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their keys. Dawes's “ melody attachment ” is to give prominence
to an air or treble part by shutting off in certain registers all notes
below it. This notion has been adapted by inversion to a “ pedal
substitute " to strengthen the lowest bass notes. The “ tremolo "
affects the wind in the vicinity of the reeds by means of small bellows
which increase the velocity of the pulsation according to pressure;
and the “ sourdine " diminishes the supply of wind by controlling
its admission to the reeds.
The American Organ acts by wind exhaustion. A vacuum is
practically created in the air-chamber by the exhausting power of
the foot boards, and a current of air thus drawn downwards passes
through any reeds that are left open, setting them in vibration.
This instrument has therefore exhaust instead of force bellows.
Valves in the board above the air-chamber give communication to
reeds (fig.
{{missing image}}
By courtesy of Metzler
& Co.
FIG.2.-Free Reed
Vibrator, Mason &
Hamlin American
Organ. 1
2) made more slender than those of the harmonium and
more or less bent, while the frames in which
they are fixed are also differently shaped,
being hollowed rather in spoon fashion. The
channels, the resonators above the reeds, are
not varied in size or shape as in the harmonium;
they exactly correspond with the
reeds, and are collectively known as the “ tube board.”
The swell “ fortes ” are in front of
the openings of these tubes, rails that open
or close by the action of the knees upon what
may be called knee pedals. The American
organ has a softer tone than the harmonium;
this is sometimes aided by the use of extra
resonators, termed pipes or qualifying tubes,
as, for instance, in Clough & Warren's (of
Detroit, Michigan, U.S.). The blowing being
also easier, ladies find it much less fatiguing.
The expression stop can have little power in
the American organ, and is generally absent;
the “automatic swell” in the instruments
of Mason & Hamlin (of Boston, U.S.) is a
contrivance that comes the nearest to it,
though far inferior. By it a swell shutter or
rail is kept in constant movement, proportioned
to the force of the air-current. Another very
clever improvement introduced by these
makers, who were the originators of the instrument
itself, is the “ vox humana, " a smaller
rail or fan, made to revolve rapidly by
wind pressure' its rotation disturb in the
causes interferences of vibration that prgduce
a tremulous effect, not unlike the beatings heard from combined
voices, whence the name. The arrangement of reed compartments
in American organs does not essentially differ from that of harinoniums;
but there are often two keyboards, and then the solo
and combination stops are found on the upper manual. The
diapason treble register is known as “ melodia ”; different makers
occasionally vary the use of fancy names for other stops. The
“ sub-bass, ” however, an octave of 16 ft. pitch and always apart
from the other reeds, is used with great advantage for pedal effects
on the manual, the compass of American organs being usually down
to F (FF, 5 octaves). In large instruments there are sometimes foot
pedals as in an organ, with their own reed boxes of 8 and 16 ft.,
the lowest note being then CC. Blowing for pedal instruments
has to be done by hand, a lever being attached for that purpose.
The “ celeste " stop is managed as in the harmonium, by rows of
reeds tuned not quite in unison, or by a shade Valve that alters the
air-current and flattens one row of reeds thereby.
Harmoniums and American organs are the result of many experiments
in the application of free reeds to keyboard instruments. The
principle of the free reed became widely known in Europe through
the introduction of the Chinese cheng 1 during the second half of
the 18th century, and culminated in the invention of the harmonium
and kindred instruments. The first step in the invention of the
harmonium is due to Professor Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein of
Copenhagen, who had had the opportunity of examining a cheng
sent to his native city and of testing its merits? In 1779 the
Academy of Science of St Petersburg had offered a prize for an
essay on the formation of the vowel sounds on an instrument similar
to the “ vox humana " in the organ, which should be capable of
reproducing these sounds faithfully. Kratzenstein made as a
demonstration of his invention a small pneumatic organ fitted with
free reeds, and presented it to the Academy of St Petersburg? His
essay was crowned and was republished with diagrams in Paris 4 in
See Allg. musik. Ztg. (Leipzig, 1821), Bd. xxiii. pp. 369-374.
The cheng was made known in France by Pere Amiot, who published
a careful description of the instrument in Mérnoire sur la rnusique
des Chinois, p. 80 seq., with excellent diagrams.
2 Ib., Bd. xxv. p. 152.
3 The essay was published in Acta Acad. Petrop. (1780).
“ Essai sur la naissance et sur la formation des voyelles ” in
Rozier's Observations sur la physique (Paris, 1782), Supplérnent,
xxi. 3,58 seq, with tv/:Q plates(The description of the instrument
begins on p. 374, § xxu.
air near the reeds,
1782. Meanwhile, in 1780, a countryman of Kratzenstein's, an
organ-builder named Kirsnick, established in St Petersburg, adapted
these reed pipes to some of his organs and to an instrument of his
invention called organochordium, an organ combined with piano.
When Abt Vogler visited St Petersburg in 1788, he was so delighted
with these reeds that in 1790 he induced Rackwitz, an assistant
of Kirsnick's, to come to him and adapt some to an organ he
was having built in Rotterdam. Three years later Abt Vogler's
orchestrion, a chamber organ containing some 900 pipes, was completed,
and, according to Rackwitz,5 was fitted with free-reed pipes.
Vogler himself, however, does not mention the free reed when
describing this wonderful instrument and his system of “ simplification
” for church 0rgans.“ T0 Abt Vogler, who travelled all over
Germany, Scandinavia and the Netherlands, exhibiting his skill
on his orchestrion and, reconstructing many organs, is due the credit
of making Kratzenstein's invention known and inducing the musical
world to appreciate the capabilities of the free reed. The introduction
of free-reed stops into the organ, however, took a secondary
place in his scheme for reform? Friedrich Kaufmann S of Dresden
states that Vogler told him he had imparted to J. N. Miilzel of Vienna
particulars as to the construction of free-reed pipes, and that the
latter used them in his panharmonicon? which he exhibited during
his stay in Paris from 1805 to 1807. Kaufmann suggests that it was
through him that G. ]. Grenié obtained the knowledge which led
to his experirnents with free reeds in organs. It is 111016 likely that
Grenié had read Kratzenstein's essay and had experimented independently
With free reeds. In 1812 his first argue express if was
finished. It was a small organ with one register of free reeds-the
expression stop, in fact, added to the pipe organ and having a
separate wind-chest and bellows. It would seem from his description
of the orchestrion in Data zur Akustik that Vogler knew of no such
device. He used the swell shutter borrowed from England and a
threefold screen of canvas covered with a blanket arranged outside
the instrument, neither of which is capable of increasing the volume
of sound from the organ, or at least only after having first damped
the sound to a pianissimo. Vogler explains minutely the apparatus
used to conceal the working of the screen from the eyes of the
public.” The credit of discovering in the free reed the capability
of dynamic expression was undoubtedly due to Grenié, although Abt
Vogler claims to have used compression in 1796, U and Kaufmann in
his choraulodion in 1816. A larger argue express if was begun by
Grenié for the Conservatoire of Paris in 1812, the construction of
which was interrupted and then continued in 1816. Descriptions
of Grenié's instrument have been published in French and German.”
The organ of the Conservatoire had a pedal free-reed stop of 16 ft.,
with vibrators o~240 m. long, 0-035 m. wide, and o-oo3 m. thick.'“
Two compressors, one for the treble and the other for the bass,
worked by treadles, enabled the performer to regulate the pressure
of wind on the reeds and therefore to obtain the gradations of forte
and piano which gained for his instrument the name of argue express if.
Grenié's instrument was a pipe organ, the pipes terminating
in a cone with a hemispherical cap in the top of which was a small
hole. There were eight registers including the pedal, and the
positive on the first keyboard had reed stops furnished with
i
4
J
4
5 See “ Uber die Erfindung der Rohrwerke mit durchschlagenden
Zungen, ” by Wilke, in Allg. inusik. Zig. (Leipzig, 1823), Bd. xxv.
pp. 152-153 and Bd. xxvii. p. 263; also Thos. Ant. Kunz, “ Orchestrion,
" id., Bd. i. p. 88 and Bd. ii. pp. 514, 542; and Dr
Karl Emil von Schafhiiutl, Abt Georg Joseph Vogler (Augsburg,
1888), .3
6 Daffi ziir Akustik, eine Abhandlung 'vorgelesen bey der Sitzung der
naturforsohenden Freunde in Berlin, den 15ten Dezember 1800
(Offenbach, 1801); also published in Allg. musik. Zig. (1801),
Bd. iii. pp. 517, 533, 565. See also an excellent article by the
Rev. ]. H. Mee on Vogler in Grove's Dictionary of Music and
Musicians.
7 See Data zur Akustik, and a pamphlet by Vogler, “Uber die
Umschaffung der St Marien Orgel in Berlin nach dem Voglerschen
Simplifikations-System, eine Nachahmung des Orchestrion ”
(Berliu); also “ Kurze Beschreibung der in der Stadtpfarrkirche zu
St Peter zu Munchen nach dem Voglerschen Simplifikations-System
neuerbauten Orgel ” (Munich, 1809).
*See /lllg. rnusik. Ztg. (1823), Bd. xxv. pp. 153 and 154 note,
and 117-118 note.
9 A description of Malzel's panharmonicon before the addition of
the clarinet and oboe stops with free reeds is to be found in the
Allg. rnusik. Zig. (1800), Bd. ii. pp. 414-415. V
1° In the article in Gr0ve's Dictionary the screen is said to have
been in the wind-trunk.
11 See Allg. rnusik. Zig. Bd. iii. p. 523.
12 See ]. B. Biot, Préeis élérnentaire de physique expérimenlale
(Paris, 1817), tome i. p. 386, anrl his Traité de physique (Paris, 1816),
tome ii. p. 172 et seq., pl. ii.; “ Uber die Crescendo und Diminuendo
Zflge an Orgeln, " by Wilke and Kaufmann, Allg. rnusik. Zig. (1823),
Bd. xxv. pp. 113-122; and Allg. musik. Ztg. Bd. xxiii. pp. 133-139
and 149-154, with diagrams on p. 167 which are not absolutely
correct in small details.
13 ]. B. Biot, Traité, tome ii. p. 174.<noinclude>{{smallrefs}}</div></noinclude>