A comprehensive dictionary of organ stops - Allen Organ Studio of ...

DICTIONARY OF ORGAN STOPS. 99
Litice—Lituus. (Lat.) = "a kind of crooked Trumpet, uttering a shrill
sound, a clarion " (Adams). A Zink or Krummhorn.
Lleno— (Sp.) = Mixture. (Sp.) Lleno seis renglones = Mixture VI ranks.
Locatio—An ancient name for Mixture. (Lat.) = a letting or lease.
Loculatus, however, = a box or chest of drawers with a number
of small distinct divisions. Perhaps some affinity is traceable, as
the latter word aptly describes the soundboard arrangements of a
Mixture stop. The name may, however, be related to (Lat.) loqui
= to speak.
Lute—A stringed instrument, Lute, was inserted as an organ stop by
Schwarbrook, at St. Michael, Coventry (1733).
M,
Major Bass— Great Bass. (Pedal) Open Diapason. (Ger.)
Prinzipalbass. 16 ft. These names are also sometimes applied to
pedal stops of 32 ft. pitch. See Double Diapason.
The principal Pedal organ stop, commonly known as Open Diapason.
It would seem scarcely accurate to apply this name to a stop which so
frequently is what the Rev. Sir Frederick Ouseley termed, "a huge
toneless Clarabella." When the GG organs were converted to the CC
compass, one set of huge scaled wooden " Pedal Pipes " was expected to
do duty alike for loud and soft combinations. With the previous extended
compass, manual stops had each possessed a bass on the manual itself,
and the alteration should, therefore, have been attended by a corresponding
transference of such manual basses to the pedal. Apparently, however,
the esoteric principles underlying the change were never really grasped, the
ultimate result being that the organ was deprived of its sympathetic basses.
There is a stop of the kind under notice at St. Barnabas' Cathedral (R.C.),
Nottingham (Gray & Davison), the CCC pipe measuring internally no less
than 17 in. x 15 in. The marvellous progress the art of organ building
in this country has, of recent years, made, has been accompanied by a
truer appreciation of the function of the Pedal organ. The provision of a
larger number of pedal stops, soft as well as loud, has been in no small
measure due to the efforts of Mr. Thomas Casson. English builders as a
whole, in comparison to the Germans, do not seem to excel in their
treatment of pedal stops. The modern Major Bass is a stop to which
little care and attention is devoted, and which consequently is, as a rule,
disappointing in effect, being windy in the bass and unduly hard in the
treble. In organs of moderate size a somewhat stringy Major Bass or a
Violon will probably be found more useful and effective than the heavier
type of tone sometimes affected. Irregularity of tone in a Major Bass is