302 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



effects vary according to the size, specifications and voicing of different 

 organs, nevertheless, even in the case of the largest ones, the limit of 

 these effects is soon reached. One reason is that none of the orchestral- 

 toned stops can rival in expression, intensity or volume either the 

 massing of these tone qualities in the orchestra, or even of the individual 

 instruments; hence this reproduction of orchestral tone color is after 

 all only in miniature, the more so as it passes from very soft passages 

 to the full power of the orchestra. Another very apparent limitation 

 is in the matter of crescendo and diminuendo, for the adding or sub- 

 tracting of stops alters the tone quality, and in the majority of organs 

 these effects obtained by means of swell pedals cannot be compared 

 with those of the orchestra. Nor is this all, for when the organist 

 passes from these orchestral tones to the diapason and other stops 

 which belong alone to the organ and have no counterpart in the orchestra, 

 the ear is at once disillusioned, and one awakens to the fact that after 

 all the organ is noblest when asserting its own individuality. This 

 transition is a severe test of an organist's musicianship. I have heard 

 organists fail so utterly in this that I almost doubted their ever having 

 heard an orchestra. What is said above relative to the limitations of 

 the organ may seem like a contradiction of the following from the pen 

 of that eminent organist and musician, Ch. M. Widor: 



Cavaille-Coll's instruments, with their admirable tones and their incomparable 

 mechanism, have attracted and passionately interested a number of composers, 

 who have found in them a genuine orchestra, varied, supple, and powerful, respect- 

 ful of tradition, yet ready to welcome a new ideal. 



M. Widor's ideal is Bach, and the ideal of the master organ builder 

 to whom he refers, was to unveil through his wonderful organs "the 

 colossal work of the Master of Eisenach, of hearing Bach as he wished 

 to be heard." When M. Widor speaks of finding in them a "genuine 

 orchestra," he is not referring to the orchestra itself but rather to those 

 possibilities in the realm of organ tone as organ tone which in them- 

 selves constitute an orchestra with its own individuality. 



In playing transcriptions one of two methods can be followed: one 

 to remain within the limitations of these orchestral effects, and the other 

 to translate freely into organ tone the orchestral composition. In some 



