rows of pipes, gauged by the remains of the organist, give the requisite compass for the production of the six Greek scales in use at that date.[1] A working reproduction based on the proportions of the remains of the organist, but at half scale for the sake of portability (the real organ must have measured 10 ft. in height by 412 ft. in width), was successfully carried out by the Rev. F. W. Galpin in 1900–1901 by the help of photographs[2] and of the text of Vitruvius.
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| Fig. 3.—Pottery Model of the Hydraulus—Carthage, c. A.D. 150. | Fig. 4. Carthage, c. A.D. 150. |
The principle of the hydraulus is simple. An inverted funnel, or bell of metal, standing on short feet and immersed in water within the altar-like receptacle forming the base or pedestal, communicates by means of a pipe, with the wind-chest, placed above it. When the air is pumped into the funnel by the alternate action of two pumps, one on each side of the organ, constructed bucket within bucket and fitted with valves, the water retreating before the compressed air, rises in the receptacle and by its weight holds the air in a state of compression in the funnel, whence it travels through the pipe into the wind-chest. The rest of the process is common also to the pneumatic organ. As there are two pumps worked alternately, these conditions remain unchanged, until by pressure on a key working a slider under the apertures leading to the pipes, the compressed air is afforded an exit through the latter, thus producing the desired note.[3] It will be seen, therefore, that water acts on the air as a compressor exactly in the same manner as lead weights are used on the wind reservoir of modern pneumatic organs. The discovery of the Carthage model was of the greatest importance to the history of the keyboard (q.v.), for it proved beyond a doubt the use at the beginning of our era of balanced keys (seen in front of the organist) on the principle described by Vitruvius. What appears to be a second keyboard with smaller keys on the side of the hydraulus labelled Possessoris (fig. 4) is simply the ends of the sliders, which are pushed out or drawn in by the action of the keys.
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| From the Church of St Paul extra muros, Rome, 4th or 5th cent. A.D. |
| Fig. 5. |
The principle of the hydraulus made it possible to construct large organs of powerful tone more suitable for use in the arena than the small pneumatic instruments, but the hydraulic organ never entirely supplanted the pneumatic, which was probably not so imperfect at the beginning of our era as has been thought, since it outlived the former and seems to have differed from it only in the matter of pressure. The hydraulus, on the other hand, must have had many drawbacks, that of causing damp in the instrument being of a serious nature; it was also unwieldy and difficult to carry about.
Of the pneumatic organ in portable and portative form, traces have been found during the palmy days of the Roman empire, and the art of organ-building, of which the organ in fig. 5 is an example, never seems to have quite died out during the decline of classic Rome and the dawn of Western civilization. This illustration is derived from a 4th- or 5th-century slab in the church of St Paul extra muros at Rome. It is evident that the hydraulic organ was widely known and used in the East during the early centuries of our era, but it never won a footing in the West, although a few solitary specimens found their way into the palaces of kings and princes. On account of its association with the theatre, gladiatorial combats and pagan amusements of corrupt Rome, it was placed under a ban by the Church. The ignorance and misinformation displayed on the subject by writers and miniaturists of the early and late middle ages leave no room for doubt that the instrument itself was unknown to them except from hearsay.
Venice seems to have been famed for its organ-builders during the 9th century, for Louis le Débonnaire (778–840) sent there, it is recorded, for a certain monk, Georgius Benevento,[4] to construct an hydraulic organ for his palace at Aix-la-Chapelle.
No progress in the art of organ-building is recorded until the use of organs in the churches had long been established. The recognition of the value of the organ in Christian worship proved an incentive which led to the rapid development of the instrument.
In France and Germany the Romans must have used organs and have introduced them to the conquered tribes as they did in Spain, but the art of making them was soon lost after Roman influence and civilization were withdrawn. Pippin, when he wished to introduce the Roman ritual into the churches of France, felt the need of an organ and applied to the Byzantine emperor, Constantine Copronymus, to send him one, which arrived by special embassy in 757 and was placed in the church of St Corneille at Compiègne; the arrival of this organ was obviously considered a great event; it is mentioned by all the chroniclers of his reign. Charlemagne received a similar present from the emperor of the East in 812, of which a description has been preserved.[5] The bellows were of hide, the pipes of bronze; its tone was as loud as thunder and as sweet as that of lyre and psaltery. This organ must have had registers like those of the hydraulus of Vitruvius and the portative from Pompeii. In 826 we hear that his son Louis le Débonnaire obtained a pneumatic organ for the church at Aix-la-Chapelle, not to be confounded with the hydraulus installed in his palace.
The statement that the organ was introduced into the Roman Church by Pope Vitalian at the end of the 7th century, which has been generally accepted, is rejected by Buhle[6] on the ground of insufficient proof. There is abundant evidence to show that the organ had taken its place in the churches in the 10th century, not only in England but in Germany, where the construction by monks had become so general that we find no fewer than three treatises on organ-building[7] written by monks, followed by three more in the 11th century.[8]
Considerable activity was displayed in England in the 10th century in organ-building on a large scale for churches and monasteries, such as the monster organ for Bishop Alphege at Winchester, which had 400 bronze pipes, 26 bellows and 2 manuals of 20 keys, each governing 10 pipes.[9] There is also the elaborate organ presented by St Dunstan to his monastery at Malmesbury.[10]
- ↑ See Anonymi scriptio de musica, ed. Bellermann, p. 35.
- ↑ See “Notes on a Roman Hydraulus,” Reliquary (1904); also the writer’s “Researches into the Origin of the Organs of the Ancients” in Intern. Mus. Ges., Sbd. ii. 2, pp. 167-202 (Leipzig, 1901), and Proc. Mus. Assoc. (1903–1904), pp. 54-55.
- ↑ For a more complete explanation of the action of the hydraulus, with diagrams, see Victor Loret, Revue archéol. (Paris, 1890); W. Chappell, History of Music (London, 1874), pp. 325-361.
- ↑ “Vita Hludovici Imperatoris,” Mon. Germ. ii. pp. 629-630; see also Buhle, op. cit. p. 58, note 4, where fuller references are given.
- ↑ Gesta Karoli Monachi Sangallensis, lib. ii. cap. x. p. 751.
- ↑ Op. cit. p. 61, note 2, where the evidence is carefully sifted.
- ↑ (1) by Notker of St Gallen (see Hattemer, Denkmäler, Bd. iii. pp. 568 seq.; Hugo Riemann, Studien 2. Gesch. der Notenschrift, pp. 297 seq.; Martin Gerbert, i. pp. 100 seq. (2) By Bernelinius (see Gerbert, i. pp. 318 and 325). The third is an anonymous 9th-century tract, the earliest of all, De mensura fistularum, giving only the proportions of organ pipes. MS. Lat. 12949 fol. 43a. Paris Bibl. Nat. reproduced by Buhle, op. cit. p. 104 (Latin only).
- ↑ (1) De fistulis organicis, introduced in a MS. copy of Mart. Cap. by a Bernese monk; see A. Schubiger, Musikal. Spicilegien, pp. 82 seq. Reproduced also by Buhle, op. cit. Beilage iv. pp. 114-116, collated with a German translation. (2) Theophilus. De divers. artibus, edited and translated into English by Robert Hendrie (London, 1847); reproduced by Buhle, op. cit. Beilage iii. pp. 105 seq., Latin and German collated, who gives the title as Schedula artium. (3) Tractatus de mensura fistularum, by Bishop Eberhard of Freising. Martin Gerbert, op. cit. ii. pp. 279-281.
- ↑ See Wolstani, monachi Ventani, De Vita S. Swithuni; Coussemaker, “Essai sur les instruments de musique du moyen-âge,” in Ann. Archéol., iii. pp. 281-282.
- ↑ William of Malmesbury, Gest. Pontif., lib. v.
