The body where it was created and what it looks like. Who invented the musical instrument - the organ

The organ is the largest musical instrument, a unique human creation. There are no two identical organs in the world.

The giant organ has many different timbres. This is achieved through the use of hundreds of metal pipes of different sizes through which air is blown, and the pipes begin to hum, or "sing". Moreover, the organ allows you to pull the sound as long as you like with a constant volume.

The pipes are arranged horizontally and vertically, some are suspended from hooks. In modern organs, their number reaches 30 thousand! The largest pipes are over 10 m high, and the smallest ones are 1 cm high.

The organ management system is called a department. It is a complex mechanism operated by an organist. The organ has several (from 2 to 7) manual keyboards (manuals), consisting of keys, like on a piano. Previously, the organ was played not with fingers, but with fists. There is also a foot keyboard or just a pedal with up to 32 keys.

Usually the performer is assisted by one or two assistants. They switch registers, the combination of which creates a new timbre that is not similar to the original one. An organ can replace an entire orchestra because its range exceeds the range of all instruments in the orchestra.

The organ has been known since ancient times. The creator of the organ is considered the Greek mechanic Ctesibius, who lived in Alexandria in 296-228. BC e. He invented the water organ - the hydravlos.

Nowadays, the organ is most often used in divine services. Some churches and cathedrals host concerts or organ services. In addition, there are organs installed in concert halls. The largest organ in the world is located in the American city of Philadelphia, in the McKase department store. Its weight is 287 tons.

Many composers wrote music for the organ, but he revealed his capabilities as a virtuoso performer and created works unsurpassed in depth as the genius composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

In Russia, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka paid much attention to organ art.

It is almost impossible to master playing the organ on your own. This requires a lot of musician experience. Organ studies begin in colleges with piano skills. But it is possible to master the playing of this instrument by continuing his studies at the conservatory.

MYSTERY

That tool for a long time

Decorated the cathedral.

Decorates and plays

The whole orchestra replaces

The organ is an ancient instrument. Its distant predecessors were apparently the bagpipes and Pan's flute. In ancient times, when there were no complex musical instruments yet, several reed pipes of different sizes began to be connected together - this is Pan's flute.

It was believed that the god of forests and groves, Pan, invented it. One pipe is easy to play: it needs a little air. But playing several at once is much more difficult - there is not enough breath. Therefore, already in ancient times, people were looking for a mechanism that replaces human respiration. They found such a mechanism: they began to pump air with bellows, the same as those with which the blacksmiths fanned the fire in the forge.
In the second century BC in Alexandria, Ctesibius (Latin Ctesibius, approximately III - II centuries BC) invented the hydraulic organ. Note that this Greek nickname literally means "Creator of life" (Greek Ktesh-bio), ie simply the Lord God. This Ctesibius allegedly also invented a float water clock (which has not reached us), a piston pump and a hydraulic drive
- long before the discovery of the Torricelli law (1608-1647). (How conceivably in the 2nd century BC it was possible to ensure the tightness necessary to create a vacuum in the pump of Ktesibius? What material could the connecting rod mechanism of the pump be made of - after all, to ensure the sound of the organ, an initial overpressure of at least 2 atm is required. ?).
In the hydraulic system, the air was pumped not by bellows, but by a water press. Therefore, he acted more evenly, and the sound came out better - smoother and more beautiful.
Hydravlos was used by the Greeks and Romans on hippodromes, in circuses, and also to accompany the pagan mysteries. The sound of the hydraulics was unusually strong and shrill. In the first centuries of Christianity, the water pump was replaced with bellows, which allowed for an increase in the size of pipes and their number in the organ.
Centuries passed, the instrument was improved. The so-called performance console or performance table appeared. It has several keyboards located one above the other, and at the bottom there are huge keys for the feet - pedals that produced the lowest sounds. Of course, the reed pipes - Pan's flutes - have long been forgotten. Metal pipes sounded in the organ, and their number reached many thousands. It is clear that if each trumpet had a corresponding key, then it would be impossible to play an instrument with thousands of keys. Therefore, register knobs or buttons were made above the keyboards. Each key corresponds to several tens, or even hundreds of pipes, emitting sounds of the same pitch, but different timbre. They can be turned on and off with the register knobs, and then, at the request of the composer and the performer, the sound of the organ becomes like a flute, then an oboe or other instruments; it can even imitate birdsong.
Already in the middle of the 5th century, organs were being built in Spanish churches, but since the instrument was still loud, it was used only on the days of major holidays.
By the 11th century, organs were being built by all of Europe. The organ, built in 980 in Wenchester (England), was known for its unusual dimensions. Gradually, the keys were replaced by clumsy large "plates"; the range of the instrument has become wider, the registers - more diverse. At the same time, a small portable organ - a portable and a miniature stationary organ - a positive - came into widespread use.
The Encyclopedia of Music says that the keys of the organ up to the 14th century. were huge
- 30 -33 cm long and 8-9 cm wide. The technique of the game was quite simple: such keys were beaten with fists and elbows (German: Orgel schlagen). What organ sublime divine-spiritual masses could sound in Catholic cathedrals (it is believed that from the 7th century A.D.) with this technique of performance ?? Or were they orgies?
17-18 centuries - "golden age" of organ building and organ performance.
The organs of this time were distinguished by their beauty and variety of sound; exceptional timbre clarity, transparency made them excellent instruments for performing polyphonic music.
Organs were built in all Catholic cathedrals and large churches. Their solemn and powerful sound perfectly suited the architecture of cathedrals with upward-going lines and high vaults. The best musicians in the world have served as church organists. A lot of great music has been written for this instrument by various composers, including Bach. Most often it was written for a "baroque organ", which was more widespread than organs of previous or subsequent periods. Of course, not all the music created for the organ was cult, associated with the church.
So-called "secular" works were also composed for him. In Russia, the organ was only a secular instrument, since in the Orthodox Church, unlike the Catholic, it was never performed.
Since the 18th century, composers have included the organ in the oratorio. And in the 19th century he also appeared in the opera. As a rule, this was caused by a stage situation - if the action took place in or near a temple. Tchaikovsky, for example, used the organ in the opera "The Maid of Orleans" in the scene of the solemn coronation of Charles VII. We hear the organ and in one of the scenes of Gounod's opera "Faust"
(scene in the cathedral). But Rimsky-Korsakov in the opera "Sadko" instructed the organ to accompany the song of the Elderly, the mighty hero, who interrupts the dance
The sea king. Verdi in the opera "Othello" imitates the sound of a sea storm with the help of an organ. Sometimes the organ is included in the score of symphonic works. With his participation the Third Symphony of Saint-Saens, the Poem of Ecstasy and "Prometheus" by Scriabin are performed in the symphony "Manfred" by Tchaikovsky, the organ also sounds, although the composer did not foresee this. He wrote the harmonium part, which the organ often replaces there.
Romanticism of the 19th century, with its striving for expressive orchestral sound, had a dubious influence on organ building and organ music; the craftsmen tried to create instruments that are "an orchestra for one performer", but as a result, the matter was reduced to a weak imitation of the orchestra.
However, in the 19th and 20th centuries. many new timbres appeared in the organ, and significant improvements were made in the design of the instrument.
The trend towards ever larger organs culminated in the huge 33,112 trumpet organ in Atlantic City, N.
Jersey). This instrument has two lecterns, one of which has 7 keyboards. Despite this, in the 20th century. organists and organ builders realized the need to return to simpler and more convenient types of instrument.

The remains of the oldest organ-like instrument with a hydraulic drive were found in 1931 during excavations at Aquincum (near Budapest) and dated to 228 AD. e. It is believed that this city, which had a forced water supply system, was destroyed in 409. However, according to the level of development of hydraulic technology, this is the middle of the 15th century.

The structure of a modern organ.
Organ is a keyboard-wind musical instrument, the largest and most complex instrument in existence. They play it like a piano, pressing the keys. But unlike the piano, the organ is not a stringed instrument, but a wind instrument and it turns out to be a relative not to keyboard instruments but to a small flute.
A huge modern organ, as it were, consists of three or more organs, and the performer can control all of them at the same time. Each of the organs that make up such a "large organ" has its own registers (sets of pipes) and its own keyboard (manual). Pipes, lined up in rows, are located in the internal rooms (chambers) of the organ; some of the pipes can be seen, but in principle all pipes are hidden by a facade (avenue), which is partly made of decorative pipes. The organist sits at the so-called shpiltish (lectern), in front of him are the organ's keyboards (manuals) arranged in terraces one above the other, and under his feet is a pedal keyboard. Each of the organs included in
"Large organ", has its own purpose and name; among the most common are "main" (German Haupwerk), "top", or "overwerk"
(German Oberwerk), Rykpositiv and a set of pedal registers. The "main" organ is the largest and contains the main registers of the instrument. "Ryukpositive" is similar to "main", but smaller and softer, and also contains some special solo registers. The "upper" organ adds new solo and onomatopoeic timbres to the ensemble; Pipes are connected to the pedal, which produce low sounds to reinforce the bass lines.
The pipes of some of their named organs, especially the "upper" and "back-positive", are placed inside semi-closed shutter-chambers, which can be closed or opened with the help of the so-called channel, as a result of which crescendo and diminuendo effects are created, which are inaccessible on the organ without this mechanism. In modern organs, air is forced into pipes using an electric motor; through wooden air ducts, air from the bellows enters the windlads - a system of wooden boxes with holes in the top cover. Organ pipes are reinforced in these holes with their “legs”. From windlad, pressurized air enters one or another pipe.
Since each trumpet is capable of reproducing one pitch and one timbre, a set of at least 61 trumpets is required for a standard five-octave manual. In general, an organ can contain from several hundred to many thousands of pipes. A group of trumpets producing sounds of one timbre is called a register. When the organist turns on the register on the spire (using a button or lever located on the side of the manuals or above them), access to all pipes of this register is opened. Thus, the performer can select any register he needs or any combination of registers.
There are different types of trumpets that produce a variety of sound effects.
Pipes are made of sheet metal, lead, copper and various alloys
(mainly lead and tin), in some cases wood is also used.
The length of the pipes can be from 9.8 m to 2.54 cm or less; the diameter varies depending on the pitch and timbre of the sound. The pipes of the organ are divided into two groups according to the method of sound production (labial and reed) and into four groups according to timbre. In labial tubes, sound is formed as a result of the impact of an air jet on the lower and upper lips of the “mouth” (labium) - a cut in the lower part of the tube; in reed tubes, the source of sound is a metal tongue vibrating under the pressure of an air jet. The main families of registers (timbres) are principals, flutes, gambas and reeds.
Principals are the foundation of all organ sound; flute registers sound calmer, softer and to some extent resemble orchestral flutes in timbre; gambas (strings) are shrill and sharper than flutes; the reed tone is metallic, imitating the timbres of orchestral wind instruments. Some organs, especially theatrical ones, also have drum sounds, such as cymbals and drum sounds.
Finally, many registers are built in such a way that their pipes do not give the main sound, but its transposition by an octave higher or lower, and in the case of so-called mixtures and aliquots - not even one sound, as well as overtones to the main tone (aliquots reproduce one overtone, mixtures - up to seven overtones).

Authority in Russia.
The organ, the development of which has long been associated with the history of the Western Church, was able to establish itself in Russia, in a country where the Orthodox Church prohibited the use of musical instruments during worship.
Kievan Rus (10-12 centuries). The first organs to Russia, as well as to Western Europe, came from Byzantium. This coincided with the adoption of Christianity in Russia in 988 and the reign of Prince Vladimir the Holy (c. 978-1015), with an era of particularly close political, religious and cultural contacts between Russian princes and Byzantine rulers. The organ in Kievan Rus was a stable component of the court and folk culture. The earliest evidence of an organ in our country is in the Kiev Sophia Cathedral, which, due to its lengthy construction in the 11-12 centuries. became a "stone chronicle" of Kievan Rus. There is a Skomorokhi fresco, which depicts a musician playing on the positive and two Calcantas
(organ bellows pumpers) pumping air into the organ's fur. After death
Of the Kiev state during the Mongol-Tatar domination (1243-1480) Moscow became the cultural and political center of Russia.

Moscow Grand Duchy and Kingdom (15-17 centuries). In this era between
Moscow and Western Europe developed ever closer relations. So, in 1475-1479. Italian architect Aristotle Fioravanti erected in
Assumption Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, and the brother of Sophia Palaeologus, niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI and since 1472 the king's wife
Ivan III, brought organist John Salvator to Moscow from Italy.

The royal court of that time showed a keen interest in organ art.
This allowed the Dutch organist and organ builder Gottlieb Eilhof (the Russians called him Danilo Nemchin) to settle in Moscow in 1578. 1586 dated a written message from the English envoy Jerome Horsey about the purchase for Tsarina Irina Fedorovna, Boris Godunov's sister, several clavichords and an organ built in England.
Organs were also widely distributed among the common people.
Buffoons wandering across Russia on portatives. For a variety of reasons, which was condemned by the Orthodox Church.
During the reign of Tsar Mikhail Romanov (1613-1645) and further, up to
1650, except for Russian organists Tomila Mikhailov (Besov), Boris Ovsonov,
Melentiy Stepanov and Andrei Andreev, foreigners also worked in the amusement chamber in Moscow: Poles Jerzy (Yuri) Proskurovsky and Fyodor Zavalsky, organ builders - the Dutch brothers Yagan (probably Johan) and Melchert Lun.
Under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich from 1654 to 1685 served at the court of Simon
Gutovsky, a “jack of all trades” musician of Polish origin, originally from
Smolensk. With his multifaceted activities, Gutovsky made a significant contribution to the development of musical culture. In Moscow, he built several organs, in 1662, at the behest of the tsar, he and four of his apprentices went to
Persia to donate one of his instruments to the Persian Shah.
One of the most significant events in the cultural life of Moscow was the founding in 1672 of the court theater, which was also equipped with an organ
Gutovsky.
The era of Peter the Great (1682-1725) and his successors. Peter I was keenly interested in Western culture. In 1691, as a nineteen-year-old youth, he commissioned the famous Hamburg organ builder Arp Schnitger (1648-1719) to build an organ with sixteen registers for Moscow, decorated with walnut figures on top. In 1697 Schnitger sent to Moscow another, this time an eight-register instrument for a certain Mr. Ernhorn. Peter
I, striving to adopt all Western European achievements, among other things, entrusted the Gerlitz organist Christian Ludwig Boxberg, who showed the tsar the new organ of Eugen Casparini in the church of St. Peter and Paul in Görlitz (Germany), established there in 1690-1703 to design an even more grandiose organ for the Metropolitan Cathedral in Moscow. Projects of two dispositions of this “giant organ” for 92 and 114 registers were prepared by Boxberg approx. 1715. During the reign of the tsar - the reformer, organs were built throughout the country, primarily in Lutheran and Catholic churches.

In St. Petersburg, the Catholic Church of St. Catherine and the Protestant Church of Sts. Peter and Paul. For the latter, in 1737, the organ was built by Johann Heinrich Joachim (1696-1752) from Mitau (now Jelgava in Latvia).
1764 in this church weekly concerts of symphonic and oratorio music began to be held. So, in 1764 the royal court was conquered by the play of the Danish organist Johann Gottfried Wilhelm Palschau (1741 or 1742-1813). In the end
1770s Empress Catherine II commissioned the English master Samuel
Green (1740-1796) construction of an organ in St. Petersburg, presumably for Prince Potemkin.

Famous organ builder Heinrich Andreas Kontius (1708-1792) from Halle
(Germany), mainly working in the Baltic cities, and also built two organs, one in St. Petersburg (1791), the other in Narva.
The most famous organ builder in Russia at the end of the 18th century was Franz Kirchnik
(1741-1802). Abbot George Joseph Vogler, who gave in April and May 1788 at St.
In Pterburg, two concerts, after visiting the organ workshop of Kirchnik, was so strongly impressed by his instruments that in 1790 he invited his assistant master Rakwitz, first to Warsaw and then to Rotterdam.
In the cultural life of Moscow, a famous mark was left by the thirty-year activity of the German composer, organist and pianist Johann Wilhelm
Gessler (1747-1822). Gessler learned to play the organ from a student of J.S.Bach
Johann Christian Kittel and therefore in his work he adhered to the tradition of the Leipzig cantor of the church of St. Thomas .. In 1792 Gessler was appointed Imperial Court Kapellmeister in St. Petersburg. In 1794, moved to
Moscow, gained fame as the best piano teacher, and thanks to numerous concerts dedicated to the organ work of J.S. Bach, he had a huge influence on Russian musicians and music lovers.
19th - early 20th century In the 19th century. In the midst of the Russian aristocracy, an interest in playing the organ in the home environment spread. Prince Vladimir
Odoevsky (1804-1869), one of the most remarkable personalities of Russian society, a friend of M.I.
1866) for the construction of the organ, which went down in the history of Russian music as
“Sebastianon” (named after Johann Sebastian Bach). It was about a home organ, in the development of which Prince Odoevsky took part. This Russian aristocrat saw one of the main goals of his life in awakening the interest of the Russian musical community in the organ and in the exceptional personality of JS Bach. Accordingly, the programs of his home concerts were primarily devoted to the work of the Leipzig cantor. It is from
Odoevsky also called on the Russian public to collect funds for the restoration of the Bach organ in the Novof Church (now the Bach Church) in Arnstadt (Germany).
MI Glinka often improvised on Odoevsky's organ. From the memoirs of his contemporaries, we know that Glinka was endowed with an outstanding improvisational talent. He highly appreciated the organ improvisations of Glinka F.
Sheet. During his tour in Moscow on May 4, 1843 Liszt gave an organ concert at the Protestant Church of Sts. Peter and Paul.
Has not lost its intensity in the 19th century. and the activities of organ builders. TO
By 1856 there were 2280 church bodies in Russia. German firms took part in the construction of the organs installed in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the period from 1827 to 1854 in St. Petersburg Karl Wirth (1800-1882) worked as a piano and organ master, who built several organs, one of which was intended for the Church of St. Catherine. In 1875 this instrument was sold to Finland. The British firm "Brindley and Foster" from Sheffield supplied their organs to Moscow, Kronstadt and St. Petersburg, the German firm "Ernst Roever" from Hausneindorf (Harz) in 1897 built one of its organs in Moscow, the Austrian organ-building workshop of the brothers
Rieger erected several organs in the churches of Russian provincial cities
(in Nizhny Novgorod - in 1896, in Tula - in 1901, in Samara - in 1905, in Penza - in 1906). One of the most famous organs of Eberhard Friedrich Walker with
1840 was in the Protestant Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in St. Petersburg. It was erected on the model of the large organ built seven years earlier in the church of St. Paul in Frankfurt am Main.
A tremendous upsurge in Russian organ culture began with the founding of organ classes at the Petersburg (1862) and Moscow (1885) conservatories. As the first organ teacher in St. Petersburg, a graduate of the Leipzig Conservatory, a native of the city of Lübeck, Gerich Stihl (1829-
1886). His teaching activity in St. Petersburg lasted from 1862 to
1869. In the last years of his life he was organist of the Olai Church in Tallinn Calm and his successor at the Petersburg Conservatory lasted from 1862 to 1869. In the last years of his life he was organist of the Olai Church in Tallinn Calm and his successor at the Petersburg Conservatory Louis Gomilius (1845-1908 ), in their teaching practice were guided primarily by the German organ school. In the early years, the organ class of the St. Petersburg Conservatory was held in the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, and among the first student organists was P.I.Tchaikovsky. Actually, the organ appeared in the conservatory itself only in 1897.
In 1901 the Moscow Conservatory also received a magnificent concert organ. During the year, this organ was an exhibit in
Russian pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris (1900). In addition to this instrument, there were two more Ladegast organs, which in 1885 found their place in the Small Hall of the Conservatory.The largest of them was donated by a merchant and philanthropist
Vasily Khludov (1843-1915). This organ was in use at the conservatory until 1959. Professors and students regularly took part in concerts in Moscow and
Petersburg, and graduates of both conservatories also gave concerts in other cities of the country. Foreign performers also performed in Moscow: Charles-
Marie Widor (1896 and 1901), Charles Tournemire (1911), Marco Enrico Bossi (1907 and
1912).
Organs were built for theaters, for example, for the Imperial and for
The Mariinsky Theaters in St. Petersburg, and later for the Imperial Theater in Moscow.
The successor of Louis Gomilius to the Petersburg Conservatory invited Jacques
Ganshin (1886-1955). A native of Moscow, and later a citizen of Switzerland and a student of Max Reger and Charles-Marie Widor, he headed the organ class from 1909 to 1920. It is interesting that organ music, written by professional Russian composers, starting with Dm. Bortyansky (1751-
1825), combined Western European musical forms with traditional Russian melos. This contributed to the manifestation of special expressiveness and charm, thanks to which Russian compositions for organ stand out with their originality against the background of the world organ repertoire. This is also the key to the strong impression they make on the listener.

The largest type of musical instrument.

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Subtitles

Terminology

Indeed, even in inanimate objects there is this kind of ability (δύναμις), for example, in [musical] instruments (ἐν τοῖς ὀργάνοις); about one lyre they say that it is capable of [sounding], and about another - that it is not, if it is dissonant (μὴ εὔφωνος).

The genus of people who are engaged in instruments spends all their labor on this, such as, for example, kifared, or those who demonstrate their craft on the organ and other musical instruments (organo ceterisque musicae instrumentis).

Fundamentals of Music, I.34

In Russian, the word "organ" by default means wind organ but is also used in relation to other varieties, including electronic analog and digital, that mimic the sound of an organ. Organs distinguish between:

• by device - wind, reed, electronic, analog, digital;
• by functional belonging - concert, church, theater, fair, salon, educational, etc .;
• by disposition - baroque, French classical, romantic, symphonic, neo-baroque, modern;
• by the number of manuals - one-manual, two-, three-, etc.

The word "organ" is also usually qualified by reference to an organ builder (for example, "Kawaye-Kolya Organ") or a brand name ("Hammond Organ"). Some types of organ have independent terms: antique hydravlos, portable, positive, regal, harmonium, barrel organ, etc.

Story

The organ is one of the oldest musical instruments. Its history goes back several thousand years. Hugo Riemann believed that the ancestor of the organ was the ancient Babylonian bagpipes (19th century BC): "The fur was inflated through a tube, and from the opposite end there was a body with pipes, which undoubtedly had tongues and several holes." The germ of the organ can also be seen in the Pan flute, the Chinese sheng, and other similar instruments. It is believed that the organ (water organ, hydravlos) was invented by the Greek Ctesibius, who lived in Egyptian Alexandria in 296-228. BC e. An image of a similar instrument is found on one coin or token from the time of Nero. Large organs appeared in the 4th century, more or less improved organs - in the 7th and 8th centuries. Pope Vitalian traditionally attributes the introduction of the organ to Catholic worship. In the 8th century, Byzantium was famous for its organs. The Byzantine emperor Constantine V Copronymus presented the organ to the Frankish king Pepin the Short in 757. Later, the Byzantine Empress Irina presented his son, Charles the Great, with the organ, which sounded at Charles's coronation. The organ was considered at that time a ceremonial attribute of the Byzantine and then Western European imperial power.

The art of building organs also developed in Italy, from where they were exported to France in the 9th century. Later this art developed in Germany. The organ has become widespread in Western Europe since the XIV century. Medieval organs, in comparison with later ones, were of rough work; the manual keyboard, for example, consisted of keys 5 to 7 cm wide, the distance between the keys reached one and a half cm. The keys were struck not with your fingers, as now, but with your fists. In the 15th century, the keys were reduced and the number of pipes increased.

The oldest example of a medieval organ with a relatively holistic mechanics (pipes have not survived) is considered to be an organ from Norrlanda (a parish on the island of Gotland in Sweden). This instrument usually dates back to 1370-1400, although some researchers doubt such an early date. The Norrish organ is currently housed in the National History Museum in Stockholm.

In the 19th century, thanks, first of all, to the activities of the French organ master Aristide Cavaye-Colle, who set out to design organs in such a way that they could compete with the sound of an entire symphony orchestra with their powerful and rich sound, instruments of a previously unprecedented scale and sound power began to appear. , which are sometimes called symphonic organs.

Device

Remote controller

Organ console ("spieltish" from German Spieltisch or organ pulpit) - a remote control with all the means necessary for an organist, the set of which in each organ is individual, but most have common ones: manuals and pedal keyboard(or simply "pedal") and timbre - switches registers... There may also be dynamic - channels, various foot levers or buttons to turn on copul and switching combinations from register combination memory bank and a device for activating the organ. At the console, on the bench, the organist sits during the performance.

• Copula is a mechanism by which the included registers of one manual can sound when playing on another manual or pedal. In the organs there are always copulas of manuals for the pedal and copulas for the main manual, also there are almost always copulas of weaker-sounding manuals to stronger ones. The copula is turned on / off by a special footswitch with a latch or a button.
• Channel - a device with which you can adjust the volume of this manual by opening or closing the shutters in the box in which the pipes of this manual are located.
• The register combinations memory bank is a device in the form of buttons, available only in organs with an electric register tract, which allows memorizing register combinations, thereby simplifying the switching of registers (changing the general timbre) during performance.
• Ready register combinations - a device in organs with a pneumatic register tract that allows you to include a ready set of registers (usually p, mp, mf, f)
• (from Italian Tutti - all) - the button for turning on all registers and copula of the organ.

Manuals

The first musical monuments with an organ pedal date back to the middle of the 15th century. - this is a tablature of the German musician Adam from Ileborg (English) Russian(Adam Ileborgh, c. 1448) and the Buxheim Organ Book (c. 1470). Arnolt Schlick in "Spiegel der Orgelmacher" (1511) already writes in detail about the pedal and encloses his pieces, where it is very masterly applied. Among them, the unique antiphon treatment stands out. Ascendo ad Patrem meum for 10 voices, of which 4 are assigned to the pedal. To perform this piece, it was probably required some kind of special footwear, which made it possible to press two keys simultaneously with one foot, spaced at a distance of a third. In Italy, notes using an organ pedal appear much later, in Annibale Padovano's toccata (1604).

Registers

Each row of pipe organ pipes of the same timbre constitutes, as it were, a separate instrument and is called register... Each of the extendable or retractable register knobs (or electronic switches) located on the organ console above the keyboards or on the sides of the music rest turns a corresponding row of organ pipes on or off. If the registers are off, the organ will not sound when a key is pressed.

Each knob corresponds to a register and has its own name indicating the pitch of the largest pipe of this register - foot, traditionally denoted in feet in terms of the Principal register. For example, the trumpets of the Gedackt register are closed and sound an octave lower, so such a trumpet of the "C" tone of the subcontroctave is denoted as 32 ", with an actual length of 16". Reed registers, the pitch of which depends on the mass of the reed itself, and not on the height of the bell, are also indicated in feet, the length of which is the same in height as the trumpet of the Principal register.

Registers for a number of unifying features are grouped into families - principals, flutes, gambas, aliquots, potions, etc. All 32-, 16-, 8-, 4-, 2-, 1-foot ) - aliquots and potions. Each trumpet of the main register reproduces only one sound of constant pitch, strength and timbre. Aliquots reproduce an ordinal overtone to the main sound, mixtures give a chord, which consists of several (usually from 2 to a dozen, sometimes up to fifty) overtones to a given sound.

All registers for pipe arrangement are divided into two groups:

• Labial- registers with open or closed pipes without tongues. This group includes: flutes (wide-range registers), principals and narrow-range ones (German Streicher - "streichers" or strings), as well as overtone registers - aliquots and mixtures, in which each note has one or more (weaker) overtone overtones.
• Reed- registers, in the pipes of which there is a reed, under the influence of the supplied air on which a characteristic sound appears, similar in timbre, depending on the name and design features of the register, with some brass orchestral musical instruments: oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, etc. Reed registers can be located not only vertically, but also horizontally - such registers make up a group that from fr. chamade is called shamada.

Connecting different types of registers:

• ital. Organo pleno - labial and reed registers with potion;
• fr. Grand jeu - labial and reed without mixtures;
• fr. Plein jeu - labial with potion.

The composer can indicate the name of the register and the size of the trumpets in the notes above the place where this register should be applied. The choice of registers for performing a piece of music is called register and the included registers are register combination.

Since the registers in different organs of different countries and eras are not the same, they are usually not indicated in detail in the organ part: they write out only the manual above this or that part of the organ part, the designation of pipes with or without reeds and the size of the pipes, and the rest is left at the discretion performer. Most of the organ music repertoire does not have any author's designations regarding the registration of the work, so composers and organists of previous eras had their own traditions and the art of combining different organ timbres was passed down orally from generation to generation.

Pipes

Register trumpets sound different:

• 8-foot trumpets sound in accordance with the musical notation;
• 4 and 2 feet sound one and two octaves higher, respectively;
• 16 and 32 feet sound one and two octaves lower, respectively;
• 64-foot labial pipes, found in the largest organs of the world, sound three octaves below the recording, therefore, those that are activated by the keys of the pedal and manual below the counter octave already emit infrasound;
• labial tubes closed from above sound an octave lower than open ones.

A shimhorn is used to tune the small open labial metal pipes of the organ. With this hammer tool, the open end of the pipe is rolled or expanded. Larger open pipes are adjusted by cutting a vertical piece of metal near or directly from the open end of the pipe, which is folded back at one angle or another. Open wooden pipes usually have a tuning fixture made of wood or metal that can be adjusted to allow tuning of the pipe. Closed wood or metal pipes are adjusted by adjusting the plug or cap on the top end of the pipe.

Facade organ pipes can also play a decorative role. If the pipes do not sound, then they are called "decorative" or "blind" (English dummy pipes).

Traktura

The organ tract is a system of transmission devices that functionally connects the controls on the organ's console with the organ's air shut-off devices. The play tract transfers the movement of the manual keys and pedals to the valves of a particular pipe or group of pipes in the mixture. The register tract enables an entire register or a group of registers to be turned on or off in response to a push of a toggle switch or movement of a register knob.

By means of the register tract, the organ memory also functions - combinations of registers, pre-arranged and embedded in the device of the organ - ready, fixed combinations. They can be called both by the combination of registers - Pleno, Plein Jeu, Gran Jeu, Tutti, and by the strength of the sound - Piano, Mezzopiano, Mezzoforte, Forte. In addition to ready-made combinations, there are free combinations that allow the organist to select, memorize and change the set of registers in the organ's memory at his own discretion. The memory function is not available in all organs. It is absent in organs with a mechanical register tract.

Mechanical

Mechanical tractura is a reference, authentic and most frequent one at the moment, allowing to perform the widest range of works of all eras; mechanical traction does not give the phenomenon of "lag" of sound and allows you to thoroughly feel the position and behavior of the air valve, which makes it possible to better control the instrument by the organist and achieve high performance technique. The manual or pedal key, when using a mechanical tract, is connected to the air valve by a system of light wooden or polymer rods (abstracts), rollers and levers; occasionally, in large old organs, a rope-block transmission was used. Since the movement of all the listed elements is carried out only by the effort of the organist, there are limitations in the size and nature of the arrangement of the sounding elements of the organ. In giant organs (more than 100 registers), a mechanical tract is either not used or supplemented by a Barker machine (a pneumatic amplifier that helps to press the keys; such are the French organs of the early 20th century, for example, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris). A mechanical playroom is usually combined with a mechanical register tract and windlade of a loop system.

Pneumatic

Pneumatic tract - the most common in romantic organs - from the end of the 19th century to the 20s of the 20th century; pressing a key opens a valve in the control air duct, the supply of air to which opens a pneumatic valve for a specific pipe (when using a windlad with a shleyflade, it is extremely rare) or a whole series of pipes of the same tone (windlad kegellade, characteristic of a pneumatic tract). It allows you to build instruments that are huge in terms of the set of registers, since it does not have the power constraints of a mechanical tract, but it has the phenomenon of “lagging” sound. This makes it often impossible to perform technically complex pieces, especially in "wet" church acoustics, given that the delay time of the register sounding depends not only on the distance from the organ console, but also on its pipe size, the presence of relays in the tract that accelerate the actuation of the mechanics for due to the refreshing of the impulse, the design features of the pipe and the type of windlade used (almost always it is a kegellade, sometimes a membranenlade: it works for air release, extremely fast response). In addition, the pneumatic tract separates the keyboard from the air valves, depriving the organist of a sense of "feedback" and impairing control over the instrument. The pneumatic tract of the organ is good for performing solo pieces of the Romantic period, difficult to play in an ensemble, and not always suitable for Baroque and modern music.

Electric

An electric tract is a tract, widely used in the 20th century, with a direct signal transmission from a key to an electromechanical valve opening-closing relay by means of a DC pulse in an electrical circuit. Nowadays, it is increasingly being replaced by a mechanical one. This is the only tractura that does not impose any restrictions on the number and location of registers, as well as the placement of the organ console on the stage in the hall. Allows you to place groups of registers at different ends of the hall, control the organ from an unlimited number of additional consoles, play music for two and three organs on one organ, and also put the console in a convenient place in the orchestra, from which the conductor can be clearly seen. It allows you to connect several organs into a common system, and also provides a unique opportunity to record a performance with subsequent playback without the participation of an organist. The lack of an electric tract, as well as a pneumatic tract, is the rupture of the "feedback" of the organist's fingers and air valves. In addition, the electric tract can delay the sound due to the response time of the electric valve relays, as well as the switch-distributor (in modern organs, this device is electronic and does not give a delay; in instruments of the first half and mid-20th century, it was often electromechanical). Electromechanical relays, when triggered, often give additional "metallic" sounds - clicks and knocks, which, unlike similar "wooden" overtones of a mechanical tract, do not at all decorate the sound of a piece. In some cases, the electric valve receives the largest pipes in an otherwise completely mechanical organ (for example, in a new instrument from Hermann Eule in Belgorod), which is due to the need to maintain the area of ​​the mechanical valve with a high air flow rate of the pipe, and, as a result, playing efforts, in bass within acceptable limits. The register electrical tract can also make noise when register combinations are changed. An example of an acoustically excellent organ with a mechanical playing tract and at the same time a rather noisy register tract is the Swiss organ of the Kuhn company in the Catholic Cathedral in Moscow.

Other

The largest organs in the world

The largest organ in Europe is the Great Organ of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Passau (Germany), built by the German company Stenmayer & Co. Has 5 manuals, 229 registers, 17,774 pipes. It is considered the fourth largest operating body in the world.

Until recently, the organ of the Cathedral of St. Trinity in Liepaja (4 manuals, 131 registers, more than 7 thousand pipes), however, in 1979 an organ with 5 manuals, 125 registers and about 10 thousand pipes was installed in the large concert hall of the Sydney Opera House performing arts center. Now it is considered the largest (with a mechanical tract).

The main organ of the Cathedral in Kaliningrad (4 manuals, 90 registers, about 6.5 thousand pipes) is the largest organ in Russia.

Experimental bodies

Organs of original design and tuning have been developed since the second half of the 16th century, such as the archorgan of the Italian music theorist and composer N. Vicentino. However, such bodies have not received wide distribution. They are now exhibited as historical artifacts in musical instrument museums along with other experimental instruments of the past.

The organ is the embodiment of grandeur and grandeur, it is rightly called the "king" in the world of music. This is the only instrument whose resonator is often the room itself, rather than a wooden case. His closest relatives are not the piano and the grand piano, as it might seem, but the flute and button accordion.

This stunning instrument is magnificent in everything: a powerful sound - not leaving the listener indifferent, inspiring in appearance - striking in its scale, uniqueness and a certain charm of antiques, as well as the complexity and intricacy of its design.

Organ device

The instrument has a rather complex structure, consisting of a huge number of different elements: pipes, manuals, a pedal keyboard, bellows, filters and electric compressors (in the old days they were replaced by people - up to 10 people), registers with switches and much more.

The console, or lectern, is the place from which the musician controls the instrument, contains manuals, a pedal keyboard, various switches, and more.

Manual - manual keyboard. One body can have up to seven such manuals.

Register - a certain number of pipes belonging to one "family", they are united by timbre similarity. Register combinations are called "copulas" (from Latin - "ligaments", "connections"). At the request of customers, craftsmen can add separate registers to the organ, simulating the sound of a particular instrument.

The pedal keyboard is a foot keyboard, it looks the same as a manual one. With its help, the performer controls the bass pipes. To play on the pedal keyboard, organists wear specially made "sensitive" and tight shoes with very thin soles.

Organ pipes - metal, wood and wood-metal hollow pipes of various lengths, diameters and shapes. According to the method of sound production, they are divided into "tongue" and "lobial". The instrument can contain up to 10 thousand such pipes, the largest of which are bass pipes, their height can reach up to 10 meters, and their weight can be up to 500 kg. Sometimes the lowest sounds of an instrument are given a name, such as "the voice of a whale."

And also the organ contains a foot roller that connects and disconnects the registers, so you can play a crescendo or diminuendo, since the organ manuals themselves are not sensitive - the sound volume does not depend on the strength of the keystroke, as in a piano, for example.

The front side of the organ visible to viewers is only a small part of it, the rest of the “contents” are behind the wall. Despite the external strength of organ pipes, they are still quite easy to bend, so outsiders are rarely allowed “inside” the instrument.
Abstracts are special thin wooden slats that connect keys to pipe valves. Some of them can reach a height of 13 meters.

The largest organ in the world is located in the American city of Atlantic City in the Boardwalk Hall. The instrument has thirty-three thousand pipes and one thousand two hundred keys.
The air is drawn into the pipes by fans that rotate electric motors with a capacity of 600 liters. With. The state of the organ is currently not working. In 1944, it was damaged by a hurricane, and in 2001, workers negligently destroyed part of the main pipes. The organ is subject to restoration, but this will take several years.

Etymology of the name of the instrument

Translated from the ancient Greek "organum" means "tool" or "tool". And in medieval Russia "organ" was called "every sounding vessel."

Historical background

The organ is one of the most ancient instruments. It is impossible to determine the exact date of its occurrence. In the II century. BC. by the Greek master Ktesebius, an organ was invented that plays with the help of hydraulics - forcing air with a water press. And in the Roman Empire during the reign of Emperor Nero (1st century), the instrument was depicted on coins.

The oldest predecessor of the organ is Pan's flute, which has a similar structure - connected tubes of different lengths, each of which emits a sound of a certain pitch. Then, deciding to improve the system, they added bellows that inject air and a keyboard in which the number of keys coincided with the number of pipes.

These were hand organs that the musicians wore on a shoulder strap, pumping air into the bellows with one hand and playing a melody with the other; nearby, on a special stand, there were pipes into which air was supplied under pressure.

Medieval organs did not differ in the fineness of their manufacture - the size of the keys reached 5-7 cm, and the distance between them was sometimes 1.5-2 cm.

Therefore, they played on such a keyboard not with their fingers, as on a modern instrument, but with their fists and elbows, making considerable effort.
The organ became a widespread instrument after its introduction in the 7th century. Catholic liturgical practice. During the same period, organs from small transportation instruments carried on carts turned into large stationary musical "instruments" - installed in churches.

In subsequent eras, the organ was gradually improved (Italian and German masters made a special contribution to its development), which continues to this day - new developments are being introduced in order to make the instrument even more convenient for execution and increase its functionality.

Varieties

Depending on the principle of work, the following types of organs are distinguished:

• Wind instruments;
• Strings;
• Theatrical;
• Mechanical;
• Electronic;
• Steam;
• Hydraulic;
• Digital

The Role of the "King" of Instruments in the Art of Music

Since its origin, the organ has occupied a definite place in the cultural life of mankind, with varying degrees of popularity and importance depending on the historical era. The heyday, or "the golden age of the organ", is considered the Baroque era - XVII-XVIII centuries. During this period, such great composers as Bach, Buxtehude, Frescobaldi, and others worked.

Also, the organ plays a different role in Eastern and Western Europe, or, to be more precise, in Orthodox and Catholic countries.

If in Western European Catholic countries, in each city there may be up to several hundred organs located in churches, then in Orthodox countries it is a concert instrument, which is not found in every city. But here, during organ performances, the halls are overflowing with those who want to enjoy the luxurious organ sound.

It is not possible to find two identical organs, therefore this instrument is unique in the literal sense of the word. The pipes of some specimens are capable of emitting ultrasounds and infrasounds that are not captured by human hearing.

An organ is an instrument that has such unique and inimitable possibilities of imitation and combination of different timbres that even the simplest melody "performed by him" turns into a gorgeous piece of music, the brightness of perception of which is enhanced by the power of sound and the bewitching appearance of the instrument.

Video

Watch the video below to listen and enjoy the sound of the instrument.

When the inconspicuous beige door opened, eyes caught only a few wooden steps out of the darkness. Immediately behind the door, a powerful wooden box looks like a ventilation one. “Careful, this is an organ pipe, 32 feet, bass flute register,” my guide warned. "Wait, I'll turn on the light." I wait patiently, looking forward to one of the most interesting excursions in my life. In front of me is the entrance to the organ. This is the only musical instrument that you can go inside.

A funny instrument - a harmonica with bells unusual for this instrument. But almost exactly the same design can be found in any large organ (like the one shown in the picture on the right) - this is how the “reed” organ pipes are arranged.

The sound of three thousand trumpets. General diagram The diagram shows a simplified diagram of an organ with a mechanical tract. The photographs showing the individual assemblies and arrangements of the instrument were taken inside the organ of the Great Hall of the Moscow State Conservatory. The diagram does not show the store fur, which maintains constant pressure in the windlad, and the Barker levers (they are in the pictures). Also missing a pedal (foot keyboard)

The organ is over a hundred years old. It stands in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the very famous hall, from the walls of which portraits of Bach, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven are looking at you ... However, all that is open to the eye of the viewer is the organist's console turned towards the hall with the back side and a little pretentious wooden one " prospect "with vertical metal pipes. Observing the facade of the organ, an uninitiated person will never understand how and why this unique instrument is played. To reveal its secrets, you will have to approach the issue from a different angle. Literally.

Natalya Vladimirovna Malina, an organ keeper, teacher, musician and organ master, kindly agreed to become my guide. “In the organ, you can only move facing forward,” she explains sternly to me. This requirement has nothing to do with mysticism and superstition: simply, moving backward or sideways, an inexperienced person can step on one of the organ pipes or touch it. And there are thousands of pipes.

The main principle of the organ, which distinguishes it from most wind instruments: one trumpet - one note. The Pan flute can be considered the ancient ancestor of the organ. This instrument, which has existed since time immemorial in different parts of the world, consists of several hollow reeds of different lengths tied together. If you turn at an angle at the mouth of the shortest, you will hear a thin high-pitched sound. Longer reeds sound lower.

Unlike a conventional flute, you cannot change the pitch of a separate tube, so a Pan flute can play exactly as many notes as there are reeds in it. To get the instrument to produce very low sounds, you need to include pipes of large length and large diameter. You can make many Pan flutes with pipes of different materials and different diameters, and then they will blow out the same notes with different timbres. But you will not be able to play all these instruments at the same time - you cannot hold them in your hands, and there will not be enough breath for the giant "reeds". But if we put all our flutes vertically, equip each separate tube with an air intake valve, come up with a mechanism that would give us the ability to control all the valves from the keyboard and, finally, create a structure for injecting air with its subsequent distribution, we just have you get an organ.

On an old ship

The pipes in the organs are made of two materials: wood and metal. Wooden pipes used to extract bass sounds have a square cross section. Metal pipes are usually smaller, cylindrical or tapered in shape, and are typically made from a tin-lead alloy. If there is more tin, the trumpet is louder, if there is more lead, the sound produced is more dull, "cottony".

The alloy of tin and lead is very soft, which is why organ pipes are easily deformed. If a large metal pipe is put on its side, after a while it will acquire an oval cross-section under its own weight, which will inevitably affect its ability to produce sound. Moving around inside the organ of the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, I try to touch only the wooden parts. If you step on the pipe or cling to it awkwardly, the organ master will have new troubles: the pipe will have to be "treated" - straightened, or even soldered.

The organ I am inside is far from the largest in the world and even in Russia. In terms of size and number of trumpets, it is inferior to the organs of the Moscow House of Music, the Cathedral in Kaliningrad and the Concert Hall. Tchaikovsky. The main record holders are overseas: for example, the instrument installed in the Convention Hall of Atlantic City (USA) has more than 33,000 pipes. The organ of the Great Hall of the Conservatory has ten times less trumpets, “only” 3136, but even this significant amount cannot be placed compactly on one plane. The organ inside is several tiers on which pipes are installed in rows. For the organ master to access the pipes, a narrow passage in the form of a boardwalk is made on each tier. The tiers are interconnected by staircases, in which ordinary rungs play the role of steps. It is cramped inside the organ, and moving between tiers requires a certain dexterity.

“My experience suggests,” says Natalya Vladimirovna Malina, “that it’s best for an organ maker to be thin and light in weight. It is difficult for a person with other dimensions to work here without damaging the instrument. Recently, an electrician - an overweight man - changed the light bulb above the organ, stumbled and broke a couple of planks from the plank roof. There were no casualties or injuries, but the fallen plaques damaged 30 organ pipes. "

Thinking that a pair of organ masters of ideal proportions could easily fit in my body, I look with apprehension at the flimsy-looking stairs leading to the upper tiers. “Don't worry,” Natalya Vladimirovna soothes me, “just go forward and repeat the movements after me. The construction is sturdy, it will withstand you. "

Whistle and reed

We ascend to the upper tier of the organ, from where a view of the Great Hall from the top point, inaccessible to a simple visitor of the conservatory, opens. On the stage below, where the string ensemble rehearsal has just ended, little men with violins and violas are walking. Natalya Vladimirovna shows me near the chimney of Spanish registers. Unlike other pipes, they are not arranged vertically, but horizontally. Forming a kind of visor over the organ, they blow directly into the hall. The creator of the organ of the Great Hall, Aristide Cavaye-Cole, came from a Franco-Spanish family of organ makers. Hence the Pyrenean traditions in the instrument on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street in Moscow.

By the way, about Spanish registers and registers in general. “Register” is one of the key concepts in organ construction. This is a series of organ pipes of a certain diameter that form a chromatic scale corresponding to the keys of their keyboard or part of it.

Depending on the scale of the pipes included in their composition (scale is the ratio of the parameters of the pipe that are most important for the character and sound quality of the sound), the registers produce sound with different timbre colors. Carried away by comparisons with Pan's flute, I almost missed one subtlety: the fact is that not all organ pipes (like the reeds of an old flute) are aerophones. Aerophone is a wind instrument in which sound is generated as a result of vibrations of a column of air. These include flute, trumpet, tuba, French horn. But the saxophone, oboe, harmonica are in the group of idiophones, that is, "self-sounding". It is not the air that vibrates here, but the tongue, streamlined by the air stream. Air pressure and elastic force, opposing, cause the tongue to tremble and propagate sound waves, which are amplified by the bell of the instrument as a resonator.

In the organ, most of the pipes are aerophones. They are called labial, or whistle. Idiophone pipes constitute a special group of registers and are called reed.

How many hands does an organist have?

But how does a musician manage to make all these thousands of pipes - wooden and metal, whistle and reed, open and closed - dozens or hundreds of registers ... sound at the right time? To understand this, let us go down for a while from the upper tier of the organ and go to the lectern, or the organist's console. The uninitiated at the sight of this device is in awe of the dashboard of a modern airliner. Several manual keyboards - manuals (there may be five or even seven!), One foot keyboard plus some other mysterious pedals. There are also a variety of pull levers with graffiti on the handles. What is this all for?

Of course, the organist has only two hands and he will not be able to play all the manuals at the same time (there are three of them in the organ of the Great Hall, which is also a lot). Several manual keyboards are needed in order to mechanically and functionally separate groups of registers, just like in a computer one physical hard drive is divided into several virtual ones. So, for example, the first manual of the Great Hall organ controls the pipes of a group (German term - Werk) registers called Grand Orgue. It includes 14 registers. The second manual (Positif Expressif) is also responsible for 14 registers. The third keyboard is Recit expressif - 12 registers. Finally, a 32-key footswitch, or "pedal," operates with ten bass registers.

Reasoning from the point of view of a layman, even 14 registers for one keyboard is somehow a bit much. After all, by pressing one key, the organist is able to make 14 trumpets sound at once in different registers (and actually more because of registers like mixtura). And if you need to play a note in just one register or in a few select ones? For this purpose, the pull levers are actually used, located to the right and left of the manuals. Pulling out the lever with the register name written on the handle, the musician opens a kind of damper that opens air access to the pipes of a certain register.

So, in order to play the desired note in the required register, you need to select the manual or pedal keyboard that controls this register, pull out the lever corresponding to this register and press the required key.

Powerful breath

The final part of our tour is dedicated to air. The very air that makes the organ sound. Together with Natalya Vladimirovna, we go down to the floor below and find ourselves in a spacious technical room, where there is nothing of the solemn mood of the Great Hall. Concrete floor, white walls, old timber supporting structures, air ducts and an electric motor. In the first decade of the organ's existence, Calcantha-rocking machines worked here in the sweat of their brows. Four healthy men stood in a row, grabbed with both hands a stick threaded into a steel ring on the counter, and alternately, with one or the other foot, pressed on the levers that inflate the fur. The shift was calculated for two hours. If the concert or rehearsal lasted longer, fresh reinforcements replaced the tired rocking chairs.

Old wineskins, four in number, have survived to this day. As Natalya Vladimirovna says, there is a legend around the conservatory that once they tried to replace the work of the rocking machine with horse power. For this, a special mechanism was allegedly even created. However, along with the air, the smell of horse dung rose into the Great Hall, and the founder of the Russian organ school A.F. Gedike, taking the first chord, moved his nose discontentedly and said: "It stinks!"

Whether this legend is true or not, in 1913, muscle strength was finally replaced by an electric motor. With the help of a pulley, he spun the shaft, which in turn, through the crank mechanism, set the bellows in motion. Subsequently, this scheme was abandoned, and today the air is pumped into the organ by an electric fan.

In the organ, the forced air enters the so-called shop bellows, each of which is associated with one of the 12 windlads. Windlada is a wooden box-shaped reservoir for compressed air, on which, in fact, rows of pipes are installed. Several registers are usually placed on one WindowsLade. Large pipes, which do not have enough space on the windlad, are installed to the side, and they are connected to the windlad by an air duct in the form of a metal tube.

The Windlades of the Great Hall organ ("trail" design) are divided into two main parts. A constant pressure is maintained in the lower part with the help of a store fur. The upper one is divided by airtight partitions into the so-called tone channels. All pipes of different registers, controlled by one manual key or pedal, have an output to the tone channel. Each tone channel is connected to the bottom of the windlade by a hole closed by a spring-loaded valve. When a key is pressed through the tract, the movement is transmitted to the valve, it opens, and compressed air enters the top, into the tone channel. All pipes that have access to this channel, in theory, should begin to sound, but ... this, as a rule, does not happen. The fact is that so-called loops pass through the entire upper part of the windlade - dampers with holes located perpendicular to the tone channels and having two positions. In one of them, loops completely cover all pipes of a given register in all tone channels. In the other, the register is open, and its pipes begin to sound as soon as, after pressing a key, air enters the corresponding tone channel. The control of loops, as you might guess, is carried out by levers on the console through the register tract. In simple terms, the keys allow all pipes to sound in their tone channels, and the loops define the chosen few.

We would like to thank the management of the Moscow State Conservatory and Natalia Vladimirovna Malina for their help in preparing this article.