very well have been the original ones. The pedal clavier without pipes is no doubt a subsequent addition, and is omitted.Avery’s old English organ.
| Great. | ||
| Open diapason. | | | Sesquialtera—III ranks. |
| Stopped diapason. | | | Mixture—II ranks. |
| Principal. | | | Trumpet. |
| Twelfth. | | | Clarion. |
| Fifteenth. | | | Cornet to middle 𝑐—V ranks. |
| Choir. | ||
| Stopped diapason. | | | Fifteenth. |
| Principal. | | | Cremona to tenor 𝑐. |
| Flute. | | | |
| Swell. | ||
| Open diapason. | | | Cornet—III ranks. |
| Stopped diapason. | | | Trumpet. |
| Principal. | | | Hautboy. |
| Compass. | ||
| Great and choir—G1 to 𝑒‴, no G1♯. | | | Swell—fiddle 𝑔 to 𝑒‴. |
This gives an excellent idea of the old English organ. There are several different accounts of the introduction of pedals into England. It took place certainly before the end of the 18th century, but only in a few instances; and for long after the usual arrangement was simply to provide a pedal clavier, usually from F1 or G1 to tenor 𝑐 or 𝑑, which took Pedals in England. down the notes of the great organ. Unison diapason pipes (12-ft.) were occasionally used. In one or two cases, as in the transition states of the old organ at St George’s, Windsor, a 24-ft. open diapason was employed as well as the unison stop. But a more usual arrangement, of a most objectionable character, was to combine the G1—𝑐 pedal-board with a single octave of so-called pedal-pipes, extending from the 16-ft. to the 8-ft. C; so that, instead of a uniform progression in ascending the scale, there was always a break or repetition in passing C.
About the middle of the 19th century it began to be generally admitted that the German arrangement of the pedal was the better, and the practice gradually became general of providing a complete pedal-board of 212 octaves (C—𝑓′), with at least one stop of 16-ft. tone throughout, even on the smallest organs that pretended to be of any real use. The study of the classical works of Bach and Mendelssohn went hand in hand with this change; for that study was impossible without the change, and yet the desire for the study was one of the principal motives for it. In the meantime Bishop, an English builder, had invented composition pedals, which so greatly facilitate dealing with groups of stops. About the same time (1850) the mechanics of the organ were advanced by the general introduction of the pneumatic lever into large instruments; the whole mechanism of the organ was revolutionized by Willis’s improvements; and the organ-builders of England, having obtained from the Continent the fundamental ideas necessary for completeness, advanced to a point at which they appear to have been decidedly ahead.
In the early part of the last quarter of the 19th century, the future of the English organ appeared to be one of great promise. Much confidence was felt in the brilliant combinations of Willis’s mechanism. The employment of electricity had reached a certain stage, and the necessary fundamental mechanism, under the name of Present day organs. the electro-pneumatic lever, was to be obtained in a practical form. Several new devices were in the air, by means of which the control of the various valves was accomplished by the action of wind, traversing channels, with complete abolition of trackers, and even of stop slides; and Willis’s classical mechanisms, including those for acting on stop slides pneumatically without direct mechanical connexion between slide and handle, were almost universally adopted in large organs. The delicate device of pneumatic lever on pneumatic lever, by which alone the small electromagnetic impulses available could be made to do heavy work, had obtained recognition. If there was an occasional failure, it was thought to be no more than might be expected with work of a novel and delicate character. And it was confidently expected that these devices would, in time, with the improvements associated with practical use, come to be reliable. This expectation has not been realized. The objections to the modern pneumatic, and still more to the electropneumatic machinery, are of two kinds—noise and inefficiency.
Noise in the Key Action.—We take as the standard of comparison the old tracker organ, without pneumatics. There was always a certain amount of noise. Now, even in the best instruments of Willis himself during his lifetime, and still more in the best instruments of the present day, the noise of the key action is judged to be as bad as in the old tracker organ. The pneumatics have to be driven by a powerful wind; the consequence is they get home with a knock.
Noise in the Stop Action.—If in a large instrument with pneumatic drawstop action one of the compositions which affects several stops is put in action, the movement of the stops is followed by a blow like a hammer, which is caused by the pneumatics getting home under the powerful force employed. This is much worse than anything there was in the old organ.
Inefficiency in the Key Action; Delay and Cyphering.—This chiefly shows itself in delay, both at the depressing and at the recovery of the key. Some of the causes are the size of the pneumatic bellows, which takes time to fill and time to empty; and, very often, defective regulation of the valves. The regulation of the valves is an art
