First, the requirements of music, which found no prototype in the organ of that day. As the instruments were then built, they possessed but little variety of tone, the swelling or diminishing of which was an impossibility; nor had the organist any mechanical assistance whatever to enable him to vary the combinations of stops.
Second, the invention of the harpsichord. This instrument, the avant-courier of the pianoforte, to which we have already referred, had already become sufficiently popular to make its own peculiar influence felt. This consisted in the power of crescendo and diminuendo according to the force exerted by the player, and a light touch which offered no impediment to rapid execution, besides certain other effects through its characteristic tone impossible upon the organ.
The light touch of the harpsichord, as compared with the heavy and fatiguing action of the organs of that day, was necessarily a source of great attraction; and the instrument itself, although far from finding a home in every household, as the piano has in our time, yet possessed the merit of being portable.
It was not long before the transition period began,—that period in which musicians and composers tested and decided upon that which was best and most fitting in the treatment of these respective instruments. Nowhere can we find more evident signs of this time of experiment, this gradually leaving old landmarks and seeking a new form of expression, than in the works of Bach himself.
In the "Well-Tempered Clavier" we find preludes and fugues impossible to properly interpret on any other instrument except the piano, placed side by side with those whose real significance can only be developed upon the organ. In a portion of the pieces written especially for the organ, we find, on the other hand, passages which to modern ears are only fit for and tolerable on the piano. The dividing lines of effect, not to say possibility, had not as yet been fully marked out. The organ was no more disposed to give up its long sway, and be narrowed to its own particular sphere, than any other sovereign, when the limiting influences of modern times first began to make themselves felt. Like them, however, it was obliged to yield. Little by little the piano emancipated itself from the strict contrapuntal chain which bound it to the organ, until, in the sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven, it emerged into a new life.
Here it was strengthened by the free contrapuntal treatment it received, like the fruits of early education showing themselves in new and original forms,—speaking a language founded indeed on the past, but new, fresh, and sparkling; or, when adopting the strict style, taking it up as a matter of choice, but not of compulsion. Such results followed the invention of the harpsichord,—the early piano,—and here we must leave it. It would, however, be an interesting subject to trace this development down to Chopin, Liszt, and the modern Titans of the piano, showing how gradually the mutual treatment of piano and organ disappeared and what was substituted in their place. It could, however, only be satisfactorily done by musical examples.
Meanwhile the orchestra blossomed into a new significance. To us moderns who read its history, or look back into the scores which antedate this time, it does not seem so much a period to be described, as that of progress, as that of a veritable new birth itself, a new creation. And this is, indeed, the fact; for no improvements in ancient instruments, although they took place, nor addition of new ones, can account for the change which now occurred in the orchestra. Here it was the man, not the instrument; and the name of Joseph Haydn will always be quoted as "Father of the Modern Orchestra."
The organ lost nothing of real value to itself by this increased significance of other branches of instrumental music. Its sphere became defined, and in Germany quite limited, as to this day it is but rarely employed there in the way of accompaniment beyond supporting the choral song of the congregation. In France and England it has been different, the organ having been employed to accompany many anthems and other extended pieces of music, which in Germany (at least in the larger cities) would be given with the orchestra. It should be noticed that to England we owe one great improvement, which, especially for the rôle the organ is called upon to fill in this country, can scarcely be overrated. I refer to the invention of the swell, and the great variety of effects we are enabled to achieve by its means in both accompaniment and solo playing.
A POSITIVE ORGAN. FROM AMBROSIUS WELPHLINGSEDER'S EROTEMATA MUSICES PRACTIÆ. NUREMBERG, 1563.