Critical and Historical Essays / Lectures delivered at Columbia University

thedral a great organ which had four hundred pipes and twenty-six pairs of bellows, to manage which seventy strong men were necessary. W

pushed back (for in the early organs the keyboard was perpendicular) gave the wind from the bellows access to ten pipes each, which were probably tuned in octaves or, possibly, according to the organum of Hucbald, in fifths or fourths. This particular organ had two sets of keys (called manuals), one for each player; there were twenty keys to each manual, an

s called "mixtures." From the moment fifths and fourths were considered to sound better together than the simple notes, the pipes were so arranged that the player did not need to press two of the ponderous organ keys for this combination of sounds. One key was made to open the valves of the two sets of pipes, so that each key, instead of sounding one note, would, at wil

ilar to that of the larger instruments. They were hung by means of a strap passed over the shoulders; one hand pressed the keys in front of the pipes (which were arranged perpendicularly), and the other hand operated the small bellows behind the pipes. These small instruments rarely had more than eight pipes, consequently they possessed

in order to get the different tones. To obviate this inconvenience, a number of strings were placed side by side, and a mechanism inserted which, by pressing a key (clavis), would move the bridge to the point at which the string must divide to give th

ents, not only was an entirely different quality of tone produced, but the pitch of a string remained unaltered. These instruments were called bundfrei, "unbound," in opposition to the clavicembalo, which was called gebunden, or "bound." The harpsichord was much more complicated than the clavichord, in that the latter ceased to sound when the key which moved th

the instrumental develop

d a virginal; when it was in the shape of our modern grand piano, it was, of course, a harpsichord; and when the strings and sounding board were arranged perpendicularly, the instrument was called a clavicitherium. As early as 1500, then, four different instruments were in general use, the larger ones having a compass of about four octaves. The connecting link between the harpsichord, th

the plectrum was set in motion by the mechanism of the claves or keys. The system of fingering employed in playing the harpsichord, up to 1700, did not make use of the t

teenth centuries; in fact, most of our stringed instruments, both the bowed and those of the lyre type, we owe to the Arabs-the very name of the lute, el oud ("shell" in Arabic) became liuto in Italian, in German laute, and in English lute. There were many varieties of these bowed instruments, and it is thought that the principle arose from rubbing one instrument with another. The only other known examples of bowed instruments of primitive type are (1) the ravanastron, an instrument of the monochord type, native to India, made to vibrate by a ki

course, applied to the monochord class of keyed instruments, and was thus the origin of th

ed from the Welsh crwth, consisting of a flat, long box strung with strings (called fidel from fides, "string"). The combina

in Italy about 1600. The Cremona makers, Amati, Guarnerius, and Strad

string; Corelli and Tartini used a bow of the kind. The present shape of the bow is due to

ape from the lute, its flatness from the rebeck, the sides of the instrument being cut out in order to give the bow free access to the side strings. The name too,

ed from fifteen to twenty, and it was not until between 1600 and 170

and the ancient one being that the former is blown crosswise, instead of perpendicularly. Quantz, the celebrated court flute player t

the sixteenth century that the bell-shaped mouthpiece was dispensed with and the reed brought directly to the lips, thus giving the player greater power of expression. The oboe is a representative type of the higher pitched double-reed instruments. In its present shape it is about two hundred years old. As the deeper toned instruments were necessarily very long, six to eight and even ten feet, an assistant had to walk before the performer, holding the tube on his sh

ssed over the shoulder and around the body of the player. A horn of from six to seven feet in length was first used about 1650; and we know that, owing to the smallness of the instruments and their consequent high pitch in those days, many of Bach's scores contain parts absolutely impracticable for our modern brass instruments. The division of these instrument

1750; the present-day valve horn did not come into general use until within the last half century. Fifty years before the principle had been applied to the horn the trumpet had