The Recent Revolution in Organ Building | Page 6

in a few organs of large calibre.
The recent revolution in organ building and in organ tone, of which this
book treats, was founded upon the pneumatic and electro-pneumatic
actions invented by Barker.[2]
It is safe to say that the art of organ building has advanced more during
the last fifty years than in any previous three centuries. We are literally
correct in saying that a veritable revolution has already been
effected--and the end is not yet.
As leaders in this revolutionary movement, three names stand out with
startling prominence--Henry Willis, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and Robert
Hope-Jones.
Others have made contributions to detail (notably Hilborne L.
Roosevelt), but it is due to the genius, the inventions and the work of
those three great men that the modern organ stands where it does
to-day.
We propose:
1. To enumerate and describe the inventions and improvements that
have so entirely transformed the instrument;
2. To trace the progress of the revolution in our own country; and,
3. To describe the chief actors in the drama.
In the middle of the last century all organs were voiced on light wind
pressure,[3] mostly from an inch and a half to three inches. True, the
celebrated builder, William Hill, placed in his organ at Birmingham
Town Hall, England, so early as 1833, a Tuba voiced on about eleven
inches wind pressure, and Willis, Cavaillé-Coll, Gray and Davison, and
others, adopted high pressures for an occasional reed stop in their
largest organs; yet ninety-nine per cent. of the organs built throughout
the world were voiced on pressures not exceeding three and one-half

inches.
In those days most organs that were met with demanded a finger force
of some twenty ounces before the keys could be depressed, when
coupled, and it was no uncommon thing for the organist to have to
exert a pressure of fifty ounces or more on the bass keys. (The present
standard is between three and four ounces. We are acquainted with an
organ in New York City which requires a pressure of no less than forty
ounces to depress the bass keys.)
The manual compass on these organs seldom extended higher than f|2|
or g|3|, though it often went down to GG.[4]
It was common to omit notes from the lower octave for economy's sake,
and many stops were habitually left destitute of their bottom octaves
altogether. Frequently the less important keyboards would not descend
farther than tenor C.[5]
The compass of the pedal board (when there was a pedal board at all)
varied anywhere from one octave to about two and a quarter octaves.
The pedal keys were almost invariably straight and the pedal boards
flat.
[Illustration: Fig. 4. Nomenclature of Organ Keyboard]
[1] The invention of the pneumatic lever has been claimed for Mr.
Hamilton, of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is, however, generally credited to
Barker and known as the "Barker pneumatic lever." (See also note
about Joseph Booth, page 129.)
[2] Barker was also associated with Péschard, who in 1864 patented
jointly with him the electro-pneumatic action. (See page 37.)
[3] The pressure of the wind supplied by the old horizontal bellows is
regulated by the weights placed on top. The amount of this pressure is
measured by a wind-gauge or anemometer invented by Christian
Förmer about 1677. It is a bent glass tube, double U shaped, into which
a little water is poured. On placing one end of it fitted with a socket

into one of the holes in the wind-chest (in place of a pipe) and
admitting the wind from the bellows the water is forced up the tube,
and the difference between the level of the surface of the water in the
two legs of the tube is measured in inches. Thus, we always talk of the
pressure of wind in an organ as being so many inches.
[4] The organ in Great Homer Street Wesleyan Chapel, Liverpool,
England, had manuals extending down to CCC. It was built for a man
who could not play the pedals and thus obtained 16 ft. tone from the
keys. The old gallery organ in Trinity Church, New York, also has this
compass.
[5] Tenor C is the lowest note of the tenor voice or the tenor violin
(viola). It is one octave from the bottom note of a modern organ
keyboard, which is called CC. The lowest note of the pedal-board is
CCC. Counting from the bottom upwards on the manual we have,
therefore, CC (double C), C (tenor C), c (middle C), c|1| (treble C), c|2|
(C in alt) and c|3| (C in altissimo). This is the highest note on the
keyboard of 61 keys. According to the modern nomenclature of the
pianoforte keyboard this note is c|4|, and is frequently so stated
erroneously in organ specifications.
GG is four notes below