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

i 7 8 DICTIONARY OF ORGAN STOPS.
mended to the notice of Sir Edward Elgar in connection with the Dream of
Gerontius I As many of us nevertheless believe, there is a very real esoteric
truth enshrined within the expression " the harmony of the spheres."
VOX CCELESTIS—See Voix Celeste.
Vox Contralto = Contralto Voice. Former organ at Seville Cathedral.
Vox Flebilis— (It.) Voce Flebile. (Lat.) Flebilis = weeping. San
Vittore, Varese (Bernasconi & Figlio, 1905); St. Alessandro, Milan.
Vox Humana-(Fr.) Voix Humaine; (Sp.) Voz Humane.
(Lat.) Vox = voice, Humanus = human. 8 ft.; rarely 16 ft.;
Vox
Humana.
and 4 ft. See Vox Angelica, Vox Virgina.
A reed stop, with metal pipes, supposed to be imitative
of the human voice. The pipes are made with bodies
measuring at CC variously from 10 in. to 2 ft. 3 in. in
length. They are cylindrical in shape (see Reed and
Clarinet). The tone of the Vox Humana is thin and
nasal; Mr. Robertson, indeed, remarks that it "may be
anything, from Punch's squeak to the bleating of a nanny-
goat." Dr. Burney in his "Tour in Germany and the
Netherlands,"* speaking of the celebrated organ at Haarlem,
makes the following amusing comments on the specimen in
that organ, and on Vox Humanas in general :— " It does
not at all resemble a human voice, though a very good
stop of the kind ; but the world is very apt to be imposed
upon by names. The very instant a common hearer is told
that an organist is playing upon a stop which resembles the
human voice, he supposes it to be very fine, and never
inquires into the propriety of the name or the exactness of
the imitation. However, I must confess that, of all the
stops I have yet heard which have been honoured by the
appellation of Vox Humana, no one in the treble part has
ever yet reminded me of anything human so much as of
the cracked voice of an old woman of ninety, or in the
lowest parts of Punch singing through a comb."
The tongues of this Haarlem example are very wide at
the end, and the upper pipes are shaped like those of the
Cor Anglais, with an additional short cylindrical chimney
on the top. The stop is too powerful, and to the author
its effect was more like that of a 'Cello than a human voice.
As a matter of fact, granted a thin, smothered tone, the precise form of
the pipe is practically immaterial. Indeed, the main desideratum is a sub-
* Vol. II, p. 303.