Fig. 45.
BELLOWS BAGS IN THE ORGAN AT HALBERSTADT, AND METHOD OF BLOWING.
[Prætorius.]
Some time before the beginning of the seventeenth century the organ had acquired nearly the entire variety of tone that it has ever had. The mechanism was rude, no doubt, and the voicing perhaps imperfect. The tuning was by the unequal system, throwing the discords into remote keys as much as possible. In Michael Prætorius' "Syntagma Musica," the great source of information upon this part of the history (published at Wolfenbüttel, 1618), he describes a number of large organs. Among them he mentions the organ in the Church of St. Mary at Danzig, built in 1585, having three manuals and pedal; there were fifty-five stops. The balance must have been very bad, since there were in the great organ three stops of sixteen feet, and only three of eight feet. There was a mixture having twenty-four pipes to each key, besides a "zimbel" in the same manual, having three ranks.
Prætorius also gives many other specifications of large organs of three manuals, some with dates, some without. They belong mostly to the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the number indicates unmistakably the interest awakened in this part of the musical furnishing of the large churches. Many points in these organs were imperfect, but the foundation had been laid, and the general character of the subsequent building settled. There was also a beginning of virtuosity upon the organ, but this will come up for consideration at a later point in the narrative.
Fig. 46.