FOR
ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, LONDON c.1712
DREAM ORGANS
For the Erecting of an ORGAN in St.Paul's Cathedral, over the West Door,
at the Entrance into the Body of that Church.
The first Set to be wholly appropriated for a grand Chorus, intended to
be the most strong and firm that ever yet has been made.
The second and third Sets to answer all Sorts and Varieties of Stops,
and to represent all Musical Instruments.
The fourth to express the Eccho's.
The fifth to be a Chair or small Organ, yet to contain more Pipes, and a
greater Number of Stops, than the biggest Organ in England has at
present.
The sixth to be adapted for the emitting of Sounds to express Passion by
swelling any Note, as if inspir'd by Human Breath; which is the greatest
Improvement an Organ is capable of, except it had Articulation. On this
Set of Keys, the Notes will be loud or soft, by swelling on a long Note
or Shake, at the Organist's Pleasure. Sounds will come surprizing and
harmoniously, as from the Clouds, or distant Parts, pass, and return
again, as quick or slow as Fancy can suggest; and be in Tune in all
Degrees of Loudness and Softness.
By means of the Pedals, the Organist may carry on three fugues at once,
and be able to do as much as if he had four Hands, for the Feet would
act upon the Pedal-Keys, when the Hands were employ'd above, and the
Sound would be proportionably strong; which, in the grand Chorus in so
vast a Church, ought to be as strong and bold as possible; and therefore
Pedals are us'd in all the great Organs beyond the Seas.
My hypothetical 92-stop reconstruction is as follows:
The second and third divisions were evidently to use the
same ranks, available on either keyboard by 'transmission,' as in Harris's 1710
organ at Salisbury Cathedral, where 14 out of the 16 Great stops were playable
on a separate keyboard called 'Borrowed Great'. Harris's description of the
second and third manuals, 'to answer all Sorts and Varieties of Stops,
and to represent all Musical Instruments', is further clarified in his introduction
to the proposal where he says that the organ 'has of late years receiv'd many
Improvements, particularly by representing all Wind and String'd Musick'.
We may hunt Harris's own stoplists in vain for string tone; possibly
he had an ace or two to play in this, his magnum opus. As no flue string-pipes
are known in Britain before Snetzler's 1748 organ at Fulneck, it is
perhaps more likely that Harris had in mind Father Smith's reed registers
'Violl & Viollin' at the Temple Church (1683-7). These stops were also called
'cremona', after the stringed instruments made in that Italian city.
Talbot (see below) wrote of the'Cromhorn': "Its tone below like the Bass
Viol, above like the Violin."
The provision of a Hautboy is equally problematical. Harris's
largest instruments (Salisbury 1710; St.
Dionis, Backchurch 1724) did not include it. None is known in Britain before
the 1726 organ at St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, but the stop did feature in
a treatise on the organ by James Talbot, believed to have been written
between 1695 and 1701. This treatise (transcribed in 'The Organ',
July 1964) also mentions 32ft. and 16ft. stops, mutations at
6 2/5ft. and 5 1/3ft., and reed stops familiar on the continent but
not included in contemporary English organs. As such it sets a precedent
for some of the more unusual features of my hypothetical
stoplist.
Harris's comment about the size of his Chair organ, that it would
'contain more Pipes, and a
greater Number of Stops, than the biggest Organ in England has at
present', has led to accusations of hyperbole. I think its meaning is clear
if we assume that he meant simply that it was to be the biggest Chair division
in the country.
The sixth division, 'to be adapted for the emitting of Sounds to express Passion by
swelling any Note', is interesting. The year 1712 saw the first swell-box
in England, in the organ by Jordan at St. Magnus-the-Martyr, London Bridge, and it
is likely that Harris would have known of this new device by the time his
pamphlet was published. He could, therefore, have been referring to a swell-box.
But later in the proposal he writes:
Commenting on this possibility, Andrew Freeman wrote:
The following is taken from a pamphlet published c.1712:
A PROPOSAL (by RENATUS HARRIS, ORGAN-Builder)
No stoplist for the proposed instrument has survived.
...
This ORGAN shall contain a double double Diapason, the Profundity of
which will comprehend the utmost Notes of Sound. In this Stop shall be
Pipes forty Foot long, and above two Foot Diameter; which will render
this Organ vastly superior in Worth and Value to the other Diapason
Organs; and that the rest of the Work may bear a due Proportion, it
shall consist of six entire Sets of Keys for the Hands, besides Pedals
for the Feet.
I GRAND CHORUS FFF-d3, 56 notes
16 Double Open Diapason (24ft. at FFF)
16 Double Stop'd Diapason
8 Prestand
8 Open Diapason
8 Open Diapason
8 Stop'd Diapason
5 1/3 Great Ffifth
4 Principall
4 Principall
4 Fflute
3 1/5 Great Tierce
2 2/3 Great Twelfth
2 Ffifteenth
2 Ffifteenth
1 3/5 Tierce
1 1/3 Small Twelfth
IV Sesquialter
VII Furniture
IV Symball
8 Trumpett
8 Trumpett
4 Clarion
V Cornet
II & III CHORUS G to d3, 44 notes
8 Open Diapason
8 Stop'd Diapason
4 Principall
2 2/3 Stop'd Twelfth
2 Ffifteenth
1 3/5 Tierce
8 Fflute Almain
4 Fflute Travers
2 Recorder
IV Cornet
8 Violl
4 Viollin
8 Trumpett
8 French Horn
16 Sordun
8 Bassoon
8 Regale
8 Hautboy
8 Voice Humane
4 Altboy
4 Voice Humane in alt
a Harpe
IV ECCHOS G to d3, 44 notes
8 Open Diapason
8 Stop'd Diapason
4 Principall
4 Hohl Fflute
2 2/3 Stop'd Twelfth
2 Fifteenth
2 Block Fflute
1 3/5 Tierce
1 1/3 Larigo
1 Flageolet
II Symball
8 Bear Fife
8 Musette
V CHAIR FFF to d3, 56 notes
16 Quintadene
8 Prestand
8 Open Diapason
8 Stop'd Diapason
4 Principall
4 Spits Fflute
2 2/3 Great Twelfth
2 Ffifteenth
2 Cart
1 3/5 Tierce
1 1/3 Small Twelfth
1 Twenty-second
IV Furniture
II Symball
III Sesquialtera
16 Double Curtel
8 Trumpett
4 Clarion
8 Cremona
VI SWELLS c1 to d3, 27 notes
8 Passionate Stop
4 Passionate Stop
PEDALL AAA - c1, 28 notes
32 Double Double Diapason
16 Double Open Diapason
16 Double Stop'd Diapason
10 2/3 Great Fifth
8 Unison Diapason
8 Stop'd Diapason
5 1/3 Great Twelfth
4 Principall
2 2/3 Small Twelfth
2 Fifteenth
32 Bombard
16 Sackbut
8 Unison Trumpett
4 Clarion
I have taken the 40ft. pipe to be the note AAA (i.e. 3 notes below the
standard modern pedal compass) of the Pedal 32ft.
Double Double Diapason, assuming at a pitch of A=440. This would give
a speaking length of some 39 ft. To balance this, I have assumed a 24ft.
Great sub-unison (i.e. FFF of a 16ft. rank), like that proposed by
Robert Dallam for New College, Oxford, in 1650.
SIR, THE inclos'd Proposal takes its Rise from the Organ I set up in
Salisbury Cathedral in 1710, which was... made capable of emitting Sounds to express
Passion, by Swelling any Note, as if inspired by Human Breath. But the
Place where it is now fix'd, not being proper for that Performance,
which requires the Situation to be against a Wall, for the Sound to
strike but one way, it loses that Advantage; and yet being prepar'd for
that Intent, there may be more Varieties express'd thereon, than by all
the Organs in England, were their several Excellencies united. You are
desir'd to observe, that the propos'd Organ for St. Paul's, is intended
to be plac'd at a great Distance from the Choir, and not to interfere
with the present Organ in the Performance of the Service, being chiefly
consider'd in its Situation for the benefit of Swelling the Notes...
'Its Situation' was to be against the wall, over the west door. What swell-box
relies on such a situation for its effect? Harris also wrote in his proposal:
'It has been look'd on as impracticable by the ablest Judges in Musick
to divide a Note into twelve distinct Parts. The Proposer having asserted that
he would undertake to divide a note into an hundred Parts, clearly distinguishable
by a Musical Ear, did accordingly, in a full Assembly of Musical - Gentlemen,
Masters of the Faculty, and other Artists, on Tuesday, in Whitsun-Week, 1700,
perform this Operation on an Organ then standing in his Work-house, now in
St. Andrew's Church, in Holborn, to their full and entire
Satisfaction, and for the Conviction of the Curious in their art is ready to
repeat the Experiment. This performance gave the Proposer a Notion of
the swelling of the Notes upon the ORGAN, which he finds to answer upon
Tryal, tho' look'd upon equally impracticable with the other...'
It is clear that this refers to the practice, then very much in the air,
of subdividing the semitones of the keyboard, and not to a swell-box, for the
notice of Harris's experiment appeared in
'The Post Boy' (12th and 30th April 1698, not 1700) and read:
Whereas the Division of half a note (upon an organ) into 50 Gradual
and distinguishable parts has been declar'd by Mr. Smith, as also by the
Generality of Masters, to be impracticable: All Organists, Masters, and Artists
of the Faculty, are, together, with the said Mr. Smith, invited to Mr.
Harris's house in Wine-Office Court, Fleetstreet, on Easter Monday next
(at Two of the Cloke in the Afternoon) to hear and see the same demonstrated.
Harris's demonstration
would have resulted in a great celeste effect, together with a gradual, steady
increase of loudness as more pipes were introduced. However, as Harris was clear
that his Swelling organ would be 'in tune in all Degrees of Loudness and
Softness', might we assume a stop with several pipes per note, tuned in unison,
brought on sequentially by the depression of a trigger pedal? This device would
make possible the sudden dynamic contrasts mentioned by Harris.
One thing is certain - supposing his Swelling organ was limited
to two treble octaves, and his Passionate stop to but five pipes to a
note - it was going to be an expensive item: five times the cost of an
ordinary stop for pipes alone, to say nothing about the cost of the
special action. One can well understand that it required a special position,
including a wall to reflect it into the church, if it was to be effective.
And one can understand also how it came about that Abraham Jordan's
simple and inexpensive contrivance came more and more to the front,
while Renautus's clever but elaborate and costly invention died
a natural death.
SOURCES:
A facsimile of Harris's proposal was published in 'The Organ' quarterly,
October 1930. Andrew Freeman's article in the same issue discusses
the matter of the Swelling device.
The notice in 'The Post Boy' was reproduced in 'The Organ'
by W.L. Sumner (1973 edition, London).
