Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-08-18
THE MUSIC WORLD.
A Mistaken View of the Capabilities
Of the Pipe Organ,
THAT KING OF INSTRUMENTS.
No Lack of Varied Expression in Its
Harmonies.
GOSSIP ABOUT OUR LOCAL MUSICIANS

In the current issue of the Philadelphia
Musical Journal is commenced a series o.
extracts from book about to be published
by Dr. Hugh A. Clark, of the University ol
Pennsylvania, under the title of "The
Scratch Club" Under the guise of in
formal discussion between the members Of
an imaginary coterie of musicians, DR..
Clark proposes to treat Of a variety of musi-
cal topics of an educational character. He
starts off with chat about the organ, which
is interesting enough and to a certain ex-
tent true enough, but which leaves as the
net result in the readers mind a very one
sided view of the king of instruments. The
keynote of the talk is sounded by the first
speaker as follows:
o, well, organ paying is doubtless very
clever thing, and very difficult thing to do
well, but after all it is nothing but good ma
chinery; a machine would do it not only as
well as. but better than the best organist, With
all other instruments the case is quite differ
ent They all respond more or less to the mood
of the players, the skillful use of the bow-the
touch, the breath-produce infinite varieties
and shades Of expression. But on the organ
you can but put down the key and the pipe will
sound, and every sound is just the same in
force aud quality as every other one on the
same stop, barring the slight difference pro-
duced by that clumsy contrivance you call a
swell" In Short the organ has no expression.
Organists may complacently read the ac-
knowledgment of the skill needful to over
come the difficulties of their instrument, but
they will be quite unable to concede that
the element of human mind, heart and soul
could be replaced in organ playing by any
mere mechanism however delicate and
ideally perfect. The organ does respond in
its own way to the "mood of the player"
Each musical instrument does this in its
own way. 1t is wrong to say OF one lit has
no expression, simply because its manner
OF expression differs from others.
Granted that the organ cannot produce a
portimento or slur, or modify pitch in less
degrees than by semitones; neither can the
piano. Nor can the piano give sustained
tone with creSc e dim. effect. The organ
can do this; but neither it nor the plano can
delicately modify the quality of a single
sustained tone. The violin family, being
able to produce all these effects. rank as the
most expressive of instruments. The piano
surpasses the organ in the one point of being
able to give a more delicate shading to o
succession of tones and to give different
shading to two or three phrases played at
the same time. But the organf more
than offsets this by the far greater
extent of its dynamic degrees tits
pidRiSSino being softer, its Jortissinao
louder) and, especially, by the well-nigh
endless variety of its contrasting qualities
of tone. 1t is in the latter point that the
organ stands absolutely alone among Instru-
ments-as we'll as in the inherent nobility
and dignity of its most characteristic species
of tone, the diapason. Adding to the points
named, the responsiveness of the organ to
different varieties of attack and phrasing,
and its capability for musical expression
and that in no small degree-is fully made
out.
1t is, therefore, manifestly unfair to limit
le field of organ playing to the compost
,ons of the old school-or, as one of DR..
larke's interlocutors puts it, to Handel,
,ach and Rink. 1t is on the other hand
nfair to expect the organ to reproduce
atisfactorily the effects of a full orchestra;
Unfair to expect it to show even its own best
and distinctive qualities in compositions
originally intended for some other instru-
ment or combination of instruments. 1t is
a mistake for one speaker (evidently the
authors mouthpiece in the coterie
supposed to be discussing the subiect)
to conhne good organ music to, first,
'slow, massive SUGGESTIONS of chords" and,
second, ''the tangled, intricate devices of
contrapuntal:writing, particularly fugues,"
and, above all, fugues destitute of the emo
tional element. 1t is even more of a mis-
take for another of the speakers to see in the
alleged lack of expression in the organ "the
reason why the movements from symphonies
and sonatas, that organists so often play,
are so unsatisfactory to one who is familiar
with their effect when given by the instru-
ments for which they were written
May the day never come when works of |
the strict, old classical school are excluded |
from the pale of good organ music.
The day surely never will come |
when the amount of true organ music is
so meager that transcriptions from other in |
struments will be needed to exc it out.
Happily the organ yet retains all its pre-
emlnence in massive, dignifed churchly mu-
sic, and in clear, symmetrical, contrapuntaI
playing as well. And with the ad-
vance of mechanical arts as applied
to this most complex and intricate
musical instrument, there has come a capa-
bility for lighter, more delicate, more varied
and more emotional effects, which now are
lust as truly within the legitimate scope of
the instrument of to-day as the chorale and
fugue were the legitimate field of Bach's
organ In the Thomas-Kirche. But it is not
needtul for the organist, wishing to show off
The enlarged resources of his modern instru-
nent, TO wander out into the field of the
piano or of the orchestra. He can and
should ind all possible opportunity
or this within the works of the
modern organ writers. The organist
If to-day who not only knows the venerable
,lasslcs, but has mastered we'll the COM
positions of Mendelssohn and his German
successors, of Smart and his English follow
RS, of Guilmart and his French cotempor-
Iries, will have no difficulty in demonstrat-
ng that the organ has ample and varied
bowers of expression among the multitude
If qualities that have crowned it king of
Instruments.
-
The difficulties lately arising In San Fran
'isco through the mesalliance of musical
md trades unions have already been alluded
o in this column. The whole story. as
'rlet1y told by the american Musician last
week, contains food for serious reflection on
be part of both of the local musical unions
ust at this time. The story is as follows:
The evil results of the affiliation of profes.
ional musicians with labor organizations have
ust been made manifest in a most disagreeable
'ay in San Francisco. On the Fourth of July
lst, the members of the First Second and |
bird Regimental bands refused to report for
uty and turn out with their respective regi- |
lents, because the Confederated Trades AS |
emoIy had ordered the Musicians Union
2 order its members not to parade The first |
Dyectlon raised was the payment of less than |
be union rate; but when guaranteed the full |
ay demanded, they still refused because nom
mon bands were employed in the civic part of |
ne parade. The men were warned of the evil
onsequences likely to result from their in
n6ordinati but still persisted in it, All the
lembers OF the regimental bands (except a few
no reported for duty, about 75 in number.
ere placed under arrest, a court martial
as convened, and the frs: to be tried was ,
'aac Z. Coggini and II. G. Kropp, leaders of
he Second and Third Regimental Bands re-
oectlvely. Both were convicted of mutiny
nd dlsobedience of orders, fined $50 each and
shonorably dismissed from the National | :
nard of California. As these were test cases