Playing Aids 1

One of the challenges of pipe organs is that no two are alike. David Bridgeman-Sutton begins a mini-series looking at how organ builders over the centuries have tackled the problem of driving such complex "kings of sound".
Picture1: Couperin family house, Paris.
Many visitors are attracted to the elegant Paris church of St Gervais by the knowledge that, over the years, at least nine members of the Couperin family, including François “le Grand” held the post of titulaire. The family house still stands - (pic 1).

Those who are invited up the long flight of steps to the tribune find a rare survival from the 16th and 17th centuries - (pic 2). The disposition of its stops is remarkable. Forty registers are distributed over 5 manuals and Pedal. This last, Grande and Positif, are well-developed tonally; two other manuals have respectively, three and two stops. The fifth has only a single register.
Picture
2: St Gervais, Paris – Grande organ
Such arrangements are not uncommon in the older organs of France, Germany and Holland. Organists soon discover why: with large stop-knobs, widely dispersed and often heavy to move, it is impossible to make any but the most minor changes of registration, even with the aid of an assistant, while playing, The placing of stop jambs parallel to the keys (instead of at an angle as became usual later) increases difficulties, not least in making it very hard to read labels. 

Pic 3 - of the neo-classical Flentrop organ (1975) at Dunblane cathedral illustrates the point.
Picture
3: Flentrop organ, Dunblane Cathedral, Scotland
Picture
5: Dresden Cathedral, Germany
A much older (1755) console of this kind is found at the Silbermann organ of Dresden Cathedral, where there are three columns of stops at each side, all reaching to a considerable height. Rebuilding, after the damage sustained during World War 2, has recently been completed by Jehmlich Orgelbau Dresden GmbH. More about this organ may be found here.
Additional manuals allow the performance of softer and solo passages without the need to attempt extensive manoeuvres among the draw-stops. Many organists who were brought up in — or who have studied — the classical school tend to play even lengthy works without any change of registration beyond that afforded by a change of manual. To ensure maintenance of a proper manual/pedal balance under these circumstances, Continental builders sometimes provided a second pedal division of full compass, played from an additional pedal board. Walcker’s 1833 organ for St Paul’s Frankfurt had 3 manuals and 74 speaking stops. Fifteen of these were on the Main pedal and another seven on the “kleine” pedal. Both pedal divisions had well-developed flue choruses, capped by a reed or reeds.
Picture
4: Pniëlkerk, Urk, the Netherlands
Another arrangement used in older continental instruments was the placing of the stops above the player’s head. This, too, has been reproduced in neo-classical organs. The 1983 instrument by Ernst Leeflang at the Pniëlkerk, Urk, in the Netherlands, is illustrated in pic 4. Details may be found here.

This console is very similar to that at the former organ of the Minorite church, Bonn. Beethoven played this instrument from the age of 10; in his earlier years he must have had to kneel on the bench to set the stops. A picture of the console, preserved at the Beethoven-haus, Bonn, will be found here.

The only playing aid available until the 19th century, apart from the ventil, was the human registration assistant. The development of a more symphonic style of playing called for new approaches to stop control and formed a challenge for innovative builders of the nineteenth-century.
David Bridgeman-Sutton,
September 6, 2006
  • Pictures 1 and 2 Paris - photos: Thierry at Paris Best Lodge 
    (this site is a most useful resource for people planning a visit to Paris).
  • Picture 3: Jenny Setchell
  • Picture 4: Lubbert Schenk http://orgels.opurk.nl/
  • Picture 5: Jehmlich Orgelbau Dresden GmbH