Which sounds with the help of pipes (metal, wooden, without reeds and with reeds) of various timbres, into which air is pumped using bellows.
Playing the organ carried out using several hand keyboards (manuals) and a pedal keyboard.
By sound richness and abundance musical means The organ ranks first among all instruments and is sometimes called the “king of instruments.” Due to its expressiveness, it has long become the property of the church.
A person who plays music on an organ is called organist.
Soldiers of the Third Reich called the Soviet BM-13 multiple launch rocket systems “Stalin’s organ” because of the sound made by the missiles’ tails.
History of the organ
The embryo of the organ can be seen in, as well as in. It is believed that the organ (hydraulos; also hydraulikon, hydraulis - “water organ”) was invented by the Greek Ctesibius, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt in 296 - 228. BC e. An image of a similar instrument appears 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 (666) introduced the organ into the Catholic Church. In the 8th century, Byzantium was famous for its organs.
The art of building organs also developed in Italy, from where they were exported to France in the 9th century. This art later developed in Germany. The organ began to receive its greatest and most widespread use in the 14th century. In the 14th century, a pedal appeared in the organ, that is, a keyboard for the feet.
Medieval organs, in comparison with later ones, were of crude workmanship; a manual keyboard, for example, consisted of keys with a width of 5 to 7 cm, the distance between the keys reached one and a half cm. They struck the keys not with their fingers, as now, but with their fists.
In the 15th century, the keys were reduced and the number of pipes increased.
Organ structure
Improved organs have reached a huge number of pipes and tubes; for example, the organ in Paris in the Church of St. Sulpice has 7 thousand pipes and tubes. An organ has pipes and tubes of the following sizes: at 1 foot, notes sound three octaves higher than written, at 2 feet, notes sound two octaves higher than written, at 4 feet, notes sound an octave higher than written, at 8 feet, notes sound as written, at 16 feet - the notes sound an octave lower than the written ones, at 32 feet - the notes sound two octaves lower than the written ones. Closing the pipe at the top lowers the sounds produced by an octave. Not all organs have large pipes.
There are from 1 to 7 keyboards in an organ (usually 2-4); they are called manuals. Although each organ keyboard has a volume of 4-5 octaves, thanks to the pipes sounding two octaves lower or three octaves higher than the written notes, the volume of a large organ has 9.5 octaves. Each set of pipes of the same timbre constitutes, as it were, a separate instrument and is called register.
Each of the push-in or pull-out buttons or registers (located above the keyboard or on the sides of the instrument) activates a corresponding row of tubes. Each button or register has its own name and corresponding inscription, indicating the length of the largest pipe of this register. The composer can indicate the name of the register and the size of the pipes in the notes above the place where this register should be used. (Selecting registers for execution piece of music called registration.) There are from 2 to 300 registers in organs (most often from 8 to 60).
All registers fall into two categories:
- Registers with pipes without reeds(labial registers). This category includes registers of open flutes, registers of closed flutes (bourdons), registers of overtones (mixtures), in which each note has several (weaker) harmonic overtones.
- Registers that have pipes with reeds(reed registers). The combination of the registers of both categories together with the mixture is called plein jeu.
Keyboards or manuals are located in the organs in a terrace, one above the other. In addition to them, there is also a pedal keyboard (from 5 to 32 keys), mainly for low sounds. The hand part is written on two staves - in the keys and as for. The pedal part is often written separately on one staff. The pedal keyboard, simply called a “pedal,” is played with both feet, using alternately the heel and the toe (until the 19th century, only the toe). An organ without a pedal is called positive, a small portable organ is called portable.
Manuals in organs have names that depend on the location of the pipes in the organ.
- Main manual (having the loudest registers) - in German tradition called Hauptwerk(French Grand orgue, Grand clavier) and is located closest to the performer, or on the second row;
- The second most important and loudest manual in the German tradition is called Oberwerk(louder option) or Positive(light version) (French Positif), if the pipes of this manual are located ABOVE the Hauptwerk pipes, or Ruckpositiv, if the pipes of this manual are located separately from the other pipes of the organ and are installed behind the organist’s back; The Oberwerk and Positiv keys on the game console are located a level above the Hauptwerk keys, and the Ruckpositiv keys are located below the Hauptwerk keys, thereby reproducing the architectural structure of the instrument.
- A manual, the pipes of which are located inside a kind of box that has vertical shutters in the front part, in the German tradition is called Schwellwerk(French Recit (expressif). Schwellwerk can be located either at the very top of the organ (the more common option) or on the same level as the Hauptwerk. Schwellwerk keys are located on the gaming console at a higher high level than Hauptwerk, Oberwerk, Positiv, Ruckpositiv.
- Existing types of manuals: Hinterwerk(the pipes are located at the back of the organ), Brustwerk(the pipes are located directly above the organist's seat), Solowerk(solo registers, very loud pipes located in a separate group), Choir etc.
The following devices serve as relief for players and as a means to enhance or weaken sonority:
Copula- a mechanism by which two keyboards are connected, and the registers extended to them act simultaneously. Copula allows a player playing one manual to use the extended registers of another.
4 footrests above the pedal board(Pеdale de combinaison, Tritte), each of which acts on a known specific combination of registers.
Blinds- a device consisting of doors that close and open the entire room with pipes of different registers, as a result of which the sound is strengthened or weakened. The doors are driven by a step (channel).
Since the registers are in different authorities different countries and the eras are not the same, then in an organ part they are usually not indicated in detail: only the manual, the designation of pipes with or without reeds and the size of the pipes are written over one or another place in the organ part. Other details are provided to the contractor.
The organ is often combined with an orchestra and singing in oratorios, cantatas, psalms, and also in opera.
There are also electrical (electronic) organs, e.g. Hammond.
Composers who composed organ music
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Adam Reincken
Johann Pachelbel
Dietrich Buxtehude
Girolamo Frescobaldi
Johann Jacob Froberger
George Frideric Handel
Siegfried Karg-Ehlert
Henry Purcell
Max Reger
Vincent Lubeck
Johann Ludwig Krebs
Matthias Weckmann
Dominico Zipoli
Cesar Frank
Video: Organ on video + sound
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Organ is a keyboard and wind instrument musical instrument. The organ is considered the king of musical instruments. It is difficult to find an instrument as huge, complex, and rich in sound colors.
The organ is one of ancient instruments. Its ancestors are considered to be the bagpipes and the wooden pan flute. In the oldest chronicles of Greece of the third century BC there is mention of a water organ - hydraulos. It is called water because air was supplied to it through the pipes using a water pump. It could produce unusually loud, piercing sounds, so it was used by the Greeks and Romans at horse races, during circus performances, in a word, where a large number of people gathered.
Already in the first centuries of our era, the water pump was replaced by leather bellows, which forced air into the pipes. In the 7th century AD, with the permission of Pope Vitalian, organs began to be used for worship in the Catholic Church. But they were played only on certain holidays, since the organ sounded very loud and its sound was not soft. After 500 years, the organs began to spread throughout Europe. Changed and appearance instrument: there were more pipes, a keyboard appeared (previously, the keys were replaced by wide wooden plates).
In the 17th and 18th centuries, organs were built in almost all major cathedrals in Europe. Composers created great amount works for this instrument. In addition to sacred music, entire concerts of secular music began to be written for the organ. Organs began to be improved.
The pinnacle of “organ construction” was an instrument with 33,112 pipes and seven keyboards. Such an organ was built in America in Atlantic City, but it was very difficult to play, so it remained the only “king of organs” of its kind; no one else tried to build such a large instrument.
The process of sound production in an organ is very complex. There are two types of keyboards on the organ pulpit: manual (there are from 1 to 5 of them) and foot-operated. In addition to the keyboards, there are register knobs on the pulpit, with the help of which the musician selects the timbre of sounds. The air pump pumps air, the pedals open the valves of a specific block of pipes, and the keys open the valves of individual pipes.
The pipes of the organ are divided into reed and labial. Air passes through the pipe, causing the reed to vibrate - thus creating sound. In labial pipes, sound occurs because pressurized air passes through holes at the top and bottom of the pipe. The pipes themselves are made of metal (lead, tin, copper) or wood. Organ pipe can produce sound only of a certain pitch, timbre and strength. The pipes are combined into rows called registers. The average number of pipes in an organ is 10,000.
It should be noted that pipes containing a large amount of lead in their alloy become deformed over time. Because of this, the sound of the organ becomes worse. Such pipes usually have a blue tint.
The sound quality depends on the additives that are added to the alloy of the organ pipes. These are antimony, silver, copper, brass, zinc.
The organ pipes have different shapes. They are open and closed. Open pipes allow you to produce a loud sound, closed pipes muffle the sound. If the pipe expands upward, then the sound will be clear and open, and if it narrows, then the sound will be compressed and mysterious. The diameter of the pipes also affects the sound quality. Small diameter pipes produce intense sounds, large diameter pipes produce open and soft sounds.
XYLOPHONE
Ding-ding, tone-tone,
Xylo-xylo-xylo-phone.
The xylophone climbed onto the closet,
He was scared of the flamingo.
- You, flamingo, wait!
Don't knock too hard with your beak,
Better take a stick.
And you will hear a gentle ringing.
Just a miracle - the xylophone.
"Xylophone" translated from Greek means singing tree. The first xylophone appeared perhaps when primitive I hit a dry tree with a stick and heard an unusual sound. Currently, similar simple xylophones are found in Africa, Asia and South America. It was brought to Europe by traveling musicians.
The xylophone consists of large quantity wooden blocks, producing sounds of different pitches upon impact. The bars are made from maple, alder, walnut, and sometimes rosewood. They are placed on a braided rope made of straw, matting or rubber. The structure is usually installed on a table; sometimes resonators—hollow metal cylinders—are fixed under the blocks. The xylophone sound is abrupt, dry and clicking. It is removed using “goat legs” - wooden sticks with thickenings at the ends, similar to spoons.
Sometimes metal blocks are used instead of wooden blocks. This is a metallophone or vibraphone. All the records are located on the same level, while on the xylophone the bars corresponding to the black keys of the piano are slightly raised. The vibraphone is a complex structure. It is placed on a special three-frame table-stand, moved on four wheels. Appeared in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century. Due to its characteristic timbre and great virtuoso capabilities, the vibraphone is widely used in music. But if you attach a keyboard mechanism like a piano to a metallophone, you get a celesta instrument. It was made by master Auguste Muster in 1886. It is more convenient to play the celesta than with sticks on a metallophone. And the sound is just as gentle and sonorous. During his visit to Paris, P. I. Tchaikovsky heard the celesta and was so fascinated by its magical sound that he introduced the part of this instrument into his works: the ballad “The Voevoda” and the ballet “The Nutcracker.”
For the first time in an orchestra, the xylophone was used by Ferdinand Kauer in mid-19th V. in the work "Seven Variations". One of the most famous works in which the xylophone is used is Saint-Saëns’ symphonic poem “Dance of Death”. The Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov in “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” assigned the xylophone the song “In the garden, in the vegetable garden” to depict a squirrel gnawing golden nuts.
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 different sizes, through which air is blown, and the pipes begin to hum, or “sing.” Moreover, the organ allows you to continue the sound for as long as you like at a constant volume.
The pipes are located horizontally and vertically, some are suspended on hooks. In modern organs their number reaches 30 thousand! The largest pipes are over 10 m high, and the smallest are 1 cm.
The organ management system is called the department. This is a complex mechanism controlled 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 gives rise to a new timbre, not similar to the original one. The organ can replace an entire orchestra because its range exceeds the range of all the instruments in the orchestra.
The organ has been known since ancient times. The creator of the organ is considered to be the Greek mechanic Ctesibius, who lived in Alexandria in 296–228. BC e. He invented a water organ - the hydraulos.
Nowadays, the organ is most often used in religious services. Some churches and cathedrals hold concerts or organ services. In addition, there are organs installed in concert halls. Most large organ in the world is located in the American city of Philadelphia, in the McCays department store. Its weight is 287 tons.
Many composers wrote music for the organ, but it was the genius composer Johann Sebastian Bach who revealed its capabilities as a virtuoso performer and created works of unsurpassed depth in its depth.
In Russia, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka paid significant attention to organ art.
It is almost impossible to master playing the organ on your own. This requires a lot of musical experience. Learning to play the organ begins in schools, if you have the skills to play the piano. But it is possible to become proficient in playing this instrument by continuing your studies at the conservatory.
MYSTERY
The tool has been around for a long time
Decorated the cathedral.
Decorates and plays
The entire orchestra replaces
(Organ)
VIOLIN
It is generally accepted that the first string instrument invented by the Indian (according to another version, Ceylonese) king Ravana, who lived about five thousand years ago. This is probably why the distant ancestor of the violin was called ravanastron. It consisted of an empty cylinder made of mulberry wood, one side of which was covered with the skin of a broad-scaled water boa constrictor. The strings were made from gazelle intestines, and the bow, curved in an arc, was made from bamboo wood. Ravanastron has been preserved to this day among wandering Buddhist monks.
The violin appeared on the professional stage at the end of the 15th century, and its “inventor” was an Italian from Bologna, Gaspar Duifopruggar. The oldest violin, made by him in 1510 for King Franz I, is kept in the Netherland collection in Aachen (Holland). The violin owes its current appearance and, of course, sound to the Italian violin makers Amati, Stradivari and Guarneri. Violins made by Magini are also highly prized. Their violins, made from well-dried and varnished maple and spruce plates, sang more beautifully than the most beautiful voices. The instruments made by these masters are still played by the best violinists in the world. Stradivarius designed a violin that is still unsurpassed, with a rich timbre and exceptional “range” - the ability to fill huge halls with sound. It had kinks and irregularities inside the body, due to which the sound was enriched due to the appearance of a large number of high overtones.
The violin is the highest timbre instrument of the bow family. It consists of two main parts - the body and the neck, between which four steel strings are stretched. The main advantage of the violin is the melodiousness of the timbre. It can be used to perform both lyrical melodies and dazzling fast passages. The violin is the most common solo instrument in the orchestra. The Italian virtuoso and composer Niccolo Paganini greatly expanded the capabilities of the violin. Subsequently, many other violinists appeared, but no one could surpass him. Wonderful works for the violin were created by Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and others.
Oistrakh, or, as he was called, “King David,” is considered an outstanding Russian violinist.
There is an instrument that looks very similar to a violin, but is slightly larger. This is an alt.
MYSTERY
Carved in the forest, smoothly hewn,
Singing and singing, what is it called?
(Violin)
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 by using hundreds of metal pipes of varying sizes through which air is blown, causing the pipes to hum, or “sing.” Moreover, the organ allows you to continue the sound for as long as you like at a constant volume.
The pipes are located horizontally and vertically, some are suspended on hooks. In modern organs their number reaches 30 thousand! The largest pipes are over 10 m high, and the smallest are 1 cm.
The organ management system is called the department. This is a complex mechanism controlled 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 gives rise to a new timbre, not similar to the original one. The organ can replace an entire orchestra because its range exceeds the range of all the instruments in the orchestra.
The organ has been known since ancient times. The creator of the organ is considered to be the Greek mechanic Ctesibius, who lived in Alexandria in 296–228. BC e. He invented a water organ - the hydraulos.
Nowadays, the organ is most often used in religious services. Some churches and cathedrals hold 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 McCays department store. Its weight is 287 tons.
Many composers wrote music for the organ, but it was the genius composer Johann Sebastian Bach who revealed its capabilities as a virtuoso performer and created works of unsurpassed depth in its depth.
In Russia, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka paid significant attention to organ art.
It is almost impossible to master playing the organ on your own. This requires a lot of musical experience. Learning to play the organ begins in schools, if you have the skills to play the piano. But it is possible to become proficient in playing this instrument by continuing your studies at the conservatory.
MYSTERY
The tool has been around for a long time
Decorated the cathedral.
Decorates and plays
The entire orchestra replaces
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 playing musical instruments bore its first fruits already in the 2nd-3rd centuries BC: hydraulos entered the musical scene 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 having fewer pipes and large size 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.
Despite the inextricable connection with the Catholic Church, quite a lot of “secular” works were 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 back to 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. Wooden pipes square section produce bassy, low-pitched sounds, while the tin-lead alloy metal tubes have a circular 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 Concert hall them. Tchaikovsky.
The development of new directions and styles has significantly increased the number of types and varieties of modern organs, with their own differences in operating principle 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.
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