A musical instrument similar to an organ. History of the organ

How the organ works aslan wrote in May 12th, 2017

On June 17, 1981, its keys were first touched by the hand of a musician - the outstanding organist Harry Grodberg, who performed Bach's toccatas, preludes, fantasies and fugues for Tomsk residents.

Since then, dozens of famous organists have given concerts in Tomsk, and German organ builders have never ceased to be amazed how in a city where the temperature difference between winter and summer is 80 degrees, the instrument still plays.

Child of the GDR

The organ of the Tomsk Philharmonic was born in 1981 in the East German city of Frankfurt an der Oder, at the organ-building company W.Sauer Orgelbau.

At a normal working pace, building an organ takes about a year, and the process involves several stages. First, the masters inspect the concert hall and determine its acoustic characteristics and draw up a project for the future instrument. Then the specialists return to their home factory, make individual elements of the organ and assemble them into a whole instrument. In the assembly shop of the factory, it is tested for the first time and the shortcomings are corrected. If the organ sounds as it should, it is again disassembled in parts and sent to the customer.

In Tomsk, all installation procedures took only six months - due to the fact that the process took place without any hiccups, shortcomings or other inhibitory factors. In January 1981, Sauer specialists came to Tomsk for the first time, and in June of the same year the organ was already giving concerts.

Internal composition

By the standards of experts, the Tomsk organ can be called average in weight and size - a ten-ton instrument holds about two thousand pipes of different lengths and shapes. Just like five hundred years ago, they are made by hand. Wooden pipes are usually made in the shape of a parallelepiped. The shapes of metal pipes can be more intricate: cylindrical, reverse-conical and even combined. Metal pipes are made from an alloy of tin and lead in different proportions, and for wooden ones they usually use pine.

It is these characteristics - length, shape and material - that affect the timbre of the sound of an individual pipe.

The pipes inside the organ are arranged in rows: from highest to lowest. Each row of pipes can play separately, or they can be combined. On the side of the keyboard, on the vertical panels of the organ, there are buttons, by pressing which the organist controls this process. All pipes of the Tomsk organ are sounding, and only one of them on the front side of the instrument was created in decorative purposes and doesn't make any sounds.

WITH reverse side the organ looks like a three-story Gothic castle. On the ground floor of this castle there is a mechanical part of the instrument, which, through a system of rods, transmits the work of the organist’s fingers to the pipes. On the second floor there are pipes that are connected to the keys of the lower keyboard, and on the third floor there are pipes for the upper keyboard.

Tomsk organ has mechanical system connection of keys and pipes, which means that pressing a key and the appearance of sound occurs almost instantly, without any lag.

Above the performing platform there are blinds, or in other words, a channel, which hide the second floor of organ pipes from the viewer. Using a special pedal, the organist controls the position of the blinds and thereby influences the strength of the sound.

The caring hand of a master

The organ, like any other musical instrument, is very dependent on the climate, and the Siberian weather creates many problems in caring for it. Special air conditioners, sensors and humidifiers are installed inside the instrument, which maintain a certain temperature and humidity. The colder and drier the air, the shorter the pipes of the organ become, and vice versa - with warm and humid air, the pipes lengthen. Therefore, the musical instrument requires constant monitoring.

The care of the Tomsk organ is provided by only two people - organist Dmitry Ushakov and his assistant Ekaterina Mastenitsa.

The main means of combating dust inside the organ is an ordinary Soviet vacuum cleaner. To search for it, a whole campaign was organized - they were looking for one that would have a blowing system, because it is easier to blow dust from the organ, bypassing all the tubes, onto the stage and only then collect it with a vacuum cleaner.

“Dirt in the organ must be removed where it is and when it interferes,” says Dmitry Ushakov. - If now we decide to remove all the dust from the organ, we will have to completely tune it again, and this whole procedure will take about a month, and we have concerts.

Most often, façade pipes are cleaned - they are visible, so fingerprints of curious people often remain on them. Dmitry prepares the mixture for cleaning façade elements himself, using ammonia and tooth powder.

Sound reconstruction

Major cleaning and tuning of the organ is carried out once a year: usually in the summer, when relatively few concerts take place and it is not cold outside. But a little sound adjustment is required before each concert. The tuner has a special approach to each type of organ pipe. For some, it is enough to close the cap, for others, tighten the roller, and for the smallest tubes they use a special tool - a stimmhorn.

You won't be able to tune an organ alone. One person must press the keys and the other must adjust the pipes while inside the instrument. In addition, the person pressing the keys controls the setting process.

The Tomsk organ experienced its first major overhaul relatively long ago, 13 years ago, after the restoration of the organ hall and the removal of the organ from a special sarcophagus in which it spent 7 years. Specialists from the Sauer company were invited to Tomsk, who inspected the instrument. Then, in addition to internal renovation, the organ changed the color of the facade and acquired decorative grilles. And in 2012, the organ finally got “owners” - full-time organists Dmitry Ushakov and Maria Blazhevich.

When starting to talk about the structure of the organ instrument, we should start with the most obvious.

The organ console refers to the controls, which include all the numerous keys, register change levers and pedals.

So to gaming devices include manuals and pedals.

TO timbre– register switches. In addition to them, the organ console consists of: dynamic switches - channels, a variety of foot switches and copula switch keys, which transfer the registers of one manual to another.

Most organs are equipped with copulas for switching registers to the main manual. Also, using special levers, the organist can switch various combinations from the bank of register combinations.

In addition, a bench is installed in front of the console, on which the musician sits, and next to it is the organ switch.

But first things first:

• Copula. A mechanism that can transfer the registers of one manual to another manual, or a pedal keyboard. This is relevant when you need to transfer the sound registers of weaker manuals to stronger ones, or transfer the sound registers to the main manual. The copulas are activated using special foot levers with locks or using special buttons.
• Channel. This is a device with which you can adjust the volume of each individual manual. At the same time, the shutters of the blinds are adjusted in the box through which the pipes of this particular manual pass.
• Memory bank of register combinations. Such a device is available only in electric organs, that is, in organs with an electrical circuit. Here we would make the assumption that an organ with an electric structure is somehow related to antediluvian synthesizers, but the wind organ itself is too ambiguous an instrument for such an oversight to be easily made.
• Ready-made register combinations. Unlike the memory bank of register combinations, which vaguely resemble the presets of modern digital audio processors, ready-made register combinations refer to organs with a pneumatic register structure. But the essence is the same: they make it possible to use ready-made settings.
• Tutti. But this device includes manuals and all registers. Here's the switch.

Manual

The keyboard, in other words. It’s just that the organ has keys for playing with your feet – pedals, so it’s more correct to say it’s a manual.

Usually there are from two to four manuals in an organ, but sometimes there are specimens with one manual, and even such monsters that have as many as seven manuals. The name of the manual depends on the location of the pipes it controls. In addition, each manual is assigned its own set of registers.

IN the main thing The loudest registers are usually located in the manual. It is also called Hauptwerk. It can be located either closest to the performer or in the second row.

• Oberwerk – a little quieter. Its pipes are located under the pipes of the main manual.
• Rückpositive – absolutely unique keyboard. It controls those pipes that are located separately from all the others. So, for example, if the organist is sitting facing the instrument, then they will be located at the back.
• Hinterwerk - This manual controls the pipes that are located at the back of the organ.
• Brustwerk. But the pipes of this manual are located either directly above the remote control itself, or on both sides.
• Solowerk. As can be judged from the name itself, the pipes of this manual are equipped with big amount solo registers.

In addition, there may be other manuals, but those listed above are used most often.

In the seventeenth century, organs had a kind of volume control - a box through which pipes with shutters passed. The manual that controlled these pipes was called Schwellwerk and was located at a higher level.

Pedals

Originally, organs did not have pedal keyboards. It appeared around the sixteenth century. There is a version that it was invented by a Brabant organist named Louis Van Walbeke.

Nowadays there are a variety of pedal keyboards depending on the design of the organ. There are both five and thirty-two pedals, there are organs without a pedal keyboard at all. They are called portables.

Usually the pedals control the bassiest trumpets, for which a separate staff is written, under the double score, which is written for the manuals. Their range is two or even three octaves lower than other notes, so a large organ can have a range of nine and a half octaves.

Registers

Registers are a series of pipes of the same timbre, which are, in fact, a separate instrument. To switch registers, there are handles or switches (for electrically controlled organs), which are located on the organ console either above the manual or next to it on the sides.

The essence of register control is this: if all registers are turned off, the organ will not sound when you press a key.

The name of the register corresponds to the name of its largest pipe, and each handle refers to its own register.

There are both labial, so reed registers. The first relate to the control of pipes without reeds, these are the registers of open flutes, there are also registers of closed flutes, principals, registers of overtones, which, in fact, form the color of the sound (potions and aliquots). In them, each note has several weaker overtones.

But reed registers, as their name suggests, control pipes with reeds. They can be combined in sound with labial pipes.

Register selection is provided in stave, it is written above the place where one or another register should be applied. But matters are complicated by the fact that different times and even just in different countries organ registers differed sharply from each other. Therefore, the registration of an organ part is rarely specified in detail. Usually, only the manual, the size of the pipes and the presence or absence of reeds are accurately indicated. All other nuances of sound are left to the performer’s consideration.

Pipes

As you might expect, the sound of pipes is strictly dependent on their size. Moreover, the only trumpets that sound exactly as written on the musical staff are eight-foot trumpets. Smaller pipes sound correspondingly higher, and larger ones – lower than written in the musical stave.

The largest pipes, which are not found in all, but only in the largest organs in the world, measure 64 feet. They sound three octaves lower than what is written on the musical staff. Therefore, when the organist uses the pedals when playing in this register, infrasound is emitted.

To tune small labials (that is, those without a tongue), use a steamhorn. This is a rod, at one end of which there is a cone, and at the other - a cup, with the help of which the bell of the pipes of the organ is expanded or narrowed, thereby achieving a change in the pitch of sound.

But to change the pitch of the sound large pipes, usually additional pieces of metal are cut out that bend like reeds and thus change the tone of the organ.

Additionally, some pipes may be purely decorative. In this case, they are called “blind”. They do not sound, but have purely aesthetic significance.

The piano also has texture. There, this is a mechanism for transmitting the force of finger strikes from the surface of the key directly to the string. The organ plays the same role and is the main mechanism for controlling the organ.

In addition to the fact that the organ has a structure that controls the valves of the pipes (it is also called a playing structure), it also has a register structure that allows you to turn entire registers on and off.

The largest, most majestic musical instrument has ancient history emergence, with many stages of improvement.

The most distant ancestor of the organ from us in time is considered to be the Babylonian bagpipe, widespread in Asia in XIX-XVIII centuries BC. Air was pumped into the bellows of this instrument through a tube, and on the other side there was a body with pipes having holes and reeds.

The history of the organ’s origins also remembers “traces ancient greek gods": the deity of forests and groves Pan, according to legend, came up with the idea of ​​​​combining reed sticks of different lengths, and since then Pan's flute has become inseparable from musical culture Ancient Greece.

However, the musicians understood: it’s easy to play one pipe, but there’s not enough breath to play several pipes. The search for a replacement for human breathing for the game musical instruments brought the first fruits already in the 2nd-3rd centuries BC: on music scene Hydraulos came out for several centuries.

Hydraulos is the first step to organ greatness

Around the 3rd century BC. Greek inventor, mathematician, “father of pneumatics” Ctesibius of Alexandria created a device consisting of two piston pumps, a water tank and tubes for making sounds. One pump supplied air inside, the second supplied it to the pipes, and a reservoir of water equalized the pressure and ensured a smoother sound of the instrument.

Two centuries later, Heron of Alexandria, a Greek mathematician and engineer, improved the hydraulics by adding a miniature windmill and a metal spherical chamber immersed in water. The improved water organ received 3-4 registers, each of which contained 7-18 pipes of diatonic tuning.

The water organ has become widespread in the countries of the Mediterranean region. Hydraulos sounded at gladiator competitions, weddings and feasts, in theaters, circuses and hippodromes, during religious ceremonies. The organ became the favorite instrument of Emperor Nero; its sound could be heard throughout the Roman Empire.

In the service of Christianity

Despite the general cultural decline observed in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, the organ was not forgotten. By the middle of the 5th century, improved wind organs were being built in churches in Italy, Spain and Byzantium. Countries with the greatest religious influence became centers of organ music, and from there the instrument spread throughout Europe.

The medieval organ differed significantly from its modern “brother” in the smaller number of pipes and larger keys (up to 33 cm long and 8-9 cm wide), which were struck with a fist to produce sound. The "portable" - a small portable organ, and the "positive" - ​​a miniature stationary organ were invented.

The 17th-18th centuries are considered the “golden age” of organ music. The reduction in the size of the keys, the acquisition of beauty and variety of sound by the organ, crystal timbre clarity and the birth of a whole galaxy predetermined the splendor and grandeur of the organ. The solemn music of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and many other composers sounded under the high arches of all Catholic cathedrals in Europe, and almost all the best musicians served as church organists.

With all the inextricable connection with Catholic Church, quite a lot of “secular” works have been written for the organ, including by Russian composers.

Organ music in Russia

The development of organ music in Russia followed an exclusively “secular” path: Orthodoxy categorically rejected the use of the organ in worship.

The first mention of an organ in Rus' is found on the frescoes of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv: “stone chronicle” Kievan Rus, dating from the 10th-11th centuries, preserved the image of a musician playing the “positive” and two calcantes (people pumping air into bellows).

Moscow sovereigns of various historical periods: Ivan III, Boris Godunov, Mikhail and Alexey Romanov “extracted” organists and organ builders from Europe. During the reign of Mikhail Romanov, not only foreign but also Russian organists became famous in Moscow, such as Tomila Mikhailov (Besov), Boris Ovsonov, Melenty Stepanov and Andrei Andreev.

Peter I, who devoted his life to introducing Russian society achievements of Western civilization, back in 1691 he ordered the German specialist Arp Schnittger to build an organ with 16 registers for Moscow. Six years later, in 1697, Schnitger sent another 8-register instrument to Moscow. During Peter's lifetime, dozens of organs were built in Lutheran and Catholic churches in Russia, including gigantic projects with 98 and 114 registers.

Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine II also contributed to the development of organ music in Russia - during their reign, dozens of instruments were received in St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Riga, Narva, Jelgava and other cities in the northwestern region of the empire.

Many Russian composers used the organ in their work; just remember Tchaikovsky’s “The Maid of Orleans,” Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Sadko,” Scriabin’s “Prometheus,” etc. Russian organ music combined classical Western European musical forms and traditional national expressiveness and charm, had a strong influence on the listener.

Modern organ

Having passed historical path two millennia long, the organ of the 20th-21st centuries looks like this: several thousand pipes located on different tiers and made of wood and metal. Square-section wooden pipes produce bassy, ​​low-pitched sounds, while tin-lead metal pipes have a round cross-section and are designed for a thinner, high-pitched sound.

The record-breaking organs are registered overseas, in the United States of America. Organ located in Philadelphia mall Macy's Lord & Taylor, weighs 287 tons and has six manuals. The instrument, located in Atlantic City's Concord Hall, is the loudest organ in the world and has more than 33,000 pipes.

The largest and most majestic organs in Russia are located in the Moscow House of Music, as well as in the Concert Hall. Tchaikovsky.

The development of new directions and styles has significantly increased the number of types and varieties of modern organ, with their own differences in the principle of operation and specific features. Today's classification of organs is as follows:

• wind organ;
• symphony organ;
• theater organ;
• electric organ;
• Hammond organ;
• Typhon organ;
• steam organ;
• street organ;
• orchestrion;
• organola;
• pyrophone;
• sea ​​organ;
• chamber organ;
• church organ;
• home organ;
• organum;
• digital organ;
• rock organ;
• pop organ;
• virtual organ;
• melodium.

In contact with

This keyboard wind instrument, according to the figurative characteristics of V.V. Stasov, “... it is especially typical to embody in musical images and forms the aspirations of our spirit for the colossal and infinitely majestic; He alone has those stunning sounds, those thunders, that majestic voice speaking as if from eternity, the expression of which is impossible for any other instrument, for any orchestra.”

On the stage of the concert hall you see the facade of an organ with part of the pipes. Hundreds of them are located behind its facade, arranged in tiers up and down, right and left, and go in rows into the depths of the vast room. Some pipes are positioned horizontally, others vertically, and some are even suspended on hooks. In modern organs, the number of pipes reaches 30,000. The largest are more than 10 m high, the smallest are 10 mm. In addition, the organ has an air injection mechanism - bellows and air ducts; the pulpit where the organist sits and where the instrument control system is concentrated.

The sound of the organ makes a huge impression. The giant instrument has many different tones. It's like a whole orchestra. In fact, the range of the organ exceeds that of all instruments in the orchestra. This or that color of the sound depends on the structure of the pipes. A set of pipes of a single timbre is called a register. Their number in large instruments reaches up to 200. But the main thing is that the combination of several registers gives rise to a new color of sound, a new timbre, not similar to the original one. The organ has several (from 2 to 7) manual keyboards - manuals, arranged in a terrace-like manner. They differ from each other in timbre coloring and register composition. A special keyboard is a foot pedal. It has 32 keys for toe and heel playing. Traditionally, the pedal is used as the lowest voice, the bass, but sometimes it also serves as one of the middle voices. There are also register switching levers on the lectern. Usually the performer is assisted by one or two assistants; they switch registers. IN the latest tools a “memory” device is used, thanks to which you can select a certain combination of registers in advance and at the right moment, by pressing a button, make them sound.

Organs have always been built for a specific location. The masters provided for all its features, acoustics, dimensions, etc. Therefore, there are no two identical instruments in the world, each is a unique creation of the master. One of the best is the organ of the Dome Cathedral in Riga.

Organ music is written on three staves. Two of them fix a batch of manuals, one for the pedal. The notes do not indicate the registration of the work: the performer himself looks for the most expressive techniques to reveal artistic image essays. Thus, the organist becomes, as it were, a co-author of the composer in the instrumentation (registration) of the work. The organ allows you to stretch out a sound or a chord for as long as you like at a constant volume. This feature of his acquired its artistic expression in the emergence of the organ point technique: with a constant sound in the bass, melody and harmony develop. Musicians on any instrument create dynamic nuance within each musical phrase. The color of the organ sound remains unchanged regardless of how hard the key is struck, so performers use special moves to depict the beginning and end of phrases, the logic of structure within the phrase itself. The ability to combine different timbres at the same time led to the composition of works for the organ of a predominantly polyphonic nature (see Polyphony).

The organ has been known since ancient times. The manufacture of the first organ is attributed to the mechanic from Alexandria Ctesibius, who lived in the 3rd century. BC e. It was a water organ - hydraulos. The pressure of the water column ensured the uniformity of air pressure entering the sounding pipes. Later, an organ was invented in which air was supplied into the pipes using bellows. Before the advent of the electric drive, air was pumped into the pipes by special workers - calcantes. In the Middle Ages, along with large organs, there were also small ones - regalis and portables (from the Latin “porto” - “carry”). Gradually the instrument was improved and by the 16th century. acquired an almost modern appearance.

Many composers wrote music for the organ. Organ art reached its highest peak at the end of the 17th - 1st half of the 18th century. in the works of such composers as I. Pachelbel, D. Buxtehude, D. Frescobaldi, G. F. Handel, J. S. Bach. Bach created works unsurpassed in depth and perfection. In Russia, M. I. Glinka paid significant attention to the organ. He played this instrument beautifully and made transcriptions of various works for it.

In our country the organ can be heard in concert halls Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Riga, Tallinn, Gorky, Vilnius and many other cities. Soviet and foreign organists perform works not only by ancient masters, but also by Soviet composers.

Electric organs are also being built now. However, the principle of operation of these instruments is different: the sound arises due to electric generators of various designs (see Electric musical instruments).