Information about Pipe Organ

The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by forcing pressurized air (referred to as wind) through a series of pipes. The size of pipe organs varies greatly: the smallest portable organs may have only a few dozen pipes, while the largest organs may feature tens of thousands.

Organ pipes sound when a key is depressed on a keyboard, allowing the wind to pass through one or more pipes from a chest beneath them. Because of its continuous supply of wind, the organ is capable of sustaining sound for as long as a key is depressed, unlike other keyboard instruments such as the piano and harpsichord, whose sound begins to decay immediately after the key is struck. Modern organs usually include one or more keyboards playable by the hands and one keyboard playable by the feet. Large organs commonly have four or five keyboards, and a few of the very largest have six or seven.^[1]

The pipe organ has been described as one of the oldest musical instruments—its origins can be traced back to Ancient Greece in the third century BC.^[2] The wind supply was originally created with water pressure (hence the name "water organ"); later, the wind was supplied from bellows. Early portable organs were used to accompany both sacred and secular music.^[3]

During the Renaissance, the organ developed from these simple forms toward a complex instrument capable of producing several different timbres, meant to mimic existing instruments and used to replace them when they were unavailable (and later for artistic expression and coloration). By the end of the seventeenth century, the organ was recognisably akin to the instruments we see today.^[4][5]

Pipe organs are found in churches and synagogues, as well as secular town halls and arts buildings, where they are used in the performance of classical music. The organ boasts a substantial repertoire of both sacred and secular music spanning a period of more than 400 years.^[6]

Construction

Pipes

Main article: Organ pipe

Organ pipes are made from either wood or metal and produce sound when wind is allowed to pass through. Because each pipe can produce only one pitch, many pipes are necessary to achieve the instrument’s full range of pitches. The pipes are arranged by timbre and pitch into rows called ranks, mounted vertically onto a windchest; multiple ranks can be supplied by a single windchest.^[7] These ranks are activated via stops, and the stops are grouped into divisions.

Organ pipes are divided into two main families, according to their design and the kind of timbre that they consequently produce: flue pipes, which produce sound by forcing air through a fipple (like a recorder), and reed pipes, which contain a beating reed (like a clarinet).^[8]

For a given pipe to sound, two conditions must be met: the stop governing the rank to which the pipe belongs must be engaged, and a key corresponding to its pitch must be depressed.

Action and Wind system

The action of the organ is the mechanism that admits the wind into each pipe when a key is depressed. The two main types of action are mechanical action and electro-pneumatic action.^[7] Mechanical action (also called tracker action) requires a physical connection between the keys and the windchests, achieved through a series of wooden or metal rods called trackers. When the organist depresses the keys, the trackers move, allowing wind to enter the pipes.^[9] In organs with a mechanical stop action, each stop knob is also physically connected to a rank of pipes. When the organist pulls (or "draws") a stop knob towards himself, the action allows wind to flow into the selected rank.^[7]

Electro-pneumatic actions use electric current and air pressure to control the mechanisms at the windchest. Electrical wiring connects the keys and stop knobs to the windchest, while a pneumatic system opens and closes the valves in the windchest, allowing the pipes to speak. Because the only contact required between the console and windchest is wiring, this system allows the console to be separate from the rest of the instrument.^[10] However, because the key and stop actions are exclusive, organs can feature a mechanical key action along with an electric stop action. Some electro-pneumatic organs use rocker-tab switches, which activate the stops using a pneumatic system with electrical contacts, instead of stop knobs.

The pressure of wind supplied to a pipe organ is measured by a manometer. In the United States and United Kingdom this employs the units "inches of water"; in other countries, the metric "millimetres of water" is often used instead. Although the phrase is strictly speaking scientifically incorrect, pipe organs are said to be "on x inches (of wind)".^[11][12]

The wind supply is stored in one or more reservoirs to maintain a constant wind pressure.^[13] The pressure depends on the design of the organ and the source of the wind supply. An Italian or Iberian organ from the Renaissance period may feature a wind pressure of only 2.2 inches (56 mm),^[14] while certain stops in a large twentieth-century organ can be on pressures as high as 100 inches (2540 mm).^[15] The wind flows from the bellows to the separate divisions of the organ through one or more large tubes known as wind trunks and is then stored in windchests before the action allows it to flow through the pipes.^[7]

The original form of wind production was mechanical. When signalled by the organist (often by a small bell), a calcant began to pump the bellows, supplying them with air.^[16] Playing the organ before electricity therefore required at least one person to operate the bellows. Because paying calcants was expensive, organists would usually practice on smaller instruments such as the clavichord or harpsichord that required no external energy source.^[17] From the late nineteenth century, however, electric motors called blowers were used to fill the bellows with air. This made it possible for organists to practice regularly on the organ. Although most organs, new and historic, now make use of electric blowers, some organs can still be mechanically pumped, and modern instruments have been built with this capability.

Stops

Main article: Organ stop

Each stop usually controls one rank of pipes, although Mixtures and Célestes employ two or more ranks.^[18] The name of a stop gives a broad indication of the sound it produces, although the names are not standardised; many stops that produce identical sounds will vary in name from organ to organ, while stops of the same name may produce somewhat different sounds.

The choice of name reflects not only the timbre and construction of the stop, but also the style of the organ in which it resides. For example, the names on an organ built in the German Baroque style will generally be derived from the German language, while the names of similar stops on an organ in the French Romantic style will come from the French tradition. Most countries tend to use only their own languages for stop nomenclature.^[19] English-speaking nations are more receptive to foreign nomenclature, as is Japan (which historically has had no indigenous organ-building culture).

Not all stops sound at unison pitch (the written pitch, identical to a pianoforte): when a key is depressed some stops produce higher pitches, and some lower. A stop that is at unison pitch is referred to as being at 8′ (pronounced "eight-foot") pitch. This is because the length of the longest (and lowest-sounding) pipe in that stop is eight feet. A stop that sounds an octave higher is at 4′ pitch, and one that sounds two octaves higher is at 2′ pitch; a stop that sounds an octave lower than unison pitch is at 16′ pitch, and one that sounds two octaves lower is at 32′ pitch.^[18]



Traditionally, the label on a stop knob or rocker-tab indicates the stop’s name and either its pitch level expressed in feet or, in the case of those few stops that control more than one rank, a Roman numeral indicating the number of ranks. Thus, a stop labelled "8′ Chimney flute" is a single-rank flute stop sounding at 8′ pitch. A stop labelled "Mixture V" is a five-rank mixture.

When a rank of pipes is available as part of more than one stop, the rank is said to be unified (or borrowed). Ranks can be borrowed within a single division or between divisions. For example, an "8′ Diapason" rank may also be made available as a "4′ Octave". When both of these stops are selected and a key (for example, c′ cha)^[20] is pressed, two pipes of the same rank will sound: the pipe normally corresponding to the key played (c′), and the pipe one octave above that (c″). The 4′ octave stop could also be drawn alone, in which case only the higher pitch would be heard.

Borrowing ranks in this way may necessitate the addition of extra pipes, however. In the above example, there are no pipes in the original 8′ rank to sound the top octave of the keyboard at 4′ pitch. The most common solution is to provide an extra octave of pipes used only for the borrowed 4′ stop. The full rank of pipes is now an octave longer than the keyboard and is called an extended rank. An organ that includes many extended ranks is called an extension organ.

Some organs feature stops producing unusual aural effects that do not employ pipes in the normal way, or even dispense with them altogether: these include the "Zimbelstern" (a revolving, star-shaped wheel of bells), the "Nightingale" (a stop that blows wind through a whistle submerged in a small pool of water, creating the sound of a bird warbling), and the "Effet d'orage" (a device that sounds many of the large bass pipes simultaneously, creating the effect of thunder). Other orchestral percussion stops include the "Drum", "Chimes", "Celesta", and "Harp".

Organ stops are the origin of the phrase "to pull out all the stops", meaning to make every effort or "to give it all you've got".^[21]

Console

Main article: Organ console

All the controls available to the organist, including the keyboards, expression pedals, stop controls, registration aids and couplers, are accessed from the console. If the console is attached to the organ case (as it is with many mechanical-action organs), it may also be called the keydesk.

A few organs in large buildings such as cathedrals have more than one console, so that the organ can be played from different parts of the building, and some consoles are movable.

Keyboards

The console contains the keyboards played by the organist. Keyboards played by the hands are called manuals (from the Latin manus, meaning "hand"), while that played by the feet is called a pedalboard. All organs have at least one manual, and most have a pedalboard. The range of the keyboards has varied widely across time and between countries. Most current specifications call for manuals with sixty-one notes (five octaves, from C to c″″) and a pedalboard with thirty or thirty-two notes (two and a half octaves, from C to f′ or g′).^[20][22] These ranges apply to the notes in a musical score; depending on the stops available, the actual range of sound produced by the instrument may be much greater.

Usually, each division is controlled by one keyboard. When an organ contains more divisions than it does keyboards, the extra divisions are referred to as floating and are played by "coupling" them to another keyboard.

Couplers

A coupler allows the stops of one division to be played using the keyboard of another division. For example, a coupler labelled "Swell to Great" allows the stops drawn in the Swell division to be played on the Great manual. Thus, new tonal effects can be created by combining stops from different divisions, or all the stops can be played simultaneously on one manual or pedalboard. On a mechanical-action organ, a coupler may physically connect one manual to the other, so that the keys on all the coupled manuals are depressed, even though the organist is only in contact with one of them.^[22]

The Swell to Great coupler described above is a unison coupler: it causes the pipes of the Swell division to sound at the same pitch as the keys played on the Great manual. Some organs also feature octave couplers, which add the pipes an octave above ("super-octave") or below ("sub-octave") each note that is played. Octave couplers may operate on one division only (for example, the "Swell super octave," which adds the octave above what is being played on the Swell to itself), or they may act as a coupler to another keyboard (for example, the "Swell super-octave to Great," which adds to the Great the ranks of the Swell division an octave above what is being played on the Great manual). Octave couplers may also be used in conjunction with the respective unison coupler.^[22]

In addition, some organs feature "unison off" couplers, which prevent the stops pulled in a particular division from sounding at their normal pitch. Unison off couplers can be used in combination with octave couplers to create innovative aural effects, and can also be used to effectively rearrange the order of the manuals to make specific pieces easier to play.^[22]

Enclosure and expression pedals

Main article: Expression pedal

The term enclosure refers to a system that allows for the control of volume without requiring the addition or subtraction of stops. The pipes of an enclosed division are surrounded by a box-like structure generally called the "swell box". At least one side of the box, usually that facing the likely location of its audience, is constructed from horizontal palettes known as swell shades or louvres (much like Venetian blinds), which can be opened or closed, fully or partially, from the console. When the box is "open", more sound is heard than when it is "closed". In a two-manual organ with Great and Swell divisions, the Swell division will be enclosed (which is why the division is named Swell).^[23] In larger organs, often part or all of the Choir and Solo divisions will be enclosed as well.

The most common way of controlling the movement of the swell shades is the balanced expression pedal. This device is usually placed above the centre of the pedalboard and is configured to rotate away from the organist from a near-horizontal ("open") to a near-vertical ("closed") position.^[24] In addition to an expression pedal, an organ may have a similar-looking crescendo pedal, found alongside any expression pedals. "Opening" the crescendo pedal cumulatively activates all the stops in the organ, starting with the softest and ending with the loudest; "closing" it reverses the process.^[25]

Combination action

Main article: Combination action

By combining stops, many different sounds can be produced. A specific combination of stops is called a registration. A combination action can be used to instantly switch from one registration to another, much more quickly than the organist could change the stops by hand. The most common combination action features pistons, buttons that can be pressed by the organist. Pistons are generally located beneath the keys of each manual ("thumb pistons") or above the pedalboard ("toe studs/pistons"). Most large organs feature both permanent and programmable pistons. Combination actions are usually electric, though it is possible to construct rudimentary mechanical combination actions.^[22]

Casing

The pipes, action, and wind system of a pipe organ are contained in an organ case, the design of which may also incorporate the console. The organ case may be either freestanding or integrated with the building that houses the organ. The case is often designed to complement the architectural style of the building and may contain ornamental features such as wooden carvings and decorative pipework. The visible, "front" portion of the organ's case is called the façade, and often includes either playable or decorative pipes. If the façade pipes are playable, they are usually part of the main Principal rank of the organ. The metal may be plain, burnished, or highly coloured and gilded.

Some organs feature a few ranks of pipes protruding horizontally from the case in the manner of a row of trumpets. These are referred to as pipes en chamade and are particularly common in organs of the Iberian peninsula and large modern instruments.^[27]

Many organs, particularly those built in the early twentieth century, are contained not in a case but in one or more rooms called organ chambers. Because these chambers do not allow for projection of sound beyond them as easily as does a freestanding organ case, enchambered organs may sound muffled and distant.^[28] In the 1940s and 1950s, E. Power Biggs was one of a number of organists requesting a return to the freestanding cases and mechanical actions of the Baroque and Classical periods.^[29]

History and development

Antiquity

The organ is one of the oldest instruments still used in European classical music, its earliest predecessors dating from the third century BC.^[2] The word organ originates from the Latin "organum", an instrument used in ancient Roman circus games, similar to a portative organ.^[30]

The Greek engineer Ctesibius of Alexandria is credited as the inventor of the organ. He created a water organ known as the hydraulis in the third century BC.^[2] The hydraulis was common in the Roman Empire, where its extremely loud tone was heard during games, circuses, and processions.

Characteristics of the hydraulis have been inferred from mosaics, paintings, literary references, and partial remains. In 1931, the remains of a hydraulis were discovered in Hungary, with an inscription dating it to 228 AD. The leather and wood of the instrument had decomposed, but the surviving metal parts made it possible to reconstruct a working replica now in the Aquincum Museum in Budapest.^{[31], [32]} The exact mechanism of wind production is debated, and almost nothing is known about the music played on the hydraulis, but the tone of the pipes can be studied.^{[33], [34]}

The pumps and water regulators of the hydraulis were replaced by bellows in the second century AD, and the organ was further developed in the Byzantine Empire before its use ceased during the Decline of the Roman Empire.^[2]

Portable organs (the portative and the positive organ) were invented in the Middle Ages. Towards the middle of the 13th century, the portatives represented in the miniatures of illuminated manuscripts appear to have real keyboards with balanced keys, as in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[35] Because of its portability, the portative was used for the accompaniment of both sacred and secular music in a variety of settings.

In 1361, the first documented 'permanent' organ was installed in Halberstadt, Germany.^[36] The chromatic keyboard, such as we see today, was used for the first time; the organ had three manuals and a pedalboard, although the keys were wider than on modern instruments.^[37] The organ had 20 bellows worked by 10 men, and the wind pressure was so strong that the player had to use the full power of his arm to hold down a key.^[36] It had no stop controls; each manual controlled several ranks at multiple pitches, called the Blockwerk.^[37] This organ is commemorated in John Cage's Organ²/ASLSP. In the fourteenth century, the composer Guillaume de Machaut named the organ the "king of instruments", a description still frequently applied.^[38]

Around 1450, controls were designed that split the Blockwerk into individual ranks. These devices were the forerunners of modern stop actions.^[39] Some of the higher-pitched ranks remained grouped together under a single stop control, and these stops developed into the mixtures found in later organs.^[40]

Renaissance and Baroque periods

During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the tonal colours available to the organist became more varied, including both imitative timbres and those unique to the organ. The development of pipe organs diverged across Europe, partly because of changing political climates.^[41] In northern Europe, the organ became a large instrument with several divisions. Independent pedal divisions were increasingly common, and string-scale flue pipes were used in German organs by builders such as the Silbermann family.^[42] The divisions of the organ were clearly grouped into sections and readily discernible from the case design. Twentieth-century musicologists labelled this style the Werkprinzip.^[43]

In France, the Classical style of organ building was articulated by Dom Bédos de Celles in his treatise L'art du facteur d'orgues (The Art of Organ Building).^[44] In England, there was some destruction of pipe organs during the English Reformation of the sixteenth century and much more during the seventeenth-century Commonwealth period; it was not until the Restoration that many organ builders (particularly Renatus Harris and Bernard Smith) returned from mainland Europe with new ideas. English organs evolved from small one- or two-manual instruments to three or more divisions disposed in the French manner and including grander reeds and mixtures.^[45] The echo division began to be enclosed in the early eighteenth century, and in 1712 Abraham Jordan claimed his "swelling organ" at St Magnus-the-Martyr to be a new invention. The swell box became common in English organs of the eighteenth century, but did not spread to the European mainland until the nineteenth century.^[46] By contrast, pedals – long employed elsewhere in Europe – did not appear in England until the eighteenth century.

Romantic period

In parallel with changing styles of musical composition during the Romantic period, the organ metamorphosed from a polyphonic to a symphonic instrument, capable of creating a gradual crescendo from the softest stops to "full organ" (the state in which all the stops are engaged). New technologies and the work of organ builders such as Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and Henry Willis led to larger organs, with more stops, more variation in their sound and texture, and more divisions.^[47]

The desire for louder, grander organs required some stops, notably the reeds, to be voiced on a higher wind pressure than before. This necessitated a change in the action mechanism, as the physical force required to overcome the wind pressure and depress the keys using purely mechanical action was too great for an organist to exert. Cavaillé-Coll configured the English "Barker lever" to use the organ's own wind supply to assist in operating the action.^[47] Combination actions were invented to assist the organist with the multitude of registration changes that were necessary to play Romantic music, and the stop knobs were set at an angle in order to make them easier to manipulate.^[47]

Organs were also built in concert halls (such as the organ at the Palais du Trocadéro in Paris), and composers such as Camille Saint-Saëns and Gustav Mahler used the organ in their orchestral works.

Modern development

The development of pneumatic, electro-pneumatic, and electric key actions in the late nineteenth century made it possible to locate the console independently of the pipes, ushering in a revolution in organ design. Electrically-controlled stop actions were also developed, facilitating sophisticated combination actions.^[48]

In the mid-twentieth century, many organ builders subscribing to the tenets of the Orgelbewegung ("organ reform movement") began to build historically inspired instruments modelled on Baroque organs, returning to mechanical key action in order to regain the subtle, nuanced control it gives the performer.^[49]

The technology of pipeless electronic organs developed throughout the century, and many pipe organs in churches and other locations were replaced by these instruments, with their lower purchase price, smaller size and minimal maintenance requirements.

Some components of pipeless organs are being incorporated into pipe organs, allowing simpler and more reliable actions and combination systems, as well as recording and playback of an organist’s performance via the MIDI protocol. Although the sound of a pipe organ cannot yet be completely replicated by a pipeless organ, it is also increasingly common for builders of new pipe organs to use digital stops instead of pipes for the very lowest pedal notes.

Repertoire

Main articles: Organ repertoire and List of organ composers

The development of organ repertoire has progressed along with the development of the organ itself, leading to distinctive national styles of composition. There is a large repertoire of sacred music, because organs are commonly found in churches and some Reform and Conservative synagogues, where they are used to accompany the musical portions of the service, such as choral anthems, congregational hymns, and elements of the liturgy. Solo organ music may also be played before and after the service.

The "age of transcription" in the nineteenth century saw many pipe organs constructed in secular venues such as town halls and arts centres, and these "concert hall" instruments encouraged composers to write secular music.^[50] Much of this repertoire is based on the Romantic symphony; both transcriptions and original repertoire thus required the organ to perform as, effectively, a substitute for an orchestra.^[51]

Later, in the era of silent films, large theatre organs were installed in many theatres.

Significant composers

Although most countries whose music falls into the Western tradition have contributed to the organ repertoire, France and Germany in particular have produced exceptional composers of organ music. There is also extensive repertoire from the Netherlands, England, and the United States.

The majority of the organ repertoire comes from the Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic periods. Johann Sebastian Bach composed approximately 250 works for organ (BWV 525–771) including transcriptions of other composers’ work; early Baroque contemporaries adding to the repertoire included Johann Jakob Froberger, Dieterich Buxtehude, and Johann Pachelbel.

French organ music developed in the French Classical period through the music of François Couperin and Nicolas de Grigny. In the Romantic era, many French organist-composers such as César Franck, Charles-Marie Widor, Louis Vierne, and Charles Tournemire pushed the genre of organ music into the symphonic realm, as did German composers such as Felix Mendelssohn, Josef Rheinberger, and Max Reger.

In the twentieth century, Olivier Messiaen redefined many of the traditional notions of organ registration and technique in order to realize his musical concepts, influenced by natural phenomena such as birdsong and by his Catholic faith, and regarding the timbral possibilities presented by the organ much as a painter might consider the colour spectrum.^[52] Other twentieth-century composers such as Marcel Dupré, Jean Langlais, Maurice Duruflé, Herbert Howells, and Petr Eben have also made significant contributions to the organ literature.

The organ is sometimes used as an orchestral instrument, for example in Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony, Joseph Jongen's Symphonie Concertante for Organ & Orchestra, and Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, Strings and Tympani. The earliest concerti for organ were composed and improvised by George Frideric Handel.^[53] Other composers who have used the organ prominently in orchestral music include Gustav Holst, Richard Strauss, Ottorino Respighi, Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.^[54]

See also

• Organ tablature
• List of notable pipe organs
• List of organ builders
• List of organ pieces

Footnotes

References

• Bicknell, Stephen (1999) "Organ building today" in Thistlethwaite, Nicholas and Webber, Geoffrey, (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to the Organ. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Bicknell, Stephen (1999) "Organ construction" in Thistlethwaite, Nicholas and Webber, Geoffrey, (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to the Organ. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Bicknell, Stephen (1999) "The organ case" in Thistlethwaite, Nicholas and Webber, Geoffrey, (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to the Organ. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Bridgemann-Sutton, David (2002) "Musings and Amusings". Accessed 23 May, 2007.
• Cook, James H. (1999). "Organ History". Accessed 6 May, 2007.
• Dalton, James (1999) "Iberian organ music before 1700" in Thistlethwaite, Nicholas and Webber, Geoffrey, (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to the Organ. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Ferguson, Charles (trans.) (1977) "The Organ-Builder". Translation of Dom François Bédos de Celles L'art du facteur d'orgues 1766–68. Raleigh, NC: Sunbury Press.
• Ochse, Orpha (1975). "The History of the Organ in the United States." Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Riaño, J.F (1887) Critical and Bibliographical Notes on Early Spanish Music. London: Quaritch. ISBN 0-306-70193-6
• Sumner, William Leslie (1973) The Organ: Its Evolution, Principles of Construction and Use. London: Macdonald. SBN 356-04162-X
• Thistlethwaite, Nicholas (1999) "Origins and development of the organ" in Thistlethwaite, Nicholas and Webber, Geoffrey, (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to the Organ. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Wicks Organ Company Glossary of Organ Terms. Accessed 23 May 2007.

Bibliography

• Thistlethwaite, Nicholas and Webber, Geoffrey, (eds) (1999) The Cambridge Companion to the Organ. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-57584-2
• Williams, Peter (1966) The European Organ, 1458–1850. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-32083-6

External links

• Pipedreams Listen to pipe organ music, organ pictures and specifications
• Sacred Classics Online radio program of pipe organ and choral music
• The Pipe Organ
• A Young Person's Guide to the Pipe Organ
• Encyclopedia of Organ Stops Over 2500 stop names, with pictures and sound clips
• Jeux d'orgues Pipe organ soundbanks
• Bach's Organ Tuning
• Flue Pipe Acoustics
• Organ transcriptions and the Late Romantic Period

Databases

• International Organ Foundation online pipe organ database (5000+ organs in 60+ countries)
• Organ Historical Society Pipe Organ Database
• The Top 20 - The World's Largest Pipe Organs
• National Pipe Organ Register (NPOR) - History and specifications of 28,000 pipe organs in the United Kingdom
• The world's largest organs with photos and stoplists