In 1650 Athanasius Kircher illustrated the organ of the days of creation (left), in which each of the six days has its corresponding organ stop.

In 1617 Robert Fludd illustrated 'The Temple of Music' (right). This structure demonstrates musical principles in images, and contains many levels of symbolism. In contrast with the lute and harp, which - their notes dying as soon as they are plucked - are an apt symbol for the transience of human life, the organ pipes in the clerestory windows symbolise the musical sound, the spiritual truth, which remains constant. The pipes are shaped like the turrets above them, and illustrate the different hexachord scales laid out in the chart below. The so-called 'soft' hexachord is surmounted by round pipes; the 'hard' hexachord by square ones, and the 'natural' hexachord - likened by Fludd to the element of Fire - by tapering ones, like flames.

There is indeed a close correspondence between the various types of organ tone and the elemental systems of both Western and Eastern mystical traditions.

An organ stoplist is a psychological revelation of a very precise kind. Its character is as personal as the features of a face; its sounds as individual as the words which issue therefrom.

"The organ has always seemed to me an instrument of the elements, a superhuman instrument born of wind and rock, of air and shapes. In our churches its sound represents the disembodied voice of God. Yet it is not only majesty and awe and, by the same token, communal reverence, that this great instrument conveys... it is in a further sense elemental, for it links the mind of the creator...with the human mind."
      Yehudi Menuhin (4)

Spiritually, the organ has long been the God-instrument. In church it is at once Vox Populi and Vox Dei.

As Vox Populi (the voice of the people) it leads their expressions of praise, penitence and thanksgiving. When his church installed a new west-end organ, Kenneth Ryder wrote:

"Whereas at the east end there is the altar, lectern and pulpit, each symbolizing in its own way the means of Grace, so at the west end there is a visual and aural expression of man's need to respond to that grace."(5)

The very nature of the organ makes it a fiting symbol for the spiritual community: the diverse numbers of pipes which, sounding their individual notes, work together for a purpose which none of them could acheive alone.

Frederick Swann put it like this:

"Like people, organ pipes come in all sizes and shapes. We have some fat members of the board, and some very pretty higher ones. Some of them make polite sounds. Some make sweet sounds. And some make other kinds of sounds, but it's necessary to put them all together. That's how we get wonderful congregations, and that's how we get wonderful sounds from an organ."(6)

The organ may thus be regarded as a symbol and expression of the identity and unity of the church itself. The mighty instrument, under the control of a single performer, is able to draw together in unison a large congregation. It not only leads their sung music, but also, ideologically and socially, accompanies the people gathered together in a well-ordered church building.(7)

As Vox Dei (the voice of God), many have attested to the effect of its sonorous rumblings and mysterious whispers. This most grossly physical of all instruments transports both player and listener to transcendental realms of musical and spiritual experience.

After listening to the Schulze organ at St. Peter, Hindley, the organ-builder Thomas Pendlebury wrote:

"There is apparently a great distinction between tone that can be felt and that which is only heard. The latter can be accounted for to a great extent by out present day limited knowledge of acoustical matters. But the tone which we feel brings our personalities into the, shall I say, the 'magnetic field' of the Spirit of God, so that even our physical bodies are affected by its influence as in no other way."(8)

Julian Rhodes
June 1995 - January 2000