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

40
DICTIONARY OF ORGAN STOPS.
foundation. Then, with things at a very low ebb, follows the Schulze
renaissance ; the German Schulze at Doncaster, with his quiet and full, though
to our ears, strangely inadequate, Diapasons, the Anglo-German Schulze at
Armley and Hindley, culminating in the magnificent flood of tone at Tyne
Dock. Schulze employed a very wide, low mouth, and a large bore admitting
a copious supply of wind at moderate pressure. In the tenor the result is a
tone of great magnificence and splendour, powerful and weighty ; but in
the treble the tone is thin and reedy, absolutely disproportionate in power
to the tenor. In fact, the tone in the treble is that of a Principal, not of
a Diapason at all. The impetus Schulze imparted to the English organ
building industry resulted in a marked improvement in the work of some
of the provincial firms. Messrs. Kirtland & Jardine and Messrs. Forster
& Andrews (e.g., at All Saints', North Street, York) adopted the widemouthed
Diapason. Basing his work on Schulze's methods, Mr. T C.
Lewis, of London, also attained considerable renown for artistic organ
tone. In our own time some good Diapasons of the Schulze type have
been voiced by Messrs. Vincent, Harrison & Harrison, Binns, and other
builders. The writer heard several pipes of a stop now in the organ at
New College Chapel, Hampstead (inserted to the order of the present
talented organist, Mr. L. K. Boseley), voiced by Mr. Vincent side, by side
with Schulze's in the Tyne Dock organ, till they were indistinguishable
therefrom. Alas !
Imitation
is oft but poor flattery. The Schulze style of
voicing has also led to some very poor productions, lacking the splendour
but retaining the less desirable attributes of Schulze's work—stops
characterised mainly by a harsh, grinding quality, hard and strident in
tone, devoid of dignity, ineffective in combination and wearisome to the
ear. Having been surfeited with empty string tone, the pendulum of
opinion swung to the opposite extreme. The reaction culminated in the
use of huge scales and very high-cut mouths—undesirable features, both
of them. Sensation-mongering in Diapason, of all tones, is, for the reason
enunciated at the commencement of this article, the sure path to the utter
debasement and prostitution of organ tone, true and proper. The true
solution of the question lies, of course, in the via media. Each of the
two extremes embodies the result of a striving after dignity and solidity of
tone, "big" tone as it is sometimes expressively styled, an ideal, sound in
itself, but in these instances imperfectly realised.
(4) The past few years have witnessed in this country a wide-spread
revolution in the tonal department of organ building. One basic attribute
of this change was clearly apprehended by a friend of the author's, Mr. R.
P. Elliot, an American organ builder and a keen judge of tone, who
recently, after having visited the most important instruments in this
country, delivered himself of the following apposite comments : " I was
glad to observe a strong, tendency away from the coarse tone, that had