THE ORGAN
When hairy Pan joined reeds of different lengths and so invented the
flute which bears his name, he was, in reality, creating the organ. It
needed only to add to this flute a keyboard and bellows to make one of
those pretty instruments the first painters used to put in the hands of
angels. As it developed and gradually became the most grandiose of the
instruments, the organ, with its depth of tone modified and increased
tenfold by the resonance of the great cathedrals, took on its religious
character.
The organ is more than a single instrument. It is an orchestra, a
collection of the pipes of Pan of every size, from those as small as a
child's playthings to those as gigantic as the columns of a temple. Each
one corresponds to what is termed an organ-stop. The number is
unlimited.
The Romans made organs which must have been simple from the musical
standpoint, though they were complicated in their mechanical
construction. They were called hydraulic organs. The employment of water
in a wind instrument has greatly perplexed the commentators.
Cavaillé-Coll studied the question and solved the problem by
demonstrating that the water compressed the air. This system was
ingenious but imperfect, since it was applicable only to the most
primitive instruments. The keys, it seems, were very large, and were
struck by blows of the fist.
Let us leave erudition for art and primitive for perfected instruments.
By the time of Sebastian Bach and Rameau the organ had taken on its
grandiose character. The stops had multiplied and the organist _called_
them by means of registers which he drew out or pushed back at will. In
order to give greater resources, the builder multiplied the keyboards.
Pedals were introduced to help out the keyboards. At that time Germany
alone had pedals worthy of the name and worth while in playing an
interesting bass part. In France and elsewhere the rudimentary pedals
were only used for certain fundamental notes or in prolonged _tenutos_.
No one outside of Germany could play Sebastian Bach's compositions.
Playing on the old instruments was fatiguing and uncomfortable. The
touch was heavy and, when one used both the pedals and the keyboards, a
real display of strength was necessary. A similar display was necessary
to draw out or push back the registers, some of which were beyond the
player's reach. In short, an assistant was necessary, in fact several
assistants in playing large organs like those at Harlem or Arnheim in
Holland. It was almost impossible to modify the combinations of stops.
All nuances, save the abrupt change from strong to soft and vice versa,
were impossible.
It remained for Cavaillé-Coll to change all this and open up new fields
of usefulness for the organ. He introduced in France keyboards worthy of
the name, and he gave to the higher notes, through his invention of
harmonic stops, a brilliancy they had lacked. He invented wonderful
combinations which allow the organist to change his combinations and to
vary the tone, without the aid of an assistant and without leaving the
keyboard. Even before his day a scheme had been devised of enclosing
certain stops in a box protected by shutters which a pedal opened and
closed at will; this permitted the finest shadings. By different
processes the touch of the organ was made as delicate as that of the
piano.
For some years the Swiss organ-makers have been inventing new facilities
which make the organist a sort of magician. The manifold resources of
the marvellous instrument are at his command, obedient to his slightest
wish.
These resources are prodigious. The compass of the organ far surpasses
that of all the instruments of the orchestra. The violin notes alone
reach the same height, but with little carrying power. As for the lower
tones, there is no competitor of the thirty-two-foot pipes, which go two
octaves below the violoncello's low C. Between the _pianissimo_ which
almost reaches the limit where sound ceases and silence begins, down to
a range of formidable and terrifying power, every degree of intensity
can be obtained from this magical instrument. The variety of its timbre
is broad. There are flute stops of various kinds; tonal stops that
approximate the timbre of stringed instruments; stops for effecting
changes in which each note, formed from several pipes, bring out
simultaneously its fundamental and harmonic sounds; stops which serve to
imitate the instruments of the orchestra, such as the trumpet, the
clarinet, and the cremona (an obsolete instrument with a timbre peculiar
to itself) and the bassoon. There are celestial voices of several kinds,
produced by combinations of two simultaneous stops which are not tuned
in perfect unison. Then we have the famous _Vox Humana_, a favorite with
the public, which is alluring even though it is tremulous and nasal, and
we have the innumerable combinations of all these different stops, with
the gradations that may be obtained through indefinite commingling of
the tones of this marvellous palette.
Add to all this the continual breathing of the monster's lungs which
gives the sounds an incomparable and inimitable steadiness. Human
beings were used for a long time to fill these lungs--blowers working
away with hands and feet. We do much better now. The great organ in
Albert Hall, London, is supplied with air by steam which assures the
organist an inexhaustible supply. Other instruments use gas engines
which are more manageable. Then, there is the hydraulic system, which is
very powerful and easily used, for one has only to pull out a plug to
set the bellows in motion.
These mechanical systems, however, are not entirely free from accidents.
I discovered that fact when I was concluding the first part of the
_Adagio_ in Liszt's great _Fantaisie_ in the beautiful Victoria Hall in
Geneva. The pipe which brought in the water burst and the organ was
mute. I have always thought, perhaps wrongly, that malice had something
to do with the accident.
This Liszt _Fantaisie_ is the most extraordinary piece for the organ
there is. It lasts forty minutes and the interest is sustained
throughout. Just as Mozart in his _Fantaisie et Sonate in C minor_
foresaw the modern piano, so Liszt, writing this _Fantaisie_ more than
half a century ago, appears to have foreseen the instrument of a
thousand resources which we have to-day.
Let us have the courage to admit, however, that these resources are only
partly utilized as they can or should be. To draw from a great
instrument all its possibilities, to begin with, one must understand it
thoroughly, and that understanding cannot be gained over night. The
organ, as we have seen, is a collection of an indefinite number of
instruments. It places before the organist extraordinary means of
expressing himself. No two of these instruments are precisely alike. The
organ is only a theme with innumerable variations, determined by the
place in which it is to be installed, by the amount of money at the
builder's disposal, by his inventiveness, and, often, by his personal
whims. As a result time is required for the organist to learn his
instrument thoroughly. After this he is as free as the fish in the sea,
and his only preoccupation is the music. Then, to play freely with the
colors on his vast palette, there is but one way--he must plunge boldly
into improvisation.
Now improvisation is the particular glory of the French school, but it
has been injured seriously of late by the influence of the German
school. Under the pretext that an improvisation is not so good as one of
Sebastian Bach's or Mendelssohn's masterpieces, young organists have
stopped improvising.
That point of view is harmful because it is absolutely false; it is
simply the negation of eloquence. Consider what the legislative hall,
the lecture room and the court would be like if nothing but set pieces
were delivered. We are familiar with the fact that many an orator and
lawyer, who is brilliant when he talks, becomes dry as dust when he
tries to write. The same thing happens in music. Lefébure-Wély was a
wonderful improviser (I can say this emphatically, for I heard him) but
he left only a few unimportant compositions for the organ. I might also
name some of my contemporaries who express themselves completely only
through their improvisations. The organ is thought-provoking. As one
touches the organ, the imagination is awakened, and the unforeseen rises
from the depths of the unconscious. It is a world of its own, ever new,
which will never be seen again, and which comes out of the darkness, as
an enchanted island comes from the sea.
Instead of this fairyland, we too often see only some of Sebastian
Bach's or Mendelssohn's pieces repeated continuously. The pieces
themselves are very fine, but they belong to concerts and are entirely
out of place in church services. Furthermore, they were written for old
instruments and they apply either not at all, or badly, to the modern
organ. Yet there are those who think this belief spells progress.
I am fully aware of what may be said against improvisation. There are
players who improvise badly and their playing is uninteresting. But many
preachers speak badly. That, however, has nothing to do with the real
issue. A mediocre improvisation is always endurable, if the organist has
grasped the idea that church music should harmonize with the service and
aid meditation and prayer. If the organ music is played in this spirit
and results in harmonious sounds rather than in precise music which is
not worth writing out, it still is comparable with the old glass
windows in which the individual figures can hardly be distinguished but
which are, nevertheless, more charming than the finest modern windows.
Such an improvisation may be better than a fugue by a great master, on
the principle that nothing in art is good unless it is in its proper
place.
[Illustration: The Madeleine where M. Saint-Saëns played the organ for
twenty years]
During the twenty years I played the organ at the Madeleine, I
improvised constantly, giving my fancy the widest range. That was one of
the joys of life.
But there was a tradition that I was a severe, austere musician. The
public was led to believe that I played nothing but fugues. So current
was this belief that a young woman about to be married begged me to play
no fugues at her wedding!
Another young woman asked me to play funeral marches. She wanted to cry
at her wedding, and as she had no natural inclination to do so, she
counted on the organ to bring tears to her eyes.
But this case was unique. Ordinarily, they were afraid of my
severity--although this severity was tempered.
One day one of the parish vicars undertook to instruct me on this point.
He told me that the Madeleine audiences were composed in the main of
wealthy people who attended the Opéra-Comique frequently, and formed
musical tastes which ought to be respected.
"Monsieur l'abbé," I replied, "when I hear from the pulpit the language
of opéra-comique, I will play music appropriate to it, and not before!"