The Syi inx (Fiom a Gieek sculpture.)
In the last-quoted passage it is said that Hermes first made the syrinx with one reed, while Silenus, or, ac- cording to others, two INIedes, Seuthes and Ehonakes, invented one with many reeds, and IMarsyas fastened them with wax. The reeds were of unequal length, but equal thickness, generally seven in number (Virg. Eel. ii, 36), but sometimes nine (Theocr. Id. viii). Those in use among the Turks sometimes numbered fourteen or fifteen (Calmet, Diss, in Mus. Inst. Ilabr., in Ugolini Thes. xxxii, p. 790). Eussell describes those he met with in Aleppo. ' The syrinx, or Pan's pipe, is still a pastoral instrument in Syria ; it is known also in the city, but very few of the performers can sound it toler- ably well. The higher notes are clear and pleasing, but the longer reeds are apt, like the dervis's flute, to make a hissing sound, though blown by a good player. The number of reeds of which the syrinx is composed varies in different instruments from five to twenty- three {Alejipo, i, 155, 2d ed.)." — Smith. See Musical In- struments.
Antique Organs. (In Fig. 1 the air was supplied by a tube ; in Pig. 2 it was compressed by the bellows.)
ORGAN (opyavov, an instrument of any kind), the, is the noblest and most powerful species of musical instru- ments. It appears, however, that the word organ was applied indiscriminately to almost every kind of mu- sical instrument used in religious worship by the early Church. But after a time the word came to be reserved to a wind instrument consisting of reeds or pipes, which the Greeks and the Romans, and also the Eastern Chris- tians, used in civil and private festivals, and which since the 8th century has been used in religious worship
ORGAN
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ORGAN
in the Western churches. The name is in all probabil- ity derived from the fact of its being the instrument of all instruments. It was often called oiv/atis, in the plu- ral, and only at a later date in the singular, organ. Tlie original of this kind of instruments is traced back to the syrinx, or pipes of Pan (according to Virgil), and the hydraulos, or water-flute, which was the invention of Ctesibius, a mathematician of Alexandria, B.C. 520, and also noted as a machinist. He is reported to have writ- ten several works on hydraulics, which are lost, but his inventions are noticed by Vitruvius (x, 13). (See the preceding article.)
I. Descrijytion and IIistoi-y. — The musical instrument now known as organ is played by finger-keys, and in general partlj' also by foot-keys, and consists of a large number of pipes of metal and wood made to sound by a magazine of wind accumulated by bellows, and ad- mitted at will by the player. The following descrip- tion is necessarily restricted to the most fundamental arrangements of this very complicated instrument :
"As met with in cathedrals and large churches, the or- gan comprises four departments, each iu most respects a separate instrument with its own mechanism, called re- spectively the. '7n'aM?'(7an, Vae choir-orrjan, the swell-organ, and the pedal-organ. Each has its own clavier or key- board, but the difterent claviers are brought into juxta- position, so as to be under the control of one performer. Claviers played by the hands are called manuals; by the ieeX, pedals. Three manuals, belongiugto the choir, great, and swell organs respectively, rise above each other like steps, iu front of where the performer sits; while the pedal-board by which the pedal-organ is played is placed on a level with his feet The condensed air supplied by the bellou's is conveyed through wooden tubes or trunks to boxes, called ivind-chests, one of which belongs to each department of the organ. Attached to the upper part of each wind-chest is a sonnd-bnard, an ingenious contriv- ance for conveying the wind at pleasure to any individ- ual pipe or pipes exclusively of the rest. It consists of two parts, an upper board and an under board. On the npper board rest the ^^t^cs, of which a number of diS'ereut quality, ranged behind each other, belong to each note. In the under board is a row of parallel grooves, running horizontally backwards, corresponding each to one of the keys of the clavier. Ou any of the keys being pressed down, a valve is opened which supplies wind to the groove belonging to it. The various pipes of each key stand in a line directly above its groove, and the npper surface of the groove is perforated with holes bored up- wards to them. Were this the whole mechanism of the sound-board, the wind, on entering any groove, would permeate all the pipes of that groove ; there is, however, in the upper board another series of horizontal grooves at right angles to those of the lower board, supplied with sliders, which can, to a small extent, be drawn out or pushed in at pleasure by a mechanism worked by the draw-stops placed within the player's reach. Each slider is perforated with holes, which, when it is drawn out, com- plete the comnuiuication between the wind-chest and the pipes; the communication with the pipes immediately above any slider being, on the other hand, closed up when the slider is pushed in. The pipes above each slider form a continuous set of one i)articular quality, and each set of pipes is called a. stop. Each department of the organ is supplied with a number of stops, producing sounds of different quality. The great-organ, some of whose pipes appear as show-pipes in front of the instrument, contains the main body and force of the organ. Behind it stands the choir-organ, whose tones are less powerful, and more fitted to accompany the voice. Above the choir-organ is the siocll-organ, whose pipes are enclosed in a wooden box, with a front of louvre-boards like Venetian blinds, which may be made to open and shut by a pedal, with a view of producing crescendo and diminuendo effects. The pedal-organ is sometimes placed in an entire state behind the choir-organ, and sometimes divided, and a part arranged on each side. The most usual compass of the manuals is from C ou the second line below the bass staff to D on the third space above the treble staff; and the compass of the pedals is from the same C to the 1) between the bass and treble staves. The real compass of notes is, as will be seen, much greater. Organ- stipes vary much in form and material, but be- long to two great classes, known as moiith-pipes (ov jUite-pipes) and reed-pipe.^. A section of one of the former is represented in the tigure. Its essential parts are the foot, a, the bodij, b, and g a flat plate, c, called the language, extendimj; ^ nearly across the pipe at the point of junction a, of foot and body. There is an opening, de, iu the pipe, at the spot where the language is dis- continuous. The wind admitted into the foot rushes through the narrow slit at d, and, in im-