Practical Organ Building

by W. E. Dickson

The Swell-organ proper owes its effectiveness to its reed stops, and these are one and all excluded from our village organ by the fact that they require the frequent attention of a tuner. We grant, however, that reedy stops of the Gamba class might take their place in small organs; and we admit that our organs, Nos. 1, 2, and 3, might be very easily enclosed in swell boxes, while a "Swell" might take the place of a "Choir" in No. 5. Such alterations would have many advocates, both professional and amateur.

In adhering resolutely to our plans, we must express the opinion that the judicious management of the Swell is a gift rather than an art. It is but occasionally, we think, that refined taste is made evident by a sparing use of the tempting contrivance. Too frequently, even in churches of high class and pretension, the tone of the swell-organ, with its mechanical rise and fall, prevails from the beginning to the end of the performance, until the ear longs for relief. If the abuse of the Swell be thus common even in town churches, is it well to trust an apparatus which may be so easily misunderstood to the discretion of players in village churches?

Moreover, our village organ is for the accompaniment of singers. We believe that many musicians will endorse our opinion that as an accompaniment for singers the Swell-organ is misleading and unsatisfactory. An accurate ear will often detect a slight difference of pitch in the pipes of a small Swell-organ when the shades are closed or suddenly opened. We have repeatedly heard the voices of the men and boys, even in very good choirs, thrown out of tune by injudicious persistence in the use of the Swell as an accompaniment. The sense of discomfort and uncertainty was removed at once when the player transferred his hands to the Choir-manual, with its quiet and cheerful brightness.

It is for these reasons, and not from any want of appreciation of the effect of the Swell in the hands of an educated and gifted performer, that we counsel our village friends to turn a deaf ear to the praises of the Swell which will doubtless reach them from many quarters, and to rest content with genuine organ-tone produced by means which do not lend themselves to abuse.

A few words may be added for the guidance of those who find themselves entrusted with the care of old instruments.

The eighteenth century witnessed the erection, in the churches of many country towns, of noble organs, honestly constructed by true artists, men who disdained the use of inferior timber or of base metal. A great number of these costly and beautiful instruments remained unaltered, or at least uninjured, within the recollection of the present writer, but demolition rather than restoration has been at work during the last thirty or more years, and the plea which we would put forward for the reverent preservation of the works of old masters may now be opportune in but few and isolated cases.

Nevertheless, if it should happen to any of our readers to discover in a village church, or in that of some quiet market-town, an organ by Snetzler (1749), by his predecessors, or by his immediate successors, ending with the Englands, father and son, we would earnestly counsel a respectful treatment of the valuable contents.

An old picture may have long lain hidden in a lumber-room, with its face to the wall; when brought into the light, and its merits recognised by an expert, its possessor replaces the worm-eaten stretcher and decayed frame by new wood, but he would indeed act strangely if he permitted the house-painter to touch the precious canvas with his brush.

Yet we have known many organs by the builders and of the period indicated above, taken down and carted away; their pipes (in Snetzler's case of nearly pure tin) sold for a trifling sum or thrown into the melting-pot; and this wanton destruction has been justified on the ground that the time is come for a "better instrument," that the old organ is "screamy;" above all, that the belauded "Swell" is wanting. Accordingly the modern builder meets the wishes of his customers by providing an organ of the common-place type, and the reign of Swell-coupler and Pedal Bourdon is duly inaugurated.

Surely a wiser course would have been this:—Carefully preserve every pipe, and round out those which may be bruised by rolling them on mandrils; insist on the inclusion of all these pipes without any omission whatever in the new structure which the ravages of the worm may have rendered inevitable; add to these original contents (if funds permit) some modern ranks of pipes carefully voiced by an accomplished artist to the same pressure of wind, and calculated to support and balance the shrill high tones which the old organ doubtless contains; repair the old case, and even retain the old key-board if possible.