Books › A special loan exhibition of musical instruments, manuscripts, books, portraits, and other mementoes of music and musicians, formed to commemorate the tercentenary of the granting by King James I of a charter of incorporation to the Worshipful company of musicians in 1604 .., 1904 › scan 105
Scan 105
A special loan exhibition of musical instruments, manuscripts, books, portraits, and other mementoes of music and musicians, formed to commemorate the tercentenary of the granting by King James I of a charter of incorporation to the Worshipful company of musicians in 1604 .., 1904
6 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1It was probably for this reason especially that under Christian influence the water organ was practically banished from Italy: the only accompaniment allowed in the churches being the kithara; and although by the end of the sixth century some recollection still lingered in Western Europe of the principle employed, the more minute details of keys and stops were altogether lost. When the pneumatic organ appears as an element in Christian worship, it is without the refined elaboration of the imperial hydraulus; and it was left for the musicians and makers of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries to rediscover the keyboard, and for a later century still the use of different ranks of pipes by means of stops. Not until the close of the seventeenth century, or early years of the eighteenth century, did the air-reservoir, heavily weighted to give the required pressure, come once more into use, superseding the numerous hand or foot bellows—now technically called "feeders"—which had become the cumbrous adjunct to all the larger instruments.
3In the Middle Ages portable organs were much used. The smallest form was termed "The Portative," and, suspended by a strap across the shoulder, could be carried and played at the same time by the performer; it is frequently associated in painting with St. Cecilia. Another form, somewhat larger, was called "The Positive," for though it could be moved from place to place with assistance, it had to be "set down" during the performance. Yet a third kind was "The Regal," which generally consisted of a single reed stop, but in some cases was enlarged into a Positive by the addition of other stops and pipes. The small Positives were described as "single" organs, and the compass descended only to Tenor C; the larger were "double organs," reaching Bass C, (the CC of the old English Tablature). Probably the term "a pair of organs" refers to the larger kind.
5The use of these portable instruments was unfortunately set aside by the introduction of the "orgue expressif" or harmonium. The "free reed," as it is called in contradistinction to the true organ "beating" reed with which the Regal was furnished,
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