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ORGAN. 



comprises only the vegetable and animal world. Man 

 stands on the highest step of organic life among all 

 the brings with which we are acquainted ; he moves 

 wiih liberty and consciousness ; his organization is 

 the most complicate, delicate, and perfect. The 

 various gradations of organized being, from man, 

 through animals, plants, and down to crystals, fur- 

 nish a most curious and interesting subject of study. 

 The word organ, as applied to a group of parts, de- 

 notes that they have a particular office, and, in some 

 considerable degree, an independent action, as when 

 we speak of organs of taste, hearing, digestion, &c. 



ORGAN (from the Greek a^yv) ; a musical in- 

 strument, which contains, within a case, a number of 

 pipes, harmonically arranged, into which wind is 

 driven by bellows (hence also the name wind-organ, 

 toyaaoi <rEo,(*ar/jeey,) and which yield tones when the 

 player touches the keys connected with them. The 

 chief parts of an organ are the pipes, which are of 

 metal (tin and lead) or wood, whose length and dia- 

 meter determine the depth or height of the tone (they 

 are sometimes four, eight, sixteen feet long ;) the 

 registers or stops, by which the entrance of wind into 

 a pipe is regulated ; the manual or key-board, con- 

 sisting of one or several rows of keys ; the pedal, the 

 bellows, the wind-trunk, wind-chest, sound-boards, 

 &c. The greatest compass of the manual is 



to 



and that of the pedal 



to 



Most organs, however, only extend in the manual 



to . The advantage which the organ, like every 



C 



other instrument with a key-board, has, viz. that 

 melody and harmony can be produced at the same 

 time, united with the quantity and variety of its 

 voices, makes it the most complete of musical instru- 

 ments, and gives it a fulness and magnificence of 

 harmony, which is sufficient to compensate for the 

 want of those fine gradations of strength and deli- 

 cacy of tone which the violinist, for instance, can 

 produce, and which the Frenchman Grenie tried, in 

 1811, to give to the organ, by his Orgue expressive, 

 Besides, the organ has the advantage, that eacli tone 

 may be continued in equal strength for any length of 

 time, so tliat it is peculiarly proper for the grave, 

 solemn, legato style, as in church music, and for the 

 most complicated harmonies; but for this very reason 

 it requires a player who is familiar with the character 

 and compass of harmony, and possesses the skill to 

 arrange with rapidity his musical ideas, and to choose 

 the best means for their execution. A good player 

 on the piano, therefore, is not necessarily equally 

 skilful on the organ, and the very mode of fingering 

 differs much, on account of the vastly different char- 

 acter of the instruments. An organ, when complete, 

 is of threefold construction, and furnished with three 

 sets of keys ; one for what is called the great organ, 

 and which is the middle set ; a second (or lower set) 

 for the choir organ; and a third (or upper set) for the 

 twell. In the great organ, the principal stops are the 



two diapasons, the principal, the twelfth, l\\efifteeenth, 

 the sesquialtera, the mixture, or furniture, the trum- 

 pet, the clarion, and the cornet. The choir organ 

 usually contains the stopt diapason, the dulciana, the 

 principal, the flute, the twelfth, the bassoon, anil the 

 vox humana. The swell comprises the two diapa- 

 sons, the principal, the hautboy, trumpet, and cornet. 

 Besides the complete organ, there are other organs of 

 less size, and more limited power, adapted to church, 

 chapel, and chamber use. Some persons, particu- 

 larly Jews, suppose, but without foundation, that the 

 organ was used even in the temple of Solomon. 

 Some derive its origin from the bagpipe ; others, 

 with more probability, from an instrument of the 

 Greeks, though a very imperfect one, the water- 

 organ, as it is known that the first organs used in 

 Italy came thither from the Greek empire. It is said 

 that pope Vitellianus (died 671) caused organs to be 

 set up in some Roman churches in the seventh cen- 

 tury. (See Cecilia.) Organs were at first portable. 

 The organs now in use are considered an invention 

 of the Germans ; but respecting the time of this 

 invention opinions differ. It is said by some, that, as 

 early as 1298, the cathedral of Strasburg lost an 

 organ by fire, which seems not to have been a 

 "water-organ." Others assert, that the first organ 

 of the kind now in use was built in the year 1312, 

 by a German at Venice. It is certain that the use of 

 organs was not common before the fourteenth cen- 

 tury. At the beginning, the instrument was very 

 imperfect ; it was useful only in fixing the pitch of 

 the voice parts, which was effected by touching, or 

 rather pressing down, a key two inches wide, and 

 pretty thick, when a hymn was sung. The first 

 organs seldom had more than two keys, which were 

 so large and difficult to be moved, that probably this 

 circumstance gave rise to the expression " to thump 

 the organ." They were portable, and had, perhaps, 

 no register. The keys in time became smaller, and 

 between the diatonic tones the semitones were in- 

 serted. The left hand, also, was occupied by the 

 addition of a tiew key-board. In 1444, H. Dross- 

 dorf of Mayence built a great organ, with a pedal. 

 According to others, Bernhard, a German, organist 

 to the doge of Venice, built the first organ with 

 a pedal, between the years 1470 and 1480. The 

 largest organ known till the end of the fifteenth 

 century, was that in the church of St Blasius, at 

 Brunswick, built by H. Kranz, in 1499. Improve- 

 ments of the organ succeeded quickly in the six- 

 teenth century; the division of all the pipes into 

 different stops was now invented, arid the tone of 

 the instrument was adapted to the tone of the choir. 

 The bellows were particularly improved as, till then, 

 twenty to twenty-four pair had often existed in one 

 organ, requiring from ten to twelve men to tread 

 them. But the present degree of perfection could 

 not be obtained until Christian Forner had invented, 

 in the seventeenth century, the wind chest, by which 

 an equal pressure of wind can be obtained in all the 

 bellows. The largest organ is that in St Peter's 

 church in Rome : it has a hundred stops. The great 

 organ in Gorlitz (built in 1703) has fifty-seven stops 

 and 3270 sounding pipes. The organ in the minster 

 of Strasburg has 2136 pipes ; that at Ulm, in Suabia, 

 over 3000 pipes. In Rothenburg, on the Tauber, 

 and in Halberstadt, there are organs on which three 

 players may perform at the same time. The organ 

 in the church of Mary Magdalen, at Breslau, has 

 3342 pipes. The largest metallic pipe weighs three 

 and a half cwts., is twelve and a half ells long, 

 and fourteen inches in diameter. Vogler has at- 

 tracted much notice by his system for simplifying the 

 construction of organs. An organ of pasteboard, at 

 Saintes, built by father Julian, produces agreeable 



