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

106 DICTIONARY OF ORGAN STOPS.
apparatus."* Had the liberal composition been preserved concurrently
with a decided reduction in power, the result would have been far less
disagreeable. As matters stand, the very bareness of the routine Ill-rank
stop serves but to emphasize its assertiveness. In any organ, a V or VI
rank Dulciana Mixture, artistically treated, would be far less assertive than
the conventional Ill-rank stop. If the Mixture is to be retained at all, let
it boast some character, let it serve adequately its twofold office. Most
certainly, unless it can be made better than -it usually is, let it be sup-
pressed altogether and placed together with the Cymbalstern, Cuckoo, etc.,
on the retired list.
English builders generally have discarded the Tierce rank as in-
compatible with the intervals of equal temperament.f It is true that the
system of equal temperament demands some subdual of the power of
Mixtures, but, regarded in the light of artificial harmonics, there is no
.argument which can be levelled against Mixtures which cannot likewise be
brought to bear against natural harmonics. But it is not Nature which is
in the wrong, it is our arbitrary system of dividing the octave into twelve
•notes. One American pamphleteer sets out with great display to vanquish
the Mixture by tabulating the gruesome discords produced when a given
•chord is sounded.
Chord ot the Mixture tones.
Ninth. . * ^
Thus:- fe^S^=^; =aES=
IfrlW*
Result :— fe SB—P^ Tg—S~l
When to this is added the conflict between the perfect thirds and
-fifths of the compound stops, and the intervals of equal temperament
with its sharp thirds and fiat fifths, the resultant cacophony appears, on
paper, simply appalling ! But the whole argument is a specious reductio
* Whatever may be one's opinion of the famous old Continental organs—such, for
instance, as Silbermann's Dresden instruments—one thing can always be urged in their
favour, and that is the magnificent blaze of tone. Of course, this result can only be
• obtained at the sacrifice of what we hold more precious—massive Diapason tone—and
such Mixture work cannot be endured for any protracted period of time. But it is
. altogether preferable to the bare English work, neither tolerable nor imposing.
f Mixture ranks are tuned to pure intervals. A Tierce, for instance, sounds a pure
seventeenth above the Diapason. Whereas, on the keyboard, the interval of a seven-
teenth is far from pure, owing to the system of tuning according to equal temperament.
The fact, that the discord is more noticeable in the case of thirds than of fifths, accounts
;for the special antipathy displayed towards the Tierce.