The Influence of the Organ in History / Inaugural Lecture of the Department of the Organ in the College of Music of Boston University

by Dudley Buck

The Organ is called the "king of instruments."

This phrase has been used so often that it has become decidedly well worn and trite. None the less, however, is the expression full of significance; and to what an extent (especially in a historical sense) is known to but comparatively few persons, among whom I fear far too few organists would be found.

To bring up some of these neglected facts; to examine them in their historical and theoretical bearing, as well as in practice; to thus create a greater love for and appreciation of the instrument on the part of its students,—to do this, I say, is, if I apprehend it aright, one of the principal objects which the Boston University has had in view in founding this department.

The organ, then, is called the "king of instruments."

If we look at the phrase a little closer, it will be perceived that the simile is a striking one. A king, in the so-called "good old times of yore," if he were a man of any force of character, generally possessed, along with the divine right theoretical, any quantity of the human power practical. The day of more or less ornamental constitutional figure-heads had not yet arrived.

In other words, the live kings of the past, of the feudal time, moulded to their own tastes and characters their age, their people, or only their court, according to the innate ability they might possess. In turn they were themselves affected, to a degree, by their surroundings, but to a far lesser extent than is the case at this day, the balance of influence remaining largely in their favour.

I will endeavour to show that among musical instruments this "kingship," as regards the organ, held good in a parallel way,—that by its own nature as to construction, by its very faults and weaknesses, by the mission it was called upon to fulfil, it did, in very fact, long reign supreme as king of instruments.

Absolute power, as represented by a monarch, became narrowed down, in the lapse of centuries, by external forces working out their own independence, thus checking and limiting this absolutism. Here, too, I will endeavour to draw a parallel, and show that as years rolled on, the influence of the organ upon music in the abstract diminished. The process became inverted, and music began to affect the organ, rather than the organ it. To this we owe the vast improvements in the construction of the instrument, the many additions of new qualities of tone, and numberless new inventions of value still going on in our day, with a rapidity difficult to keep pace with. To fairly appreciate this past or present relation of things, it becomes necessary to take a hasty and necessarily superficial glance backward at the origin of the organ,—its invention and development.

All writers attribute the origin of the organ to that simplest as well as most ancient of musical instruments, called by the Greeks the "pipes of Pan,"—Pan, in the ancient mythology, being the god of the woods and groves. It consisted of a few hollow reeds of various lengths, securely bound together, and blown by the lips. We still occasionally see and hear this instrument in our streets, performed upon by those nomadic "sons of art," the organ-grinders. The performer being obliged to move his head continually from side to side, an unpleasant and fatiguing operation, soon led to an attempt to blow these tubes artificially. From this resulted the placing of the pipes upon a small wind-chest, and the addition of a primitive bellows, the whole being easily carried and operated by one performer. Of particular value in the establishment of this historical fact was the discovery, in Syria, among some ancient ruins, of a sculptured figure playing on such an instrument. Although much mutilated, all the more important parts were still intact. This interesting relic was brought to England about the year 1853.

It should be mentioned here, that the word "organ," not unfrequently found in the Bible, should not be supposed to refer to any such instrument as the name would suggest to our minds. Both with the Greeks and Romans the term translated "organ" simply meant an "instrument,"—and that of any kind, but with usage apparently favouring its application to musical instruments.