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

DICTIONARY OF ORGAN STOPS. 41
seemed inseparable from powerful organs, towards refinement; and by
refinement I do not mean weakness, but purity."* Precisely the same
tendency is to be observed in the realms of choir-boy voice production.
It is a fact patent to all that the head tone of a boy's voice far excels in
purity and pervading character the old fashioned reedy chest tone.f
The work of Schulze certainly displays wonderful characteristics for its
period. { One cannot help the feeling, nevertheless, that there was much
in it justifying the reactionary movement above-noticed. One can admire
the weight and glowing splendour of the tenor portion of his large
Diapasons, and yet recognise the need of greater purity and refinement of
tone in the treble. There is, of course, no especial difficulty connected
with the attainment of weight and solidity in the lower portions of a
Diapason, it is when the treble octaves are reached that the tone is too
often apt to become unduly weak, hard or shrill. In the case of instru-
ments of moderate dimensions particularly, it would seem most inadvisable
to base the fiuework entirely on Schulze lines.
The law of the Binary or Duality in Nature extends even to organ tone.
" As above, so below," runs the Hermetic Axiom. One extreme is only
to be realised at the sacrifice of another. So, tautologically, abnormal
brilliancy (due to ample harmonic development) can be secured only at
the expense of foundation tone. Tonal experts, familiar with the massive
church roll of the most esteemed modern type of Diapason (described
later), will instantly discern in the ensemble of instruments having their
fiuework based on the somewhat stringy and " pyrotechnical " Schulze linesa
lack of breadth and volume, and often a degree of hardness of tone, by
comparison highly unsatisfactory to the ear. To revert entirely to Schulze
methods in the treatment of Diapason fiuework, because, forsooth, some of
the earlier examples of the reactionary period were, by exaggerated treat-
ment, rendered dull and insipid in tone, is essentially a retrograde policy.
* See "The Church Economist," New York. Issue of March, 1904. An article on.
twenty-seven Cathedral organs in Great Britain.
t The value of such stops as Harmonic Flutes and* clear-toned Gedeckts, and the
general influence of the organ stops employed, is not sufficiently recognised in the
cultivation of boy's voices ; reedy trebles, for instance, are apt to induce chest tone, and
certainly tend to offer serious impediment to the production of pure head tone.
X There is no valid reason for suppressing the fact—indeed, it is but just to point out,
that there is in this country a widespread tendency to assign to Schulze undue credit for
many apparently novel features displayed in his work, features in reality not so much his
as common to the German school of organ building of which he was a representative.
To adduce one concrete instance, the author has seen contemporaneous work by Eberhard
Friedrich Walcker, of Ludwigsburg, embodying Diapasons similar to those of Schulze
and other features here, at that time, esteemed a novelty. In the Schulze renaissance,
then, we may discern not merely the influence of one single individual, albeit he a genius,
but rather that of a vast national school, whose traditions were his birthright, the fruit of
whose labours his heritage.