CHAPTER VIII.

A REVOLUTION IN WIND SUPPLY.

Prior to the construction of the above-named organ at Birkenhead, England, it had been the custom to obtain or regulate the pressure of wind supplied to the pipes by means of loading the bellows with weights. Owing to its inertia, no heavy bellows weight can be set into motion rapidly. When, therefore, a staccato chord was struck on one of these earlier organs, with all its stops drawn, little or no response was obtained from the pipes, because the wind-chest was instantly exhausted and no time was allowed for the inert bellows weights to fall and so force a fresh supply of air into the wind-chests.

BELLOWS SPRINGS VERSUS WEIGHTS.

In one of Hope-Jones' earliest patents the weights indeed remain, but they merely serve to compress springs, which in turn, act upon the top of the bellows.

Before this patent was granted he had, however, given up the use of weights altogether and relied entirely upon springs.

This one detail--the substitution of springs for weights--has had a far-reaching effect upon organ music. It rendered possible the entire removal of the old unsteadiness of wind from which all organs of the time suffered in greater or less degree. It quickened the attack of the action and the speech of the pipes to an amazing extent and opened a new and wider field to the King of Instruments.

In the year 1894 John Turnell Austin, now of Hartford, Conn., took out a patent for an arrangement known as the "Universal air-chest." In this, the spring as opposed to the weight is adopted. The Universal air-chest forms a perfect solution of the problem of supplying prompt and steady wind-pressure, but as practically the same effect is obtained by the use of a little spring reservoir not one hundredth part of its size, it is questionable whether this Universal air-chest, carrying, as it does, certain disadvantages, will survive.

INDIVIDUAL PALLETS.

Fifty years ago the pallet and slider sound-board was well nigh universally used, but several of the builders in Germany, and Roosevelt in this country, strongly advocated, and introduced, chests having an independent valve, pallet or membrane, to control the admission of wind to each pipe in the organ.[1]

In almost all of these instances small round valves were used for this purpose.

A good pallet and slider chest is difficult to make, and those constructed by indifferent workmen out of indifferent lumber will cause trouble through "running"--that is, leakage of wind from one pipe to another. In poor chests of this description the slides are apt to stick when the atmosphere is excessively damp, and to become too loose on days when little or no humidity is present.

Individual pallet chests are cheaper to make and they have none of the defects named above. Most of these chests, however, are subject to troubles of their own, and not one of those in which round valves are employed permits the pipes to speak to advantage.

Willis, Hope-Jones, Carlton C. Michell and other artists, after lengthy tests, independently arrived at the conclusion that the best tonal results cannot by any possibility be obtained from these cheap forms of chest. Long pallets and a large and steady body of air below each pipe are deemed essential.[2]

HEAVY WIND PRESSURES.

As previously stated, the vast majority of organs built fifty years ago used no higher wind pressure than 3 inches. Hill, in 1833, placed a Tuba stop voiced on about 11 inches in an organ he built for Birmingham Town Hall (England), but the tone was so coarse and blatant that such stops were for years employed only in the case of very large buildings.[3] Cavaillé-Coll subsequently utilized slightly increased pressures for the trebles of his flue stops as well as for his larger reeds. As a pioneer he did excellent work in this direction.

To Willis, however, must be attributed greater advance in the utilization of heavy pressures for reed work. He was the first to recognize that the advantage of heavy wind pressure for the reeds lay not merely in the increase of power, but also in the improvement of the quality of tone. Willis founded a new school of reed voicing and exerted an influence that will never die.

In organs of any pretensions it became his custom to employ pressures of 8 to 10 inches for the Great and Swell chorus reeds and the Solo Tubas in his larger organs were voiced on 20 or 25 inches.

He introduced the "closed eschallot" (the tube against which the tongue beats in a reed pipe) and created a revolution in reed voicing. He has had many imitators, but the superb examples of his skill, left in English Cathedral and town hall organs, will be difficult to surpass.

Prior to the advent of Hope-Jones (about the year 1887) no higher pressure than 25 inches had, we believe, been employed in any organ, and the vast majority of instruments were voiced on pressures not exceeding 3 inches. Heavy pressure flue voicing was practically unknown, and in reeds even Willis used very moderate pressures, save for a Tuba in the case of really large buildings.

Hope-Jones showed that by increasing the weight of metal, bellying all flue pipes in the centre, leathering their lips, clothing their flues, and reversing their languids, he could obtain from heavy pressures practically unlimited power and at the same time actually add to the sweetness of tone produced by the old, lightly blown pipes. He used narrow mouths, did away with regulation at the foot of the pipe, and utilized the "pneumatic blow" obtained from his electric action.

He also inaugurated "an entirely new departure in the science of reed voicing." [4]

He employs pressures as high as fifty inches and never uses less than six. His work in this direction has exercised a profound influence on organ building throughout the world, and leading builders in all countries are adopting his pressures or are experimenting in that direction.

Like most revolutionary improvements, the use of heavy pressures was at first vigorously opposed, but organists and acousticians are now filled with wonder that the old low-pressure idea should have held sway so long, in view of the fact that very heavy wind is employed for the production of the best tone from the human voice and from the various wind instruments of the orchestra.

Karl Gottlieb Weiglé, of Stuttgart, was a little in advance of many of his confrères in using moderately heavy pressures, but he departed from the leather lip and narrow mouth used by Hope-Jones and has obtained power without refinement.

In employing these heavy pressures of wind, increased purity and beauty of tone should alone be aimed at. Power will take care of itself.

MECHANICAL BLOWERS.

The "organ beater" of bygone days was invariably accompanied by the "organ pumper," often by several of them. There is a well-known story of how the man refused to blow any longer unless the organist said that "_we_ had done very well to-day." The organ pumper's vocation is now almost entirely gone, especially in this country, although we know of organs in England which require four men "to blow the same" unto this day.

When Willis built the great organ in St. George's Hall, Liverpool, in 1855, he installed an eight-horsepower steam engine to provide the wind supply. There is a six-horse steam engine in use in Chester Cathedral (installed 1876).

Gas and petrol (gasoline) engines have been used extensively in England, providing a cheaper, but, with feeders, a less controllable, prime mover. By far the commonest source of power has been the water motor, as it was economical and readily governed, and as water pressure was generally available, but the decline of the old-time bellows, with the fact that many cities to-day refuse to permit motors to be operated from the water mains, have given the field practically to the electric motor, now generally used in connection with some form of rotary fans. The principle of fans in series, first introduced by Cousans, of Lincoln, England, under the name of the Kinetic Blower, is now accepted as standard. This consists of a number of cleverly designed fans mounted in series on one shaft, the first delivering air to the second at, say, 3-inch pressure, to be raised another step and delivered to the next in series, etc., etc. This plan permits tapping off desired amounts of air at intermediate pressures with marked economy, and as it is slow speed, and generally direct connected with its motor on the same shaft, it is both quiet and mechanically efficient.

[1] One object of this was to prevent what was called "robbing." While the pressure of the wind might be ample and steady enough with only a few stops drawn, it was found that when all the stops were drawn the large pipes "robbed" their smaller neighbors of their due supply of wind, causing them to sound flat. By giving each pipe a pallet or valve to itself, the waste of wind in the large grooves was prevented. Another object was to get rid of the long wooden slides, which in dry weather were apt to shrink and cause leakage, and in damp weather to swell and stick.

[2] A striking instance of the difference between the two kinds of pallet can be seen in All Angels' Church, New York. The organ was built originally by Roosevelt, with two manuals and his patent wind-chest. In 1890 the church was enlarged and Jardine removed the organ to a chamber some thirty feet above the floor and fitted his electric action to the Roosevelt wind-chest. At the same time he erected an entirely new Choir organ, in the clerestory, with his electric action fitted to long pallets. The superiority of attack and promptness of speech, especially of the lower notes, of the Choir over the Great and Swell organs is marvelous. The same thing can be seen at St. James' Church, New York, where the Roosevelt organ was rebuilt with additions by the Hope-Jones Organ Co. in 1908.

[3] Some congregations could not stand them and had them taken out.

[4] Wedgwood: "Dictionary of Organ Stops," p. 167.