in itself, and it is often the case that the performance in this respect can be greatly improved by going over the regulation. The test is the possibility of executing shakes and repetitions. It is quite common to find mechanism by the first organ-builders of the day on which shakes or repetitions cannot be executed.
Pneumatic transmission is also specially liable to cause delay. In divided organs the swell is usually on the far side from the keys, and the pneumatic transmission tubes pass it under the floor. The swell touch is then considerably worse than the great. In all cases there must be some delay on account of the time the pulse takes to traverse the transmission tube with the velocity of sound. And if a pneumatic bellows has to be filled at the far end the delay will be more. Some of the delay experienced in large buildings may be due to the time taken in supplying the energy necessary for setting up and maintaining the vibrations of the air in the building. This should, however, have been the same with the old tracker action; and the opinion of old players is unanimous that they never experienced anything of the kind. The shake and repetition are the only real tests so far as the action is concerned.
Inefficiency in the key action also takes the form of “cyphering,” i.e. a note sticks down. With the old tracker organ this could generally be cured without much difficulty by working on the action, and with the separate pneumatic lever something could be done. But the modern types of elaborated action are entirely enclosed in wind-chest and sound-board. It was always foreseen that these types would be dangerous, unless they could be made quite perfect, and they have not been made perfect. When a note sticks, there is no way of curing it except to get at the inside of the wind-chest, or to remove all the pipes belonging to the note. A case happened recently where, during a performance on an organ by a first-rate modern builder, two cypherings took place. To cure the first all the pipes belonging to the note were removed. In the second the last three pages of a Bach fugue were played with a note cyphering all the time; and such cases are of frequent occurrence.
Inefficiency in the Stop Action.—In this case the power provided is insufficient to move the stop slide. As there is no direct connexion between slide and handle, nothing can be done but to get inside the organ and move the slide by hand. A case has recently occurred where an organ by a first-rate builder, in constant use, and perfectly cared for, got one of the slides stuck while in use. The organ was locked, so nothing could be done. The same happened to another slide a couple of days later. It is also an everyday experience that the pneumatic compositions are insufficient to move the stops; sometimes they move the stops about halfway, when a sort of wail is heard.
One practical result is—where an organ is not too large to be dealt with by the old mechanical methods, there is much to be said for adhering to them.
It seems worth while to mention two suggestions by which these imperfections in large organs might be reduced to a minimum.
For blowing, motors for stop action, &c., the writer would suggest the employment of the Armstrong hydraulic accumulator system, at a pressure of say 600 lb on the square inch. The pumping of the system would be done by external power (electricity, gas, oil or steam), quite away from the building containing the organ. The blowing would be done by the hydraulic system at a point near the organ. The small hydraulic motors attached to the stop slides, swell, &c., might have almost infinite power and be perfectly noiseless. The key-work should be pneumatic and should use Willis’s floating lever. The swell pedal should be hydraulic, with the floating lever, as also the action of the back of the seat if employed for opening the swell.
The effect of the floating lever is that the movement of the work corresponds exactly with the movement of the part connected with key or pedal. The connexion with the key would have a regulation so that the lever would begin to move a little later than the key, the regulation being adjusted by trial so as to give shakes and repetitions.
The principle of the floating lever is the same as that of the steam steering gear in ships. The control of the power is attached to the floating centre. It is always such that the movement of the work brings back the floating centre into its standard position, and it acts like a fixed centre with added power.
As to the general arrangement of the instrument, it is desired to make two protests. Firstly, the organ chamber is a monstrosity. Shutting up the organ in a confined space is simply throwing money away. An organ of a quarter the size would do the work better if not shut up in an organ chamber. Secondly, it has become customary to separate the different parts of an organ, putting the pipes of the pedal, great and swell perhaps in different places at a distance from one another, and the soft choir organ, which should be close to the singers, perhaps, as in one actual case, in a remote position where it cannot be heard at all and is useless for accompaniment. The parts of an organ so dispersed will not give a tone which blends into a whole. The practice is undesirable. The divided organ with pneumatic or electric transmission is to be avoided for all reasons.
General Remarks on Organ Treatment
The organ probably presents more difficulties then any other instrument in the way of a sound elementary mastery. A person of ordinary capacity may work at it for years before being able to play passages of moderate difficulty with confidence and correctness. The special difficulty appears to be chiefly mental, and arises from the number of things that have to be thought of simultaneously. It does not lie in the execution—at least not chiefly; for to play a hymn-tune correctly, the bass being taken with the pedals, the tenor with the left hand, and the two upper parts with the right, is a matter in which there is no execution required; but it is of great difficulty to an inexperienced player. Other distributions of parts—such as bass with pedals, treble with right hand on a solo stop (e.g. clarinet), two inner parts with a soft open diapason, or something of the kind—are of much greater difficulty in the first instance. Another distribution is bass with pedals, melody with reed or solo combination in the tenor with left hand (an octave below its true pitch), inner parts with right hand on a soft open diapason, or something that balances. This is of far greater difficulty, as it requires rearrangement of parts to avoid those faults of inversion the avoidance of which is known as double counterpoint. All this can be practised with common hymn-tunes; but the performer who can do these things with ease is in some respects an advanced player.
There is a natural gift, which may be called the polyphonic ear-brain. It is possessed by (roughly) about one in fifty of musical students, by students of the organ in much the largest proportion, and probably by a much smaller proportion of the unsifted population. For the polyphonic ear-brain these difficulties have no existence, or take little trouble to surmount. It consists of the power of hearing the notes of a combination simultaneously, each being heard as an ordinary person hears a single note. When a composition is played or sung in parts, each part is heard as a separate tune; and the effect is realized in a manner quite different from the single melody with accompaniment, which is all that an ordinary person usually hears. This is in many but not all cases associated with the rare power of remembering permanently the actual pitch of notes heard.
The observations made in the 9th edition of this Encyclopaedia on “Balance of tone” do not now call for the stress there laid on them, as there is an improvement in this respect. But it is still desirable to insist on the importance of balance in the performance of organ trios such as the organ sonatas of Bach. In these compositions there are generally three notes sounding, which may be regarded as belonging to three different voices, of nearly equal strength but different mean pitch, and, if possible, different quality; of these one is appropriated by each hand and one by the pedal. They are written in three lines, and are intended to be played on two manuals and the pedal.
The fugues of Bach are the classical organ music par excellence. As to these nothing has come down to us as to the composer’s intentions, except that he generally played the fugues on the full organ with doubles. It does not seem clear that this was the case with the preludes; and, any way, the modern organ, with its facilities for managing the stops, appears to countenance a different treatment. The effect of doubles when a subject or tune is given out in solo on a manual is very bad. The doubles may be drawn with advantage when the parts are moving in massive chords. The usual practice is perhaps to employ various manual effects of a light character until the pedal enters, and then to produce full organ in its various modifications, but always to aim at variety of tone. If a prelude begins with heavy chords and pedal, then produce full organ at once. If it then passes to lighter matter, reduce to some extent. Some begin a fugue on the stopped diapason of the great organ, add more as the parts enter, and continue working up throughout. But perhaps it is the better practice to throw in loud organ during the pedal parts, and soften between times.
One of the greatest requisites in organ-playing is dignity of treatment. This is continually competing with clearness. The chief mode of keeping the different parts distinct, where that is necessary, is by using reeds of a pronounced character. These reeds sometimes verge on the comic, and anything more than
