JULIAN RHODES' DREAM ORGANS
PART ONE: AN OVERVIEW
In 1881 Hall Caine wrote:
As early as 1865 Audsley had grappled with the practical
problems of organ-building, constructing in his London home,
Ivy Villa, a two-manual instrument of unconventional design.
In 1904 he designed the then-largest
organ in the world (140 stops on five manuals), for the
St. Louis Exposition (later rebuilt and
enlarged in the John Wanamaker Store, Philadelphia).
Several instruments were built to his design by the
German immigrant builder Philipp Wirsching, notably a three-manual
46-stop organ in 1909 for the church of Our Lady of Grace,
Hoboken, N.J.; and several 'orgues de salon'.
From the 1880's onwards
Audsley contributed many articles on organ matters to the musical
press. His literary magnum opus was 'The Art of Organ-Building'
published in 1905. It contained 1,350 pages and 384 figures, and
is still on sale today; of its kind it remains unsurpassed.
His later works were more concerned with his own
concepts and ideas. They comprised 'The Organ of the Twentieth
Century' (1919), 'Organ Stops and their Artistic Registration'
(1921) and 'The Temple of Tone' (1925).
Audsley fought for the highest standards of craftsmanship in
organ-building, pulling no punches in his
condemnation of second-rate and sloppy practices.
He keenly felt the degredation of the
craftsman's role in an age of mass-production, and firmly
aligned himself with all he felt to be best and most durable.
In his tonal ideals Audsley was something of an anomaly, even in an age
of high romanticism. He explored the subtlest by-ways of
romantic organ-colour, conceiving division after division
of gentle, mezzo-piano timbres and characteristic solo voices.
To these he added complete divisions in imitation of orchestral
timbres, and a massive 'Grand' division
of diapason-tone which, he insisted, comprised the backbone of the instrument.
Here is a discussion of his main innovations.
1. Partial enclosure of Great and Pedal divisions.
2. Compound Expression and Flexibility.
In 'The Art of Organ-Building' he wrote:
An example of this type of mixture appeared in the
organ at Our Lady of Grace, Hoboken, New Jersey (1909).
G.W. Grant wrote, in 'The American Organist', January 1924:
4. Ancilliary Divisions.
His trenchantly-voiced opinions
often alienated him from those he sought to influence. In
a letter near the end of his life he wrote
"I am glad to know I am not hated by all
organ builders, even if I am not loved. I would rather be
respected than either." And again: "You call me a 'grand
old corner-stone.' Old I am, and perhaps a stone of some
kind; but as a corner-stone I am rejected by the builders."
By the end of his life, many of his ideals
still largely unrealised, the organ world was already set on a
different course.
During the great period of organ-building which may
be called the 'Romantic Zenith', few stars shone
as brightly as that of George Ashdown Audsley.
His outspoken criticisms of the shabbier commercial
practices of some organ-builders, and their unadventurous
artistic aims, together with his own highly unusual
ideals for the development of the instrument, made him a
figure of great controversy. By the time of his
death, commentators held fiercely
conflicting opinions as to his worth.
These words were written in 1925 by the editor
of 'The American Organist', T. Scott Buhrman. He went on
to comment about Audsley's book 'The Art of Organ Building':
And if any reader of these lines loves the organ
as an instrument for the enrichment of human life,
I summon him to a moment of beautiful reflection
and gratitude to the mightly pencil,the untiring
brain, the great heart of the father of us all in
the world's noblest Temple of Tone, the Organ...
In contrast, the following is from the pen of Edward
W. Flint, writing in the Willis house-magazine
'The Rotunda' in 1934:
To one who has not examined these
volumes, it would be impossible to describe them;
to one who has never read them, it were useless to
speak of their beautiful English.
Perhaps some biographical information is a good
starting-point from which to gain a balanced perspective
of the man and his ideals. Audsley himself wrote:
It is because Audsley's information is second-hand
and insufficiently grounded in the actual experience
of organ-building that his place in the organ
world is that, not of an authority, but of a
dillettante... Audsley's writing is marred by an
unfortunate style and by bad manners.
Audsley goes on describe the orchestral concerts given
by the Liverpool Philharmonic Society:
Leaving the old City of Elgin, in the north of
Scotland, at the age of eighteen, with only a very
superficial knowledge of organ matters, gathered
from a small instrument of one clavier and four or
five speaking stops - the only organ in the city
at the time - and arriving in Liverpool in the Autumn
of 1856; I took an early opportunity of attending a
Recital on the Grand Organ, which had been installed,
only the year before, in St. George's Hall; and which
was presided over by the distinguished organist, William
T. Best. A remarkable combination - the greatest living
organist; and the grandest organ that had ever been
constructed. My feelings under the unique conditions,
and as I listened, almost spellbound, for the first time,
to the floods of glorious tone that poured forth from the
hundred stops of that majestic instrument, can, perhaps, be
imagined by some organ-lovers who may have had a somewhat
similar experience. The Recital was a revelation...
Audsley was an architect by profession. Upon
his arrival in Liverpool he worked under the borough
surveyor on plans for the City Library and Museum.
He later established a business partnership with his
brother, and went on to design the church of St. Margaret,
Anfield, the Welsh Church and the Jewish Synagogue in Liverpool.
Moving to London and, in 1892, to the USA, other
notable architectural works included the Milwaukee Art
Gallery; the Bowling Green Offices on Broadway, New York
City; and the English Church in Grasse, southern France.
My love for high-class music induced me to attend all
these concerts; and they provided most favorable opportunities
for the study of the tonal resources of the Grand Orchestra,
with their powers of flexibility and expression while under
the direction of the baton of the Conductor. Then, with a
somewhat similar study of the tonal resources of the St.
George's Hall Organ, under Best's remarkable knowledge
and skill in their display, it was not long before my
mind became deeply interested in the problems which
presented themselves in the comparison of the tonal
powers and musical characteristics of the two great
fountains of beautiful sounds.
With his brother Audsley issued a 30-volume folio work
entitled 'Cottage, Lodge, and Villa Architecture'.
Apparently something of a polymath, Audsley also published
books on subjects as diverse as Japanese art, Christian
symbolism, contemporary dress-fashion and book-illumination.
Mr. Audsley is an architect primarily and above all else (but)
his broad claims upon public attention are those which
come of his exercises in other, if kindred callings.
Audsley strove to make the organ as 'expressive' as possible.
The instruments he admired in his early years in Britain (largely
those by Willis and Schulze) had few enclosed divisions. He decided
that, except for a certain amount
of diapason tone and the large Pedal registers, there was no
advantage to having any pipes unenclosed. This was particularly
so in regard to loud reed-tone: unenclosed tubas and other climactic reeds
were anathema to Audsley. He found their blatant sounds crude, and, making
a comparison between the orchestral brass and the tubas of the organ, wondered why
the most powerful registers of the instrument should be unenclosed
as a matter of course. To Audsley, with his enthusiasm for the
orchestra, and his 19th-century aesthetic, 'expressiveness'
necessarily depended upon supple, shifting dynamics.
In his quest to further enhance the organ's expressive potential,
Audsley proposed that the registers of a
division should be divided into subdivisions, each
enclosed in its own swell chamber. This permits what Audsley
called 'tonal flexibility', the ability change the timbre of a synthetic tone
by varying the volume of its constituent elements. Thus a register
in a swell-box is potentially 'expressive', but it is not truly 'flexible'
because its timbre will remain essentially the same despite changes in
its dynamic level. A 'flexible' tone is produced by the combination of two or more pipes,
at least one of which must be enclosed, allowing the compound timbre to be gradually
modified. Take a Clarinet stop; couple to it an 8ft. Doppelflöte and a
2 2/3ft. Quint Flute. Let all three stops be in separate swell chambers.
By closing the louvres on the two flutes, a relatively unmodified Clarinet
tone is heard. Increase the volume of the Doppelflöte, and the tone becomes
gradually rounder. Increase the volume of the mutation; the tone
becomes progressively more piquant. The same principle applies to choruses and all
kinds of smaller combinations; it is not of itself a new idea, but Audsley, with
his multiple swell-chambers and subdivided manual divisions, took it further than ever
before. The resulting variety of stop-combinations is increased immeasurably, and
independent
cresecendos, diminuendos and 'dissolving' effects become possible without
tying up the manuals by coupling. As early as
1865 Audsley divided the stops of one manual of his house-organ into
three sections, two of which were enclosed in separate
swell boxes. He wrote:
And, commenting at
greater length on this innovation which figured in all his
stoplists:
It was this great and absolutely new advance
in tonal apportionment that caused M. Saint-Saens, after
playing for nearly two hours... to pronounce it 'The most
expressive organ he had ever played'.
3. Harmonic-Corroborating Registers.
Now, draw... any combination of stops from
the three Subdivisions... and you have thereon three
distinct tonal powers under your ready command: one
stationary and necessarily unexpressive, but dignified
and impressive in character, and two, which are alike
flexible in tone and adjustable to any desirable strength,
but which can become expressive on the touch of your foot
on the Expression Levers. These levers are placed close
together, and can be used singly or together by one foot,
so as to produce simple or compound expression. One lever
can be so adjusted as to secure any strength of tone in the
stops drawn in the Swell-box affected; while the other lever
can be operated so as to impart expression to the voices of
the stops drawn in the Swell-box it controls. In short, by
the simultaneous or alternating operation of the levers by a
single foot, countless new and beautiful musical effects can
be produced... which are absolutely impossible on any organ
constructed in the ordinary old-fashioned methods of tonal
apportionment and control. This is an organ for the Virtuoso;
for no ordinary Organist could do its tonal capabilities full
justice, so completely out of the beaten track is its construction.
This is Audsley's term for mutation and mixture-work, of which he
was a strong advocate. He disliked conventional
mixtures, objecting that they were 'unscientifically' worked out
and over-dominant. He cited the study of acoustics, and the work of
Helmholtz in particular, as a necessary 'scientific' underpinning
of proper organ design, and of his own quest for the organ
beautiful.
From this extract one might conclude that
his ideals of chorus building were closer to Hope-Jones than to
the organs of classic tradition. The idea that the unison should
somehow subsume the harmonic structure into itself was, understandably,
attacked by Flint:
The prime tone, represented in the tonal structure of the
Organ by the normal OPEN DIAPASON 8ft., must be of sufficient
volume and power to dominate and absorb within its own nature
all the harmonic tones which are to be added to it. That is to say,
however great a degree of brilliancy, or harmonic complexity and
richness of colouring, may be imparted to it by the addition of
numerous higher tones, its true prime pitch must not be disturbed.
There must be no screaming quality, no flutter of acute
tones, as if they were endeavouring to drag the prime
tone upward in pitch: on the contrary, the prime tone
must be more firmly established and more satisfactory to
the musical ear with the entire harmonic structure added
than when heard without it. This most desirable result
can only be attained by the accurate proportionment of
all the upper partial tones to the prime.
In Audsley's instruments compound stops had an important
function: colouring and creating timbres at a moderate dynamic level.
For these registers he specified "not the colorless Diapason family of pipes, but...
flutes and strings of marked color values, all
carefully graded for pitch positions... The Timbre Creating
Mixture means the abandonment of black and white, and the
use of the loveliness of colors" (T. Scott Burham).
...his strictures on voicing and scaling are at once vague and
contradictory, and raise the suspicion that he did not always know
his own mind, to say nothing of his material. Anyone acquainted
with the ensembles of Schulze and Willis will find it difficult
to reconcile his reiterated statements disparaging bold upperwork,
liberal harmonic development in the individual members of the
Diapason chorus, and the alleged lack of fine tonal work on the part of
historical builders with his enthusiasm for the instruments at
St. Bartholomew's, Armley, and at St. George's Hall, Liverpool.
Audsley frequently sepcified a Compensating Mixture for the Pedal
division. This was a 19th-century German invention which
Audsley described thus:
In speaking of Mixtures, I wish to relate a little incident
that will be of interest without any coment on my part. I was
considerably impressed with the voicing of the Vox Humana on
the Accompaniment, and was playing upon it and listening (in
the style of organists) with my head cocked up towards the ceiling.
Imagine what I thought when I glanced down at the stops and found
to my astonishment that Dr. Audsley had added the five-rank Dolce
Cornet on the same organ, and that this addition did not destroy
but enhanced the beautiful Vox Humana.
Of the ranks in a large example of this stop - 15.17.19.22.26.29 -
the 29th played for thirteen notes from the bottom of the compass;
the 26th for seventeen notes; the 22nd for twenty notes; the 19th
for twenty-four notes; the 17th for twenty-seven notes, and only the
15th for the full compass. Each rank was to be 'shaded off' towards
the top of its compass "to render the cessation of its voice
almost imperceptible to the ear. The effect of a properly
regulated stop of this class on a heavy groaning Pedal bass
is as remarkable as it is beneficial."
The chief peculiarity of this stop is that all its ranks
vary in their compass: all commencing on CCC of the Pedal
Organ clavier, but only one extending throughout its compass.
Its office is to impart richness, distinctness and clearness of
sound to the necessarily dull and somewhat confused tones of
the heavy basses of the grave Pedal stops, without unduly
overloading the higher notes of the clavier compass.
This name was given by Audsley to floating divisions comprising families
of specialised timbres. His largest published
stoplist included ancilliary Aërial, Harmonic, Fanfare
and Percussion divisions.
In addition to all this, Audsley designed a highly-praised
pedalboard (the 'Audsley-Willis'); introduced massed groups
of string registers into the organ, and sought to raise the
level of awareness of the beauties of case-work.
Those wonderful creations of his imagination, those costly
groups of massed tone that come to the instrument after it
has already become a complete entity, to enrich it as by a
distant choir, a secondary orchestra, a whole army of tones
to be played at will from any manual... to add a richness of
artistic resource hardly comparable to any other division of
the organ.
(T. Scott Burham)
