Pipe organ - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The pipe organ is a musical instrument

Musical instrument

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...

that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called wind) through pipes

Organ pipe

An organ pipe is a sound-producing element of the pipe organ that resonates at a specific pitch when pressurized air is driven through it. Each pipe is tuned to a specific note of the musical scale...

selected via a keyboard

Musical keyboard

A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...

. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre

Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

and volume throughout the keyboard compass. Most organs have multiple ranks of pipes of differing timbre, pitch and loudness that the player can employ singly or in combination through the use of controls called stops.

A pipe organ has one or more keyboards (called manuals
Manual (music)
A manual is a keyboard designed to be played with the hands on a pipe organ, harpsichord, clavichord, electronic organ, or synthesizer. The term "manual" is used with regard to any hand keyboard on these instruments to distinguish it from the pedalboard, which is a keyboard that the organist plays...

) played by the hands, and a pedalboard played by the feet, each of which has its own group of stops. The organ's continuous supply of wind allows it to sustain notes for as long as the corresponding keys are depressed, unlike the piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

and harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

, the sounds of which begin to decay the longer the keys are held. The smallest portable pipe organs may have only one or two dozen pipes and one manual; the largest may have over 20,000 pipes and seven manuals.

The origins of the pipe organ can be traced back to the hydraulis in Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

in the 3rd century BC, in which the wind supply was created with water pressure. By the sixth or 7th century AD, bellows

Bellows

A bellows is a device for delivering pressurized air in a controlled quantity to a controlled location.Basically, a bellows is a deformable container which has an outlet nozzle. When the volume of the bellows is decreased, the air escapes through the outlet...

were used to supply organs with wind. Beginning in the 12th century, the organ began to evolve into a complex instrument
capable of producing different timbre

Timbre

s. By the 17th century, most of the sounds available on the modern classical organ had been developed. From that time, the pipe organ was the most complex

Complexity

In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of complex systems theory. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are...

man-made device, a distinction it retained until it was displaced by the telephone exchange

Telephone exchange

In the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls...

in the late 19th century.

Pipe organs are installed in churches, synagogues, concert halls, and other public buildings and are used for the performance of classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

, sacred music

Religious music

Religious music is music performed or composed for religious use or through religious influence.A lot of music has been composed to complement religion, and many composers have derived inspiration from their own religion. Many forms of traditional music have been adapted to fit religions'...

, and secular music

Secular music

Secular music is non-religious music. "Secular" means being separate from religion.In the West, secular music developed in the Medieval period and was used in the Renaissance. Swaying authority from the Church that focused more on Common Law influenced all aspects of Medieval life, including music...

. In the early 20th century, pipe organs were installed in theaters to accompany films during the silent movie

Silent Movie

Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...

era, in municipal auditoria, where orchestral transcriptions

Transcription (music)

In music, transcription can mean notating a piece or a sound which was previously unnotated, as, for example, an improvised jazz solo. Further examples include ethnomusicological notation of oral traditions of folk music, such as Béla Bartók's and Ralph Vaughan Williams' collections of the national...

were popular, and in the homes of the wealthy, equipped with player mechanisms. The beginning of the 21st century has seen a resurgence in installations in concert halls. The organ boasts a substantial repertoire

Organ repertoire

The organ repertoire consists of music written for the organ. Because it is one of the oldest musical instruments in existence, written organ repertoire spans a time period almost as long as that of written music itself. The organ's solo repertoire is among the largest for any musical instrument...

, which spans over 400 years.

Construction

A pipe organ contains one or more sets of pipes, a wind system, and one or more keyboards. The pipes produce sound when pressurized air produced by the wind system is driven through them. An action connects the keyboards to the pipes. Stops

Organ stop

An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; some can be "on" , while others can be "off" .The term can also refer...

allow the organist to control which ranks of pipes sound at a given time. The organist operates the stops and the keyboards from the console

Organ console

thumb|right|250px|The console of the [[Wanamaker Organ]] in the Macy's department store in [[Philadelphia]], featuring six manuals and colour-coded stop tabs....

Pipes

Organ pipes are made from either wood or metal and produce sound when air under pressure ("wind") is directed through them. As one pipe produces a single pitch

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

, multiple pipes are necessary to accommodate the musical scale

Musical scale

In music, a scale is a sequence of musical notes in ascending and descending order. Most commonly, especially in the context of the common practice period, the notes of a scale will belong to a single key, thus providing material for or being used to conveniently represent part or all of a musical...

. The greater the length of the pipe, the lower its resulting pitch will be. The timbre

Timbre

and volume of the sound produced by a pipe depends on the volume of air delivered to the pipe and the manner in which it is constructed and voiced, the latter adjusted by the builder to produce the desired tone and volume. Hence a pipe's volume cannot be readily changed while playing.

Organ pipes are divided into flue pipe

Flue pipe

A flue pipe is an organ pipe that produces sound through the vibration of air molecules, in the same manner as a recorder or a whistle. Air under pressure is driven down a flue and against a sharp lip called a Labium, causing the column of air in the pipe to resonate at a frequency determined by...

s and reed pipe

Reed pipe

A reed pipe is an organ pipe that is sounded by a vibrating brass strip known as a reed. Air under pressure is directed towards the reed, which vibrates at a specific pitch. This is in contrast to flue pipes, which contain no moving parts and produce sound solely through the vibration of air...

s according to their design and timbre. Flue pipes produce sound by forcing air through a fipple

Fipple

A fipple is a constricted mouthpiece common to many end-blown woodwind instruments, such as the tin whistle and the recorder. These instruments are known variously as fipple flutes, duct flutes, or tubular-ducted flutes.-How it works:...

, like that of a recorder

Recorder

The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...

, whereas reed pipes produce sound via a beating reed

Reed (instrument)

A reed is a thin strip of material which vibrates to produce a sound on a musical instrument. The reeds of most Woodwind instruments are made from Arundo donax or synthetic material; tuned reeds are made of metal or synthetics.-Single reeds:Single reeds are used on the mouthpieces of clarinets...

, like that of a clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

or saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

.

Pipes are arranged by timbre and pitch into ranks. A rank is a row of pipes mounted vertically onto a windchest. The stop mechanism admits air to each rank. For a given pipe to sound, the stop governing the pipe's rank must be engaged, and the key corresponding to its pitch must be depressed. Ranks of pipes are organized into groups called divisions. Each division generally is played from its own keyboard and conceptually comprises an individual instrument within the organ.

Action

An organ contains two actions, or systems of moving parts. When a key is depressed, the key action admits wind into a pipe. The stop action allows the organist to control which ranks are engaged. An action may be mechanical, pneumatic, or electrical.

A key action which physically connects the keys and the windchests is a mechanical or tracker action

Tracker action

Tracker action is a term used in reference to pipe organs and steam calliopes to indicate a mechanical linkage between keys or pedals pressed by the organist and the valve that allows air to flow into pipe of the corresponding note...

. Connection is achieved through a series of rods called trackers. When the organist depresses a key, the corresponding tracker moves, allowing wind to enter the pipe. In a mechanical stop action, each stop control is physically connected to a rank of pipes. When the organist activates the stop control, the action allows wind to flow into the selected rank. This control is usually a stop knob

Organ stop

, which the organist activates by pulling (or drawing) towards himself. This is the origin of the idiom "to pull out all the stops". Tracker action has been used from antiquity to modern times. Despite the extra effort needed in playing, many organists prefer tracker action because of a feel and a control of the pipe valve operation.

A later development was the tubular-pneumatic action

Tubular-pneumatic action

"Tubular-pneumatic action" refers to an apparatus used in manypipe organs built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term "tubular" refers to the extensive use of lead tubing to connect the organ's console to the valves that control the delivery of "wind" to the organ's pipes...

which uses changes of pressure within lead tubing to affect pneumatics to produce valve action. This allowed a lighter touch, and more flexibility in the location of the console, within a 50-foot (15-m) limit. This type of construction was used in the late 19th century to early 20th century, and has had only rare application since the 1920s.

The most recent development is the electric action which uses electrical current to control the key and/or stop mechanisms. Electricity may control the action indirectly through air pressure valves (pneumatics), in which case the action is electro-pneumatic

Electro-pneumatic action

The electro-pneumatic action is a control system for pipe organs, whereby air pressure, controlled by an electric current and operated by the keys of an organ console, opens and closes valves within wind chests, allowing the pipes to speak. This system also allows the console to be physically...

. When electricity operates the action directly without the assistance of pneumatics, it is commonly referred to as direct electric action

Direct electric action

Direct electric action is one of various systems used in pipe organs to control the flow of air into the organ's pipes when the corresponding keys or pedals are depressed...

. The key action is independent of the stop action, allowing an organ to feature a mechanical key action along with an electric stop action.

When electrical wiring alone is used to connect the console to the windchest, electric actions allow the console to be separated at any distance from the rest of the organ, and to be movable. Electric stop actions can be controlled at the console by stop knobs, or by tilting tablets or rocker tabs which sit on a hinge, and activate or deactivate an electrical circuit, depending on the direction in which they are pressed.

Wind system

The wind system comprises the parts that produce, store, and deliver wind to the pipes. Pipe organ wind pressures are on the order of 0.1 psi (0.6894757293 kPa). Organ builders often measure organ wind using a U-tube manometer containing water, so commonly give its magnitude as the difference in water levels in the two legs of the manometer, rather than in units of pressure. The difference in water level is proportional to the difference in pressure between the wind being measured and the atmosphere. The 0.10 psi above would register as 2-3/4 inches of water

Inch of water

Inches of water, wc, inch water column , inAq, Aq, or inH2O is a non-SI unit for pressure. The units are by convention and due to the historical measurement of certain pressure differentials. It is used for measuring small pressure differences across an orifice, or in a pipeline or shaft...

(70 mmAq

Centimetre of water

A centimetre of water is a less commonly used unit of pressure derived from pressure head calculations using metrology...

). An Italian organ from the Renaissance period

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

may be on only 2.2 inches (55.9 mm), while solo stops in some large 20th-century organs require 100 inches (2,540 mm).

Playing the organ before electricity required at least one person to operate the bellows

Bellows

. When signaled by the organist, a calcant would operate a set of bellows, supplying the organ with air. Because calcants were expensive, organists would usually practice on other instruments such as the clavichord

Clavichord

The clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was widely used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces...

or harpsichord

Harpsichord

. By the mid-19th century bellows were also being operated by water engine, steam engines or gasoline engines. Starting in the 1860s bellows were gradually replaced by wind turbines which were later directly connected to electrical motors. This made it possible for organists to practice regularly on the organ. Most organs, both new and historic, have electric blowers, although others can still be operated manually. The wind supplied is stored in one or more regulators to maintain a constant pressure in the windchests until the action allows it to flow into the pipes.

Stops

Each stop usually controls one rank of pipes, although mixtures

Mixture (music)

A mixture is an organ stop, usually of principal tone quality, that contains multiple ranks of pipes. It is designed to be drawn with a combination of stops that forms a complete chorus . The mixture sounds the upper harmonics of each note of the keyboard...

and undulating stops (such as the Voix céleste

Voix céleste

The Voix celeste, [Fr.] is an organ stop consisting of either one or two ranks of pipes slightly out of tune. The term celeste refers to a rank of pipes detuned slightly so as to produce a beating effect when combined with a normally tuned rank...

) control multiple ranks. The name of the stop reflects not only the stop's timbre and construction, but also the style of the organ in which it resides. For example, the names on an organ built in the north German Baroque style generally will be derived from the German language, while the names of similar stops on an organ in the French Romantic style will usually be French. Most countries tend to use only their own languages for stop nomenclature. English-speaking nations as well as Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

are more receptive to foreign nomenclature. Stop names are not standardized: two otherwise identical stops from different organs may have different names.

To facilitate a large range of timbres, organ stops exist at different pitch levels. A stop that sounds at unison pitch

Unison

In music, the word unison can be applied in more than one way. In general terms, it may refer to two notes sounding the same pitch, often but not always at the same time; or to the same musical voice being sounded by several voices or instruments together, either at the same pitch or at a distance...

when a key is depressed is referred to as being at 8′ pitch. This refers to the length of the lowest-sounding pipe in that rank, which is approximately eight feet. For the same reason, a stop that sounds an octave higher is at 4′ pitch, and one that sounds two octaves higher is at 2′ pitch. Likewise, a stop that sounds an octave lower than unison pitch is at 16′ pitch, and one that sounds two octaves lower is at 32′ pitch. Stops of different pitch levels are designed to be played simultaneously.

The label on a stop knob or rocker tab indicates the stop’s name and its pitch in feet. Stops that control multiple ranks display a Roman numeral indicating the number of ranks present, instead of its pitch. Thus, a stop labelled "Open Diapason 8′ " is a single-rank diapason stop sounding at 8′ pitch. A stop labelled "Mixture V" is a five-rank mixture.

Sometimes, a single rank of pipes may be able to be controlled by several stops, allowing the rank to be played at multiple pitches or on multiple manuals. Such a rank is said to be unified or borrowed. For example, an 8′ Diapason rank may also be made available as a 4′ Octave. When both of these stops are selected and a key (for example, c′) is pressed, two pipes of the same rank will sound: the pipe normally corresponding to the key played (c′), and the pipe one octave above that (c′′). Because the 8′ rank does not have enough pipes to sound the top octave of the keyboard at 4′ pitch, it is common for an extra octave of pipes used only for the borrowed 4′ stop to be added. In this case, the full rank of pipes (now an extended rank) is one octave longer than the keyboard.

Special unpitched stops also appear in some organs. Among these are the zimbelstern

Zimbelstern

The Zimbelstern is a "toy" organ stop consisting of a metal or wooden star or wheel on which several small bells are mounted. When engaged, the star rotates, producing a continuous tinkling sound...

(a wheel of rotating bells), the nightingale (a pipe submerged in a small pool of water, creating the sound of a bird warbling when wind is admitted), and the effet d'orage ("thunder effect", a device that sounds the lowest bass pipes simultaneously). Standard orchestral percussion instruments such as the drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

, chimes

Tubular bell

Tubular bells are musical instruments in the percussion family. Each bell is a metal tube, 30–38 mm in diameter, tuned by altering its length. Its standard range is from C4-F5, though many professional instruments reach G5 . Tubular bells are often replaced by studio chimes, which are a smaller...

, celesta

Celesta

The celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano or of a large wooden music box . The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal plates suspended over wooden resonators...

, and harp

Harp

The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

have also been imitated in organ building.

Console

The controls available to the organist, including the keyboards, couplers, expression pedals, stops, and registration aids are accessed from the console. The console is either built into the organ case or detached from it.

Keyboards

Keyboards played by the hands are known as manuals
Manual (music)
A manual is a keyboard designed to be played with the hands on a pipe organ, harpsichord, clavichord, electronic organ, or synthesizer. The term "manual" is used with regard to any hand keyboard on these instruments to distinguish it from the pedalboard, which is a keyboard that the organist plays...

(from the Latin , meaning "hand"). The keyboard played by the feet is a pedalboard. Every organ has at least one manual (most have two or more), and most have a pedalboard. Each keyboard is named for a particular division of the organ (a group of ranks) and generally controls only the stops from that division. The range

Range (music)

In music, the range of a musical instrument is the distance from the lowest to the highest pitch it can play. For a singing voice, the equivalent is vocal range...

of the keyboards has varied widely across time and between countries. Most current specifications call for two or more manuals with sixty-one notes (five octaves, from C to c″″) and a pedalboard with thirty or thirty-two notes (two and a half octaves, from C to f′ or g′).

Couplers

A coupler allows the stops of one division to be played from the keyboard of another division. For example, a coupler labelled "Swell to Great" allows the stops drawn in the Swell division to be played on the Great manual. This coupler is a unison coupler, because it causes the pipes of the Swell division to sound at the same pitch as the keys played on the Great manual. Coupling allows stops from different divisions to be combined to create various tonal effects. It also allows every stop of the organ to be played simultaneously from one manual.

Octave couplers, which add the pipes an octave above (super-octave) or below (sub-octave) each note that is played, may operate on one division only (for example, the Swell super octave, which adds the octave above what is being played on the Swell to itself), or act as a coupler to another keyboard (for example, the Swell super-octave to Great, which adds to the Great manual the ranks of the Swell division an octave above what is being played).

In addition, larger organs may use unison
Unison
In music, the word unison can be applied in more than one way. In general terms, it may refer to two notes sounding the same pitch, often but not always at the same time; or to the same musical voice being sounded by several voices or instruments together, either at the same pitch or at a distance...

off couplers, which prevent the stops pulled in a particular division from sounding at their normal pitch. These can be used in combination with octave couplers to create innovative aural effects, and can also be used to rearrange the order of the manuals to make specific pieces easier to play.

Enclosure and expression pedals

Enclosure refers to a system that allows for the control of volume

Dynamics (music)

In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...

without requiring the addition or subtraction of stops. In a two-manual organ with Great and Swell divisions, the Swell will be enclosed. In larger organs, parts or all of the Choir and Solo divisions may also be enclosed. The pipes of an enclosed division are placed in a chamber generally called the swell box. At least one side of the box is constructed from horizontal or vertical palettes known as swell shades, which operate in a similar way to Venetian blinds

Window blind

A window blind is a type of window coverings. There are many different kinds of window blinds, using different systems and materials. A typical window blind is made with slats of fabric, wood, plastic or metal that adjust by rotating from an open position to a closed position by allowing slats to...

; their position can be adjusted from the console. When the swell shades are open, more sound is heard than when they are closed. Sometimes the shades are exposed, but they are often concealed behind a row of facade-pipes or a grill.

The most common method of controlling the louvres is the balanced swell pedal. This device is usually placed above the centre of the pedalboard and is configured to rotate away from the organist from a near-vertical position (in which the shades are closed) to a near-horizontal position (in which the shades are open). An organ may also have a similar-looking crescendo pedal

Crescendo pedal

A crescendo pedal is a large pedal commonly found on medium-sized and larger pipe organs , either partially or fully recessed within the organ console. The crescendo pedal incrementally activates stops as it is pressed forward and removes stops as it is depressed backward...

, found alongside any expression pedals. Pressing the crescendo pedal forward cumulatively activates the stops of the organ, starting with the softest and ending with the loudest; pressing it backwards reverses this process.

Combination action

Organ stops can be combined in countless permutations, resulting in a great variety of sounds. A combination action can be used to switch instantly from one combination of stops (called a registration) to another. Combination actions feature small buttons called pistons that can be pressed by the organist, generally located beneath the keys of each manual (thumb pistons) or above the pedalboard (toe pistons). The pistons may be divisional (affecting only a single division) or general (affecting all the divisions), and are either preset by the organ builder or can be altered by the organist. Modern combination actions operate via computer memory, and can store several channels of registrations.

Casing

The pipes, action, and wind system are almost always contained in a case, the design of which also may incorporate the console. The case blends the organ's sound and aids in projecting it into the room. The case often is designed to complement the building's architectural style and it may contain ornamental carvings and other decorations. The visible portion of the case, called the façade, will most often contain pipes, which may be either sounding pipes or dummy pipes solely for decoration. The façade pipes may be plain, burnished, gilded

Gilding

The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold. A gilded object is described as "gilt"...

, or painted.

Organ cases occasionally feature a few ranks of pipes protruding horizontally from the case in the manner of a row of trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s. These are referred to as pipes en chamade
En chamade
En chamade refers to powerfully-voiced reed stops in a pipe organ that have been mounted horizontally, rather than vertically, in the front of the organ case, projecting out into the church or concert hall...

and are particularly common in organs of the Iberian peninsula

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

and large 20th-century instruments.

Many organs, particularly those built in the early 20th century, are contained in one or more rooms called organ chambers. Because sound does not project from a chamber into the room as clearly as from a freestanding organ case, enchambered organs may sound muffled and distant. For this reason, modern builders prefer to avoid this unless the architecture of the room makes it absolutely necessary.

Tuning

The goal of tuning a pipe organ is to adjust the pitch of each pipe so that they all sound in tune with each other. How the pitch of each pipe is adjusted depends on the type and construction of that pipe.

Antiquity

The organ is one of the oldest instruments still used in European classical music. Its earliest predecessors were built in Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

in the 3rd century BC. The word organ is derived from the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

organum
Organum (musical instrument)
An organum is any one of a number of musical instruments which were the forerunners of the organ.The name comes from the Latin organum, meaning any tool in general or any musical instrument in particular , which in turn came from the Greek organon, with similar meanings, itself derived from ergon...

, an instrument similar to a portative organ

Portative organ

A portative organ is a small pipe organ that consists of one rank of flue pipes, sometimes arranged in two rows, to be played while strapped to the performer at a right angle...

used in ancient Roman circus games. Organum is derived in turn from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

όργανον (organon), a generic term for an instrument or a tool.

The Greek engineer Ctesibius of Alexandria

Ctesibius

Ctesibius or Ktesibios or Tesibius was a Greek inventor and mathematician in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt. He wrote the first treatises on the science of compressed air and its uses in pumps...

is credited with inventing the organ in the 3rd century BC. He devised an instrument called the hydraulis, which delivered a wind supply maintained through water pressure to a set of pipes. The hydraulis was played in the arenas of the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

. The pumps and water regulators of the hydraulis were replaced by an inflated leather bag in the 2nd century AD, and true bellows

Bellows

began to appear in the sixth or 7th century AD.

Portable organs (the portative and the positive organ

Positive organ

A positive organ is a small, usually one-manual, pipe organ that is built to be more or less mobile. It was common in sacred and secular music between the 10th and the 18th centuries, in chapels and small churches, as a chamber organ and for the basso continuo in ensemble works...

) were invented in the Middle Ages. Towards the middle of the 13th century, the portatives represented in the miniatures of illuminated manuscripts

Miniature (illuminated manuscript)

The word miniature, derived from the Latin minium, red lead, is a picture in an ancient or medieval illuminated manuscript; the simple decoration of the early codices having been miniated or delineated with that pigment...

appear to have real keyboards with balanced keys, as in the Cantigas de Santa Maria

Cantigas de Santa Maria

The Cantigas de Santa Maria are 420 poems with musical notation, written in Galician-Portuguese during the reign of Alfonso X El Sabio and often attributed to him....

. Its portability made the portative useful for the accompaniment of both sacred and secular music in a variety of settings.

Large organs such as the one installed in 1361 in Halberstadt

Halberstadt

Halberstadt is a town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt and the capital of the district of Harz. It is located on the German Half-Timbered House Road and the Magdeburg–Thale railway....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, the first documented permanent organ installation, likely prompted Guillaume de Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut was a Medieval French poet and composer. He is one of the earliest composers on whom significant biographical information is available....

to describe the organ as "the king of instruments", a characterization still frequently applied. The Halberstadt organ was the first instrument to use a chromatic key layout across its three manuals and pedalboard, although the keys were wider than on modern instruments. It had twenty bellows operated by ten men, and the wind pressure was so high that the player had to use the full power of his arm to hold down a key.

Until the mid-15th century, organs had no stop controls. Each manual controlled ranks at multiple pitches, known as the Blockwerk. Around 1450, controls were designed that allowed the ranks of the Blockwerk to be played individually. These devices were the forerunners of modern stop actions. The higher-pitched ranks of the Blockwerk remained grouped together under a single stop control; these stops developed into mixture

Mixture (music)

Renaissance and Baroque periods

During the Renaissance

Renaissance music

and Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

periods, the organ's tonal colors became more varied. Organ builders fashioned stops that imitated various instruments, such as the krummhorn

Krummhörn

Krummhörn is a municipality in the district of Aurich, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated near the Ems estuary, approximately 15 km southwest of Norden, and 10 km northwest of Emden....

and the viola da gamba

Viol

The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...

. The Baroque period is often thought of as organ building's "golden age," as virtually every important refinement was brought to a culminating art. Builders such as Arp Schnitger

Arp Schnitger

Arp Schnitger was a highly influential German organ builder. He was primarily active in Northern Europe, especially the Netherlands and Germany, where a number of his instruments survive to the present day; his organs can also be found as far away as Portugal and Brazil.Notable examples still in...

, Jasper Johannsen, Zacharias Hildebrandt

Zacharias Hildebrandt

Zacharias Hildebrandt was an organ builder, born in Münsterberg, Silesia. In 1714 his father, a cartwright master, apprenticed him to Gottfried Silbermann in Freiberg. In 1721 Hildebrandt finished his masterpiece, the organ of the Nikolaikirche Langhennersdorf...

and Gottfried Silbermann

Gottfried Silbermann

Gottfried Silbermann was an influential German constructor of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two.-Life:...

constructed instruments that were in themselves artistic masterpieces, displaying both exquisite craftsmanship and beautiful sound. These organs featured well-balanced mechanical key actions, giving the organist precise control over the pipe speech. Schnitger's organs featured particularly distinctive reed timbres and large Pedal and Rückpositiv divisions.

Different national styles of organ building began to develop, often due to changing political climates. In the Netherlands, the organ became a large instrument with several divisions, doubled ranks, and mounted cornets. The organs of northern Germany also had more divisions, and independent pedal divisions became increasingly common. The divisions of the organ became visibly discernible from the case design. 20th-century musicologists labelled this the Werkprinzip.
In France, as in Italy and Spain, organs were primarily designed to play alternatim

Alternatim

Alternatim refers to a technique of liturgical musical performance. A specific part of the ordinary of the Mass would be divided into versets. Each verset would be performed antiphonally by two groups of singers, giving rise to polyphonic settings of half of the text. One of these groups may...

verses rather than accompany congregational singing. The French Classical Organ, became remarkably consistent throughout France over the course of the Baroque era, more so than any other style of organ building in history, and standardized registrations developed. It was elaborately described by Dom Bédos de Celles

Dom Bédos de Celles

François Lamathe Bédos de Celles de Salelles, known as Dom Bédos de Celles, was a Benedictine monk best known for being a master pipe organ builder.He was born in Caux, Hérault, near Béziers, France...

in his treatise L'art du facteur d'orgues (The Art of Organ Building).
For example, in France, the organ at Notre-Dame's (St. Etienne, Loire) was built by Joseph and Claude-Ignace Callinet in 1837, at a time when their career was at its apex.

In England, many pipe organs were taken out of churches during the English Reformation

English Reformation

The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....

of the 16th century and the Commonwealth

Commonwealth of England

The Commonwealth of England was the republic which ruled first England, and then Ireland and Scotland from 1649 to 1660. Between 1653–1659 it was known as the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland...

period. Often these were relocated to private homes. At the Restoration, organ builders such as Renatus Harris

Renatus Harris

Renatus Harris was a master organ maker in England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.During the period of the Commonwealth, in the mid seventeenth century, Puritans controlled the country and organ music was banned in churches. Many organ makers left England for the continent,...

and "Father" Bernard Smith brought new organ-building ideas from continental Europe. English organs evolved from small one- or two-manual instruments into three or more divisions disposed in the French manner with grander reeds and mixtures. The Echo division began to be enclosed in the early 18th century, and in 1712 Abraham Jordan claimed his "swelling organ" at St Magnus-the-Martyr

St Magnus-the-Martyr

St Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge is a Church of England church and parish in the City of London, located in Lower Thames Street near The Monument and the modern London Bridge. It is a part of the Diocese of London and under the pastoral care of the Bishop of London. By arrangement with the...

to be a new invention. The swell box and the independent pedal division appeared in English organs beginning in the 18th century.

Romantic period

During the Romantic

Romantic music

Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....

period, the organ became more symphonic, capable of creating a gradual crescendo. New technologies and the work of organ builders such as Eberhard Friedrich Walcker, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll

Aristide Cavaillé-Coll

Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was a French organ builder. He is considered by many to be the greatest organ builder of the 19th century because he combined both science and art to make his instruments...

, and Henry Willis

Henry Willis & Sons

thumb|250px|St Bees Priory organ, the last major instrument to be personally supervised by "Father" Henry Willis, 1899Henry Willis & Sons is a British firm of pipe organ builders founded in 1845 in Liverpool. Although most of their installations have been in the UK, examples can be found in other...

made it possible to build larger organs with more stops, more variation in sound and timbre, and more divisions. Enclosed divisions became common, and registration aids were developed to make it easier for the organist to manage the great number of stops. The desire for louder, grander organs required that the stops be voiced on a higher wind pressure than before. As a result, a greater force was required to overcome the wind pressure and depress the keys. To solve this problem, Cavaillé-Coll configured the English "Barker lever" to assist in operating the key action.

Organ builders began to lean towards specifications with fewer mixtures and high-pitched stops. They preferred to use more 8′ and 16′ stops in their specifications and wider pipe scales. These practices created a warmer, richer sound than was common in the 18th century. Organs began to be built in concert halls (such as the organ at the Palais du Trocadéro

Trocadéro

The Trocadéro, , site of the Palais de Chaillot, , is an area of Paris, France, in the 16th arrondissement, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. The hill of the Trocadéro is the hill of Chaillot, a former village.- Origin of the name :...

in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

), and composers such as Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

and Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

used the organ in their orchestral works.

Modern development

The development of pneumatic and electro-pneumatic key actions in the late 19th century made it possible to locate the console independently of the pipes, greatly expanding the possibilities in organ design. Electric stop actions were also developed, which allowed sophisticated combination actions to be created.

In the mid-20th century, organ builders began to build historically inspired

Historically informed performance

Historically informed performance is an approach in the performance of music and theater. Within this approach, the performance adheres to state-of-the-art knowledge of the aesthetic criteria of the period in which the music or theatre work was conceived...

instruments modelled on Baroque organs. They returned to building mechanical key actions, voicing with lower wind pressures and thinner pipe scales, and designing specifications with more mixture stops. This became known as the Organ reform movement

Organ reform movement

The Organ Reform Movement or Orgelbewegung was an early 20th century trend in pipe organ building, originating in Germany and already influential in the United States in the 1940s, waning only in the 1980s...

.

In the late 20th century, organ builders began to incorporate digital components into their key, stop, and combination actions. Besides making these mechanisms simpler and more reliable, this also makes it possible to record and play back an organist’s performance via the MIDI protocol. In addition, some organ builders have incorporated digital stops into their pipe organs.
The electronic organ

Electronic organ

An electronic organ is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally, it was designed to imitate the sound of pipe organs, theatre organs, band sounds, or orchestral sounds....

developed throughout the 20th century. Some pipe organs were replaced by digital organs because of their lower purchase price, smaller physical size, and minimal maintenance requirements. In the early 1970s, Rodgers Instruments

Rodgers Instruments

Rodgers Instruments Corporation is an American manufacturer of classical and church organs. Rodgers was founded in 1958 by Rodgers W. Jenkins and Fred Tinker, employees of Tektronix, Inc., of Portland, Oregon, and members of a Tektronix team developing transistor-based oscillator circuits...

pioneered the hybrid organ, an electronic instrument that incorporates real pipes; other builders such as Allen Organs and Johannus Orgelbouw

Johannus Orgelbouw

Johannus Orgelbouw b.v. is a company that was founded in 1972 by Hans Versteegt and his wife Rineke. In the 1980s the company was sold. Johannus is currently located in Ede, Netherlands. Their specialty is in classical home and church organs. The Johannus organs are being exported to over 80...

have since built hybrid organs.

One US firm Estey Organ Co. of Brattleboro, VT developed a small pipe organ for homes that used the traditional way of producing music. The entire organ, pipes, bellows, keyboard and foot pedals was enclosed in what appeared to be a baby grand piano.

Builders

Pipe organ builders, past and present, include
George Fincham

George Fincham

George Fincham & Sons was an Australian company that designed and built pipe organs.It was a family run company, founded in 1862 by George Fincham and based in Melbourne, Australia. The company has completed many projects in more than a century of organ building...

& Sons of Australia,
Rieger Orgelbau

Rieger Orgelbau

Rieger Orgelbau is an Austrian firm of organ builders, known generally as Rieger. The firm was founded by Franz Rieger. From 1873 it was known as Rieger & Söhne, and from 1879 as Gebrüder Rieger, after his sons took over. At the end of World War II, the firm was nationalised by the Czech government...

of Austria,
Mortier

Mortier

Mortier is an organ manufacturer from Antwerp, Belgium that made orchestrions, fairground organs, and mostly dance organs from 1898 until 1950. The company was founded by Theophile Mortier .- History :...

of Belgium,
Casavant Frères

Casavant Frères

Casavant Frères is a prominent Canadian company in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, which has been building fine pipe organs since 1879. As of 2008, they have produced over 3800 organs.- Company history :...

of Canada,
Rieger–Kloss of the Czech Republic,
Frobenius Orgelbyggeri

Frobenius Orgelbyggeri

-History:Frobenius Orgelbyggeri was founded in Copenhagen by Theodor Frobenius in 1909. The firm moved to Lyngby in 1925. Theodor's sons Walther and Erik joined the company in 1944, at the same time that they began to build organs in the classical tradition, with mechanical actions and slider...

of Denmark,
Claude Parisot

Claude Parisot

Claude Parisot was a French organ builder. He came from a family of organ builders: his nephew Henri in turn built and repaired many instruments in Basse Normandie and Maine...

of France,
Klais Orgelbau of Germany,
Fratelli Ruffatti

Fratelli Ruffatti

Famiglia Artigiana Fratelli Ruffatti is a manufacturer of pipe organs based in Padua, Italy.- History :...

of Italy,
J. L. van den Heuvel Orgelbouw

J. L. van den Heuvel Orgelbouw

J. L. van den Heuvel Orgelbouw is a firm of pipe organ builders, based in Dordrecht, Holland. The company specialises in the construction of instruments in the French Symphonic tradition.-History of the firm:...

of Holland,
South Island Organ

South Island Organ Company

The South Island Organ Company is a manufacturer of pipe organs in Timaru, New Zealand. The company, in business since 1968, has manufactured and restored over 300 pipe organs throughout New Zealand, Australia and Oceania.-Founders:...

of New Zealand
Metzler Orgelbau

Metzler Orgelbau

Metzler Orgelbau is a firm of organ builders based in Dietikon, near Zurich, Switzerland. It is one of the most important makers of the European classical organ revival and has built many important and respected instruments throughout Europe...

of Switzerland,
Henry Willis & Sons

Henry Willis & Sons

of the United Kingdom, and
M. P. Moller

M. P. Moller

Mathias Peter Møller was a prolific Danish organ builder. He was a native of the Danish island of Bornholm. He founded the M.P. Moller Pipe Organ Company in Greencastle, Pennsylvania in 1875...

of the United States.

Repertoire

The development of organ repertoire has progressed along with that of the organ itself, leading to distinctive national styles of composition. Because organs are commonly found in churches and synagogues, the organ repertoire includes a large amount of sacred music

Religious music

, which is accompanimental (choral anthem

Anthem

The term anthem means either a specific form of Anglican church music , or more generally, a song of celebration, usually acting as a symbol for a distinct group of people, as in the term "national anthem" or "sports anthem".-Etymology:The word is derived from the Greek via Old English , a word...

s, congregational hymn

Hymn

A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...

s, liturgical

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

elements, etc.) as well as solo in nature (chorale prelude

Chorale prelude

In music, a chorale prelude is a short liturgical composition for organ using a chorale tune as its basis. It was a predominant style of the German Baroque era and reached its culmination in the works of J.S. Bach, who wrote 46 examples of the form in his Orgelbüchlein.-Function:The liturgical...

s, hymn versets designed for alternatim
Alternatim
Alternatim refers to a technique of liturgical musical performance. A specific part of the ordinary of the Mass would be divided into versets. Each verset would be performed antiphonally by two groups of singers, giving rise to polyphonic settings of half of the text. One of these groups may...

use, etc.). The organ's secular

Secular music

repertoire includes preludes

Prelude (music)

A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. The prelude can be thought of as a preface. It may stand on its own or introduce another work...

, fugue

Fugue

In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....

s, sonatas, organ symphonies, suites, and transcriptions

Transcription (music)

of orchestral works.

Although most countries whose music falls into the Western tradition

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

have contributed to the organ repertoire, France and Germany in particular have produced exceptionally large amounts of organ music. There is also an extensive repertoire from the Netherlands, England, and the United States.

Before the Baroque era, keyboard music generally was not written for one instrument or another, but rather was written to be played on any keyboard instrument. For this reason, much of the organ's repertoire through the Renaissance period is the same as that of the harpsichord

Harpsichord

. Pre-Renaissance keyboard music is found in compiled manuscripts that may include compositions from a variety of regions. The oldest of these sources is the Robertsbridge Codex

Robertsbridge Codex

The Robertsbridge Codex is a music manuscript of the 14th century. It contains the earliest surviving music written specifically for keyboard....

, dating from about 1360. The Buxheimer Orgelbuch, which dates from about 1470 and was compiled in Germany, includes intabulation

Intabulation

Intabulation, from the Italian word intavolatura, refers to an arrangement of a vocal or ensemble piece for keyboard, lute, or other plucked string instrument, written in tablature. It was a common practice in 14th-16th century keyboard and lute music...

s of vocal music by the English composer John Dunstaple. The earliest Italian organ music is found in the Faenza Codex, dating from 1420.

In the Renaissance period, Netherlandish composers such as Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard composers of Europe, and his work as a teacher helped establish the north German organ...

composed both fantasias

Fantasia (music)

The fantasia is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. Because of this, it seldom approximates the textbook rules of any strict musical form ....

and psalm settings. Sweelinck in particular developed a rich collection of keyboard figuration that influenced subsequent composers. The Italian composer Claudio Merulo

Claudio Merulo

Claudio Merulo was an Italian composer, publisher and organist of the late Renaissance period, most famous for his innovative keyboard music and his ensemble music composed in the Venetian polychoral style. He was born in Correggio and died in Parma...

wrote in the typical Italian genres of the toccata

Toccata

Toccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers...

, the canzona

Canzona

In the 16th century an instrumental chanson; later, a piece for ensemble in several sections or tempos...

, and the ricercar

Ricercar

A ricercar is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term means to search out, and many ricercars serve a preludial function to "search out" the key or mode of a following piece...

. In Spain, the works of Antonio de Cabezón

Antonio de Cabezón

Antonio de Cabezón was a Spanish Renaissance composer and organist. Blind from childhood, he quickly rose to prominence as performer and was eventually employed by the royal family...

began the most prolific period of Spanish organ composition, which culminated with Juan Cabanilles

Juan Cabanilles

Juan Bautista José Cabanilles was a Spanish organist and composer at Valencia Cathedral...

.

Early Baroque organ music in Germany was highly contrapuntal

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

. Sacred organ music was based on chorales: composers such as Samuel Scheidt

Samuel Scheidt

Samuel Scheidt was a German composer, organist and teacher of the early Baroque era.-Biography:...

and Heinrich Scheidemann

Heinrich Scheidemann

Heinrich Scheidemann was a German organist and composer. He was the best-known composer for the organ in north Germany in the early to mid-17th century, and was an important forerunner of Dieterich Buxtehude and J.S. Bach.-Life:...

wrote chorale preludes, chorale fantasia

Chorale fantasia

Chorale fantasia is a type of large organ composition based on a chorale melody. The term also applies to large-scale vocal Chorale settings in such works as the St Matthew Passion and Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn, BWV 23 of Johann Sebastian Bach.-History:Chorale fantasias first appeared in...

s, and chorale motet

Chorale motet

The chorale motet was a type of musical composition in mostly Protestant parts of Europe, principally Germany, and mainly during the 16th century. It involved setting a chorale melody and text as a motet....

s. Towards the end of the Baroque era, the chorale prelude and the partita became mixed, forming the chorale partita

Chorale partita

A chorale partita is a large-scale multimovement piece of music based on a chorale and written for a keyboard instrument. It represents a fusion of two forms of keyboard music: the north German chorale prelude and the Italian variation canzona...

. This genre was developed by Georg Böhm

Georg Böhm

Georg Böhm was a German Baroque organist and composer. He is notable for his development of the chorale partita and for his influence on the young J. S. Bach.-Life:Böhm was born in 1661 in Hohenkirchen, near Ohrdruf...

, Johann Pachelbel

Johann Pachelbel

Johann Pachelbel was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most...

, and Dieterich Buxtehude

Dieterich Buxtehude

Dieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services...

. The primary type of free-form piece in this period was the praeludium

Prelude (music)

A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. The prelude can be thought of as a preface. It may stand on its own or introduce another work...

, as exemplified in the works of Matthias Weckmann

Matthias Weckmann

Matthias Weckmann was a German musician and composer of the Baroque period. He was born in Niederdorla and died in Hamburg.- Life :...

, Nicolaus Bruhns

Nicolaus Bruhns

Nicolaus Bruhns was a German organist, violinist, and composer. He was one of the most prominent organists and composers of his generation.-Life:...

, Böhm, and Buxtehude. The organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

fused characteristics of every national tradition and historical style in his large-scale preludes and fugues and chorale-based works. Towards the end of the Baroque era, George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

composed the first organ concerto

Organ concerto

An organ concerto is a piece of music, an instrumental concerto for a pipe organ soloist with an orchestra. The form first evolves in the 18th century, when composers including George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach wrote organ concertos with small orchestras, and with...

In France, organ music developed during the Baroque era through the music of Jean Titelouze

Jean Titelouze

Jean Titelouze was a French composer, poet and organist of the early Baroque period. His style was firmly rooted in the Renaissance vocal tradition, and as such was far removed from the distinctly French style of organ music that developed during the mid-17th century...

, François Couperin

François Couperin

François Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.-Life:Couperin was born in Paris...

, and Nicolas de Grigny

Nicolas de Grigny

Nicolas de Grigny was a French organist and composer. He died young and left behind a single collection of organ music, which together with the work of François Couperin, represents the pinnacle of French Baroque organ tradition.-Life:Nicolas de Grigny was born in 1672 in Reims in the parish of...

. Because the French organ of the 17th and early 18th centuries was very standardized, a conventional set of registrations

Registration (organ)

Registration is the technique of choosing and combining the stops of a pipe organ in order to produce a particular sound. Registration can also refer to a particular combination of stops...

developed for its repertoire. The music of French composers (and Italian composers such as Girolamo Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by a large number of composers, including Ascanio...

) was written for use during the Mass

Mass (liturgy)

"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...

. Very little secular organ music was composed in France and Italy during the Baroque period; the written repertoire is almost exclusively intended for liturgical use. In England, composers such as John Blow

John Blow

John Blow was an English Baroque composer and organist, appointed to Westminster Abbey in 1669. His pupils included William Croft, Jeremiah Clarke and Henry Purcell. In 1685 he was named a private musician to James II. His only stage composition, Venus and Adonis John Blow (baptised 23 February...

and John Stanley

John Stanley (composer)

Charles John Stanley was an English composer and organist.-Biography:Stanley, who was blind from an early age, studied music with Maurice Greene and held a number of organist appointments in London, such as St Andrew's, Holborn from 1726...

wrote multi-sectional free works for liturgical use called voluntaries
Voluntary (music)
In music a voluntary is a piece of music, usually for organ, which is played as part of a church service. In English-speaking countries, the music played before and after the service is often called a 'voluntary', whether or not it is titled so....

through the 19th century.

Organ music was seldom written in the Classical era, as composers preferred the piano with its ability to create dynamics. In Germany, the six sonatas op. 65 of Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

(published 1845) marked the beginning of a renewed interest in composing for the organ. Inspired by the newly built Cavaillé-Coll organs, the French organist-composers César Franck

César Franck

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....

, Alexandre Guilmant

Alexandre Guilmant

Félix-Alexandre Guilmant was a French organist and composer.- Short biography :Guilmant was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer...

and Charles-Marie Widor

Charles-Marie Widor

Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor was a French organist, composer and teacher.-Life:Widor was born in Lyon, to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music there with his father, François-Charles Widor, titular organist of Saint-François-de-Sales from 1838 to 1889...

led organ music into the symphonic realm. The development of symphonic organ music continued with Louis Vierne

Louis Vierne

Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer.-Life:Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers, Vienne, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but at an early age was discovered to have an unusual gift for music. Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French...

and Charles Tournemire

Charles Tournemire

Charles Tournemire was a French composer and organist, notable partly for his improvisations, which were often rooted in the music of Gregorian chant...

. Widor and Vierne wrote large-scale, multi-movement works called organ symphonies
Organ Symphony
This page lists the best known Symphonies for solo Organ and Symphonies for Orchestra and Organ. Organ concertos are not listed here.- Edward Shippen Barnes :...

that exploited the full possibilities of the symphonic organ. Max Reger

Max Reger

Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...

and Sigfrid Karg-Elert

Sigfrid Karg-Elert

Sigfrid Karg-Elert was a German composer of considerable fame in the early twentieth century, best known for his compositions for organ and harmonium.-Biography:...

's symphonic works made use of the abilities of the large Romantic organs being built in Germany at the time.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, organ builders began to build instruments in concert halls and other large secular venues, allowing the organ to be used as part of an orchestra, as in Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3
Symphony No. 3 (Saint-Saëns)
The Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78, was completed by Camille Saint-Saëns in 1886 at what was probably the artistic zenith of his career. It is also popularly known as the "Organ Symphony", even though it is not a true symphony for organ, but simply an orchestral symphony where two sections out...

. Frequently the organ is given a soloistic part, such as in Joseph Jongen

Joseph Jongen

Marie-Alphonse-Nicolas-Joseph Jongen was a Belgian organist, composer, and music educator.-Biography:Jongen was born in Liège. On the strength of an amazing precocity for music, he was admitted to the Liège Conservatoire at the extraordinarily young age of seven, and spent the next sixteen years...

's Symphonie Concertante for Organ & Orchestra, Francis Poulenc

Francis Poulenc

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...

's Concerto for Organ, Strings and Tympani
Organ Concerto in G minor (Poulenc)
The Concerto for Organ, Timpani and Strings in G minor is a concerto composed by Francis Poulenc for the organ between 1934 and 1938. It has become one of the most frequently performed pieces of the genre not written in the Baroque period....

, and Frigyes Hidas' Organ Concerto. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_z-OjT0iBs

Other composers who have used the organ prominently in orchestral music include Gustav Holst

Gustav Holst

Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....

, Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

, Ottorino Respighi

Ottorino Respighi

Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor. He is best known for his orchestral "Roman trilogy": Fountains of Rome ; Pines of Rome ; and Roman Festivals...

, Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

, Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...

, and Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

. Because these concert hall instruments could approximate the sounds of symphony orchestras, transcriptions

Transcription (music)

of orchestral works found a place in the organ repertoire. As silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

s became popular, theatre organ

Theatre organ

A theatre organ is a pipe organ originally designed specifically for imitation of an orchestra. New designs have tended to be around some of the sounds and blends unique to the instrument itself....

s were installed in theatres

Movie theater

A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....

to provide accompaniment for the films.

In the 20th century symphonic repertoire, both sacred and secular, continued to progress through the music of Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...

, Maurice Duruflé

Maurice Duruflé

Maurice Duruflé was a French composer, organist, and pedagogue.Duruflé was born in Louviers, Eure. In 1912, he became chorister at the Rouen Cathedral Choir School, where he studied piano and organ with Jules Haelling...

, and Herbert Howells

Herbert Howells

Herbert Norman Howells CH was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.-Life:...

. Other composers, such as Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

, Jehan Alain

Jehan Alain

Jehan Ariste Alain was a French organist and composer.-Biography:Alain was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the western suburbs of Paris, into a family of musicians. His father, Albert Alain was an enthusiastic organist, composer and organ-builder who had studied with Alexandre Guilmant and Louis...

, Jean Langlais

Jean Langlais

Jean Langlais was a French composer of modern classical music, organist, and improviser.- Biography :Jean Langlais was born in La Fontenelle , a small village near Mont St Michel, France...

, and Petr Eben

Petr Eben

Petr Eben was a Czech composer of modern and contemporary classical music.-His life:Born in Žamberk in northeastern Bohemia, Eben spent his youth in Český Krumlov in southern Bohemia. There he studied piano, and later cello and organ...

, wrote post-tonal organ music. Messiaen's music in particular redefined many of the traditional notions of organ registration and technique.

External links

The Pipe Organ, a basic overview of the organ
The Organ, quarterly UK publication about pipe organs
ellykooiman.com, pipe organ website with information and detailed photos of various organs
A Young Person's Guide to the Pipe Organ, by Sandra Soderlund
Flue Pipe Acoustics, a scholarly description of flue pipe physics
Organ transcriptions and the Late Romantic Period
Organs and Organists, a repository of information on significant organs and organ builders
Orgelbilder, a gallery of over 2000 pipe organ pictures from many different countries
The house organ, A little organ construction process
Dr Colin Pykett's website - many technical articles on pipe and electronic organs
Encyclopedia of Organ Stops, a comprehensive database of over 2500 stops with descriptions, pictures, and sound clips

Online radio stations

Organlive An online station of classical organ music.
Pipedreams A weekly 2-hour public radio program of organ music.
Sacred Classics, a radio program of organ and choral music

Databases

International Organ Foundation, an online pipe organ database with specifications of more than 8000 organs in over 80 countries
Organ Historical Society Pipe Organ Database
The Top 20 - The World's Largest Pipe Organs
National Pipe Organ Register, featuring history and specifications of 28,000 pipe organs in the United Kingdom
Die Orgelseite, photos and specifications of some of the world's most interesting organs (subscription required for some content)
Organ Database, stoplists, pictures and information about some 33,500 pipe organs around the world

Resources for organ video recordings

Bell Video Production & Melcot Music American Video & Audio Production Company with video recordings of the history and inner workings of American Pipe Organs and European Organs

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Construction

Pipes

Action

Wind system

Stops

Console

Keyboards

Couplers

Enclosure and expression pedals

Combination action

Casing

Tuning

Antiquity

Renaissance and Baroque periods

Romantic period

Modern development

Builders

Repertoire

Further reading

External links

Online radio stations

Databases

Resources for organ video recordings