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

DICTIONARY OF ORGAN STOPS. 39
(3) If, then, the organ is to maintain that massive dignity and grandeur
which has won for it the title of " King of Instruments," Diapason tone
must predominate. One of the main problems of the present day is that
of ensuring this predominance without, on the one hand, the production
of coarse, overblown tone, and, on the other, undue tonal duplication.
It may be said at the outset that many tonal schemes comprise a Mixture
or a Vox Humana, and yet but one Diapason, of disproportionate
magnitude, where two stops are undoubtedly demanded. Organ tone
cannot satisfactorily be built up by the mere conglomeration of a few
powerful stops of extreme tone; the full organ should build up, in the
true sense of the term, from the softest combinations. On the other hand,
the organ designer cannot proceed to duplicate stop after stop, heedless
alike of the increased expenditure of material and space involved, as of the
liability to that fatal phenomenon known as "sympathy." How then is
to be secured, without deterioration of quality, maximum efficiency at the
minimum outlay? We may best seek the solution of this problem by
reviewing the various types of Diapason. We have in the work of William
Hill the legitimate development of the Snetzler Diapason, a ringing and full
tone, though perhaps somewhat disposed towards stringiness. Following
on this we notice the fine stops of John Gray and the early Willis Diapason.
About this time the desire for increased volume of tone became widespread,
finding its expression in rough Horn Diapasons, Harmonic Diapasons and
similar barbarities on the Great organ—the increase of noise rather than
organ we may reasonably suppose that certain portions of the compass of certain of the
stops were once perhaps as good as the work of a clever modern voicer would be : but
there are always strong a priori grounds for concluding that the tone of the metal stops,
at least, has been hopelessly ruined by constant tuning, and by the ravages of time. The
very worst Dulciana I ever heard, was one of Snetzler's in an organ at a York church.
Yet there were numbers of people who, on learning the origin of the stop, forthwilh
acclaimed it as one of unsurpassed beauty. I have ventured to enter at length into this
subject, because of the inestimable harm this antique organ "bogey" has done to the
cause of the advancement of modern organ building. I yield to no one in my respect for
Snetzler organs, as the life-work of a great artist to whom the art of organ building is
largely indebted ; but their proper home is the museum, not the church. It is, of course,
easy to enlist sympathy by raising the cuckoo-cry of vandalism in this connection ; but,
unfortunately, the said "bogey" is largely responsible for a most ridiculous state of
affairs, viz., that the authorities of any church, which happens to possess an organ more
than thirty years old, are strangely led to imagine that the pipes have become vastly
mellowed by age and must on no account be discarded, or interfered with, when a new
instrument is ordered. There is, normally, no more sense in asking an organ builder
to rebuild an old organ, or incorporate part of it in a new one, than there would be
in asking one's tailor to patch up a pair of early Victorian breeches and to include them
in a new suit. It is not denied that economy sometimes demands the use of old material,
but the system is ordinarily very unsatisfactory and very much overdone, and English
organs would be the better for less tinkering and rebuilding.— J. I. W.