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105-434: Controls at the console called stops select which ranks of pipes are used. These controls are generally either draw knobs (or stop knobs), which engage the stops when pulled out from the console; stop tablets (or tilting tablets) which are hinged at their far end; or rocker-tablets, which rock up and down on a central axle. Different combinations of stops change the timbre of the instrument considerably. The selection of stops

210-459: A basso continuo group (comprising chord-playing instrumentalists such as harpsichordists and lute players improvising chords from a figured bass part) while a group of bass instruments— viol , cello , double bass —played the bassline . A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite . While the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed purely for listening, not for accompanying dancers. During

315-529: A coupler allows the pipes of one division to be played simultaneously from an alternative manual. For example, a coupler labelled "Swell to Great" allows the stops of the Swell division to be played by the Great manual. It is unnecessary to couple the pipes of a division to the manual of the same name (for example, coupling the Great division to the Great manual), because those stops play by default on that manual (though this

420-437: A lute player who would play the bassline and improvise the chords and several bass instruments (e.g., bass viola , cello , double bass ) which would play the bassline. With the writing of the operas L'Orfeo and L'incoronazione di Poppea among others, Monteverdi brought considerable attention to this new genre. This Venetian style was taken handily to Germany by Heinrich Schütz , whose diverse style also evolved into

525-513: A Great division may look like this: The standard position for these columns of stops (assuming drawknobs are used) is for the Choir or Positive division to be on the outside of the player's right, with the Great nearer the center of the console and the music rest. On the left hand side, the Pedal division is on the outside, with the Swell to the inside. Other divisions can be placed on either side, depending on

630-468: A court style composer is Jean-Baptiste Lully . He purchased patents from the monarchy to be the sole composer of operas for the French king and to prevent others from having operas staged. He completed 15 lyric tragedies and left unfinished Achille et Polyxène . Lully was an early example of a conductor ; he would beat the time with a large staff to keep his ensembles together. Musically, he did not establish

735-443: A few cases where space for pipes is limited, making extension and/or unification necessary. Borrowing 16′ manual ranks for the pedal division is more widely employed because of the expense and space requirements of 16′ stops and the versatility this allows. The pitch produced by an organ pipe is a function of its length. All else equal, longer pipes produce lower-pitched notes, and shorter pipes are higher in pitch. An organ stop uses

840-489: A ft=415 Hz, modern instruments at a ft=440 Hz, or Renaissance instruments at a ft=466 Hz. Modern organs are typically tuned in equal temperament , in which every semitone is 100  cents wide. Many organs that are built today following historical models are still tuned to historically-appropriate temperaments. The range (compass) of the keyboards on an organ has varied widely between different time periods and different nationalities. Portative organs may have

945-436: A full ensemble. The order in which the stops are activated is usually preset by the organ builder and the crescendo pedal serves as a quick way for the organist to get to a registration that will sound attractive at a given volume without choosing a particular registration, or simply to get to full organ. Most organs also have a piston and/or toe-stud labeled " Tutti " or " Sforzando " that activates full organ. A device called

1050-497: A given pipe is inversely proportional to its length (half the length = double the pitch), meaning that a 4′ stop speaks exactly one octave higher than an 8′ stop. Likewise, a 2′ stop speaks one octave higher than a 4′ stop. Conversely, a 16′ stop speaks one octave below an 8' stop; and a 32′ stop speaks one octave below a 16′ stop. Octave pitch lengths used in actual organs include 64′, 32′, 16′, 8′, 4′, 2′, 1′, 1 ⁄ 2 ′, and 1 ⁄ 4 ′. Example: Ranks that do not speak at

1155-408: A given rank of pipes. The slider has small holes drilled in it, one for each pipe in the rank. When the stop is set such that pipes are inactive, the holes are misaligned with the pipes, preventing the air from flowing up into the pipes above. When the stop is set such that the pipes are active, the slider moves over, aligning the holes with the pipes, allowing air to reach them. Because the slider chest

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1260-441: A half octaves, from C to g ′ ). These ranges apply to the notes written on the page; depending on the registration, the actual range of the instrument may be much greater. On most organs, at least one division will be enclosed . On a two-manual (Great and Swell) organ, this will be the Swell division (from where the name comes); on larger organs often part, or all of, the Choir and Solo divisions will be enclosed as well. Enclosure

1365-446: A horizontal row of stop tabs, a similar arrangement would be applied left to right rather than bottom to top. Among stops of the same pitch, louder stops are generally placed below softer ones (so an Open Diapason would be placed towards the bottom and a Dulciana towards the top), but this is less predictable since it depends on the exact stops available and the space available to arrange stop knobs. Thus, an example stop configuration for

1470-993: A major portion of the " classical music " canon , and is widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term " baroque " comes from the Portuguese word barroco , meaning " misshapen pearl ". The works of Antonio Vivaldi , George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach are considered the pinnacle of the Baroque period. Other key composers of the Baroque era include Claudio Monteverdi , Domenico Scarlatti , Alessandro Scarlatti , Alessandro Stradella , Tomaso Albinoni , Johann Pachelbel , Henry Purcell , Georg Philipp Telemann , Jean-Baptiste Lully , Jean-Philippe Rameau , Marc-Antoine Charpentier , Arcangelo Corelli , François Couperin , Johann Hermann Schein , Heinrich Schütz , Samuel Scheidt , Dieterich Buxtehude , Gaspar Sanz , José de Nebra , Antonio Soler , Carlos Seixas , Adam Jarzębski and others, with Giovanni Battista Pergolesi being

1575-465: A mixture is denoted by a Roman numeral on the stop knob; for example, a stop labeled "Mixture V" would contain five pipes for every note. So, for every key pressed, five different pipes sound (all controlled by the same stop). A mixture made of octaves and fifths is called a 'quint mixture', while a mixture made of octaves, fifths, and a major third is called a 'tierce mixture'. As a rule, the fifths and thirds of mixtures are tuned pure in relation to

1680-520: A mutation stop gives the answer as to what pitch the rank sounds. For example, a stop labeled 2 + 2 ⁄ 3 ′ (or one-third of 8′) has three times the frequency; i.e., the interval of a twelfth above unison pitch. This third harmonic (G) (twelfth, quint, qvinta, rorkvint, or nazard [nasard]) is the most-common pitch, followed by the fifth harmonic (E) (tierce [terz or ters on some organs]) ( 1 + 3 ⁄ 5 ′) and sixth (G) (larigot, nasat) ( 1 + 1 ⁄ 3 ′), with rarer examples from higher in

1785-430: A near horizontal position ("open"). Unlike a car accelerator pedal, a balanced expression pedal remains in whatever position it was last moved to. Historically, the enclosure was operated by the use of the ratchet swell lever , a spring-loaded lever that locks into two or three positions controlling the opening of the shutters. Many ratchet swell devices were replaced by the more advanced balanced pedal because it allows

1890-566: A range of only an octave or two, while a few large organs, such as the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ , may have some manual keyboards approaching the size of a modern piano. German organs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries featured manual ranges from C to f ′ ′ ′ and pedal ranges from C to d ′ , though some organs only had manual ranges that extended down to F. Many French organs of this period had pedal ranges that went down to AA (though this ravalement applied only to

1995-429: A rank of pipes is denoted by a number on the stop knob. A stop which speaks at unison pitch, or "native pitch", is known as an 8′ (pronounced "eight-foot") stop. This nomenclature refers to the approximate length of the longest pipe in a rank of open pipes . In a rank of stopped pipes , the lowest pipe is about 4 feet long, but because it sounds at unison pitch, it is also known as an 8′ stop. The octave sounded by

2100-556: A rank to sound, they operate the corresponding control at the console, allowing wind to flow to the pipes. Likewise, the organist can deny wind to the pipes by operating the same control in the opposite direction. Common stop controls include stop knobs , which move in and out of the console, and stop tabs , which toggle back and forth in position. Some organs, particularly smaller historical organs from England , Spain or Portugal , feature divided registers , in which there are two stop knobs for certain ranks. One stop knob will control

2205-417: A set (rank) of pipes of graduated lengths to produce the range of notes needed. Stops with pipes tuned to sound the pitch normally associated with the keys (i.e. the pitch of the same keys on a piano ) are called "unison stops". Other stops use pipework that is longer or shorter than that of unison ranks to speak at a fixed interval above or below unison pitch ("octave pitch" or "mutation pitch"). The pitch of

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2310-416: A single or multiple ranks. While nowadays one speaks of "drawing" a stop to select a particular rank or set of ranks, the earliest organs were constructed with all ranks "on" by default. The mechanism for operating the stops varies widely, but the principle is the same: the stop control at the console allows the organist to select which ranks of pipes will sound when a key is pressed. When the organist desires

2415-443: A solo line well into acoustic space against an accompaniment using stops in the main organ case; such Sesquialteras are therefore particularly associated with Lutheran chorale-based organ repertoire. Sesquialteras are often distinguished from Cornet stops because whereas Cornets (especially French examples) use wide-scaled, flute-toned pipes, Sesquialteras were generally made from narrower, principal-toned pipes (though this distinction

2520-407: A solo singing accompanied by a kithara (an ancient strummed string instrument). The early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo Peri 's Dafne and L'Euridice , marked the beginning of opera, which was a catalyst for Baroque music. Concerning music theory, the more widespread use of figured bass (also known as thorough bass ) represents the developing importance of harmony as

2625-459: A technical term from scholastic logic. The term "baroque" is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of about 150 years. Though it was long thought that the word as a critical term was first applied to architecture, in fact it appears earlier in reference to music, in an anonymous, satirical review of

2730-550: A tool for expression and communication. The etymology of baroque is likely via the French baroque (which originally meant a pearl of irregular shape), and from the Portuguese barroco ("irregular pearl"); also related are the Spanish barrueco and the Italian barocco . The term is of uncertain ultimate origin, but possibly from Latin verrūca ("wart") or possibly from Baroco ,

2835-519: Is Antonio Vivaldi , who later composed hundreds of works based on the principles in Corelli's trio sonatas and concerti. In contrast to these composers, Dieterich Buxtehude was not a creature of court but instead was church musician, holding the posts of organist and Werkmeister at the Marienkirche at Lübeck. His duties as Werkmeister involved acting as the secretary, treasurer, and business manager of

2940-584: Is a device that allows the sounds played on the pedals to be split, so the lower octave (principally that of the left foot) plays stops from the pedal division while the upper half (played by the right foot), plays stops from one of the manual divisions. The choice of manual is at the discretion of the performer, as is the 'split point' of the system. The system can be found on the organs of Gloucester Cathedral , having been added by Nicholson & Co (Worcester) Ltd / David Briggs and Truro Cathedral , having been added by Mander Organs / David Briggs , as well as on

3045-506: Is called a Positif which means portable organ.) If it is included, the Solo manual is usually placed above the Swell. Some larger organs contain an Echo or Antiphonal division, usually controlled by a manual placed above the Solo. German and American organs generally use the same configuration of manuals as English organs. On French instruments, the main manual (the Grand Orgue) is at the bottom, with

3150-476: Is called the registration. On modern organs, the registration can be changed instantaneously with the aid of a combination action , usually featuring pistons. Pistons are buttons that can be pressed by the organist to change registrations; they are generally found between the manuals or above the pedalboard. In the latter case they are called toe studs or toe pistons (as opposed to thumb pistons). Most large organs have both preset and programmable pistons, with some of

3255-408: Is done with super- and sub-couplers, see below). By using the couplers, the entire resources of an organ can be played simultaneously from one manual. On a mechanical-action organ, a coupler may connect one division's manual directly to the other, actually moving the keys of the first manual when the second is played. Some organs feature a device to add the octave above or below what is being played by

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3360-581: Is especially associated with French organ builders, who used Cornets with particular regularity especially through the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, since French chorus reed stops (Trompette, Bombarde, Clairon) are very strong in the bass (having un-weighted tongues) but, when on low wind pressures, comparatively weak further up the compass; the Cornet was therefore used to strengthen the treble ranges of these chorus reed stops. A characteristic example of this use

3465-1543: Is labeled with the name of the rank it controls. In general, that label gives the organist two vital pieces of information about the rank of pipes in question: This is an example of a pipe organ stoplist , showing both common stop names and conventional formatting. Within each division, flues are listed before reeds , then low to high pitch, then louder to softer stops within a pitch level. Separate celeste stops are next to their corresponding normally-tuned stops. Reed stops are often labeled in red on stop knobs or tabs. GREAT Prestant 16′ Prestant 8′ Gemshorn 8′ Chimney Flute 8′ Principal 4′ Harmonic Flute 4′ Twelfth 2 + 2 ⁄ 3 ′ Super Octave 2′ Mixture IV Trumpet 8′ Clarion 4′ Tremulant Swell to Great SWELL Bourdon 16′ Open Diapason 8′ Stopped Diapason 8′ Salicional 8′ Voix Céleste 8′ Octave 4′ Röhr Flute 4′ Nazard 2 + 2 ⁄ 3 ′ Block Flute 2′ Tierce 1 + 3 ⁄ 5 ′ Cymbale III Contra Fagotto 16′ Trompette 8′ Hautbois 8′ Vox Humana 8′ Tremulant PEDAL Subbass 32′ Open Diapason 16′ Subbass 16′ Lieblich Gedeckt 16′ Octave 8′ Bourdon 8′ Choral Bass 4′ Rausch Quinte II Posaune 16′ Tromba 8′ Great to Pedal Swell to Pedal Organ pipes fall into five broad categories: Percussion stops (often referred to as "toy counters" or "toy stops"), unlike other organ stops, are not aerophones , but actual embedded percussion instruments (although they may still be actuated by

3570-511: Is often labelled the Age of Absolutism , personified by Louis XIV of France. The style of palace, and the court system of manners and arts he fostered became the model for the rest of Europe. The realities of rising church and state patronage created the demand for organized public music, as the increasing availability of instruments created the demand for chamber music , which is music for a small ensemble of instrumentalists. One pre-eminent example of

3675-519: Is played with at least one keyboard , with configurations featuring from two to five keyboards being the most common. A keyboard to be played by the hands is called a manual (from the Latin manus , "hand"); an organ with four keyboards is said to have four manuals. Most organs also have a pedalboard , a large keyboard to be played by the feet. [Note that the keyboards are never actually referred to as "keyboards", but as "manuals" and "pedalboard", as

3780-413: Is somewhat less widely observed in 20th-century organs than earlier organs). Sesquialteras therefore often have a sharper sound than Cornets. Pipe ranks have particular names, which depend on a number of factors ranging from the physical and tone attributes of the pipes in that rank, to the country and era in which the organ was manufactured, to the pipes' physical location within the organ. Each stop knob

3885-522: Is the classic French registration known as the 'Grand Jeu': a combination of Trompettes, Clairons and Cornets, together with the Prestant (by contrast the 'Plein Jeu' does not include cornets). In French organs, when an 8 ft Bourdon was used with 4′ and 2′ stops plus a Nasard and Tierce the resulting ensemble was known as a 'Cornet Décomposée' (often confused with the 'Cornet Séparée' described above) since it had

3990-429: Is the term for the device that allows volume control ( crescendo and diminuendo ) for a manual without the addition or subtraction of stops. All the pipes for the division are surrounded by a box-like structure (often simply called the swell box ). One side of the box, usually that facing the console or the listener, will be constructed from vertical or horizontal palettes (wooden flaps) which can be opened or closed from

4095-566: The Encyclopédie : "Baroque music is that in which the harmony is confused, and loaded with modulations and dissonances. The singing is harsh and unnatural, the intonation difficult, and the movement limited. It appears that term comes from the word 'baroco' used by logicians". Rousseau was referring to the philosophical term baroco , in use since the 13th century to describe a type of elaborate and, for some, unnecessarily complicated academic argument. The systematic application by historians of

4200-493: The Western classical music practice. For instance, Italian composers switched to the galant style around 1730, while German composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach largely continued to write in the baroque style up to 1750. The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in

4305-468: The concerto grosso . Whereas Lully was ensconced at court, Corelli was one of the first composers to publish widely and have his music performed all over Europe. As with Lully's stylization and organization of the opera, the concerto grosso is built on strong contrasts—sections alternate between those played by the full orchestra, and those played by a smaller group. Fast sections and slow sections were juxtaposed against each other. Numbered among his students

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4410-462: The Baroque era to its climax, the High Baroque. Italy: France: Italy: Proliferation: France: Germany: Bohemia : Poland : Galant music : Bach's elder sons and pupils : Mannheim school : A characteristic of the Baroque form was the dance suite . Some dance suites by Bach are called partitas , although this term is also used for other collections of pieces. While

4515-560: The Choir organ), typically starting at 17.19.22 and then breaking back to 12.15.17 further up the compass and intended to be used in the chorus to help blend reed and flue stops together. By contrast, the Dutch, German and Scandinavian Sesquialteras of the seventeenth and eighteenth century were solo stops (typically 12.17), often (though by no means exclusively) found in the Rückpositiv division, from whose gallery-edge case position they could project

4620-400: The Cornet and so the quint and tierce ranks can be placed anywhere in the configuration. For example, the configurations: 15.17.19, 17.19.22, and 19.22.24 are all equally valid as the configurations for a Sesquialtera. Sesquialtera stops can be solo or chorus stops. The British Victorian Sesquialtera was often the only Mixture stop on a given department (usually the Great or Swell organ; rarely

4725-668: The Positif and the Récit above it. If there are more manuals, the Bombarde is usually above the Récit and the Grand Choeur is below the Grand Orgue or above the Bombarde. In addition to names, the manuals may be numbered with Roman numerals, starting from the bottom. Organists will frequently mark a part in their music with the number of the manual they intend to play it on, and this is sometimes seen in

4830-591: The Renaissance, notably Carlo Gesualdo ; However, the use of harmony directed towards tonality (a focus on a musical key that becomes the "home note" of a piece), rather than modality , marks the shift from the Renaissance into the Baroque period. This led to the idea that certain sequences of chords, rather than just notes, could provide a sense of closure at the end of a piece —one of the fundamental ideas that became known as tonality . By incorporating these new aspects of composition, Claudio Monteverdi furthered

4935-589: The Venetian Francesco Cavalli , who was principally an opera composer. Later important practitioners of this style include Antonio Cesti , Giovanni Legrenzi , and Alessandro Stradella , who additionally originated the concerto grosso style in his Sonate di viole. Arcangelo Corelli is remembered as influential for his achievements on the other side of musical technique—as a violinist who organized violin technique and pedagogy—and in purely instrumental music, particularly his advocacy and development of

5040-493: The adaptation of theories based on the plastic arts and literature to music. All of these efforts resulted in appreciable disagreement about time boundaries of the period, especially concerning when it began. In English the term acquired currency only in the 1940s, in the writings of Bukofzer and Paul Henry Lang . As late as 1960, there was still considerable dispute in academic circles, particularly in France and Britain, whether it

5145-429: The addition of extra pipes to the high and/or low ends of a rank in order to allow that rank to be borrowed by higher and/or lower stops. Unification and borrowing (duplexing) is mostly related to pipe organs with physical pipes; however, some (older) electronic organs also used unification and duplexing to expand the tonal resources of a limited number of synthesized virtual ranks. While unification and extension increase

5250-419: The amount of space available. Manual couplers and octave extensions are placed either within the stop knobs of the divisions that they control, or grouped together above the uppermost manual. The pistons, if present, are placed directly under the manual they control. To be more historically accurate, organs built along historical models will often use older schemes for organizing the keydesk controls. The organ

5355-403: The arts, especially music and drama . In reference to music, they based their ideals on a perception of Classical (especially ancient Greek ) musical drama that valued discourse and oration. Accordingly, they rejected their contemporaries' use of polyphony (multiple, independent melodic lines) and instrumental music, and discussed such ancient Greek music devices as monody , which consisted of

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5460-474: The bass by bassoons. Trumpets and kettledrums were frequently added for heroic scenes. The middle Baroque period in Italy is defined by the emergence of the vocal styles of cantata , oratorio , and opera during the 1630s, and a new concept of melody and harmony that elevated the status of the music to one of equality with the words, which formerly had been regarded as pre-eminent. The florid, coloratura monody of

5565-459: The case may be.] The collection of ranks controlled by a particular manual is called a division . The names of the divisions of the organ vary geographically and stylistically. Common names for divisions are: Like the arrangement of stops, the keyboard divisions are also arranged in a common order. Taking the English names as an example, the main manual (the bottom manual on two-manual instruments or

5670-485: The case with Echo/Antiphonal and Orchestral divisions, and sometimes it is seen with Solo and Bombarde divisions. Although manuals are almost always horizontal, organs with three or more manuals may incline the uppermost manuals towards the organist to make them easier to reach. Many new chamber organs and harpsichords today feature transposing keyboards, which can slide up or down one or more semitones. This allows these instruments to be played with Baroque instruments at

5775-707: The church, while his position as organist included playing for all the main services, sometimes in collaboration with other instrumentalists or vocalists, who were also paid by the church. Entirely outside of his official church duties, he organised and directed a concert series known as the Abendmusiken , which included performances of sacred dramatic works regarded by his contemporaries as the equivalent of operas. France: The work of George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach and their contemporaries, including Domenico Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi , Tomaso Albinoni , Jean-Philippe Rameau, Georg Philipp Telemann, and others advanced

5880-423: The console. This works in a similar fashion to a Venetian blind . When the box is 'open' it allows more sound to be heard than if it were 'closed'. The most common form of controlling the level of sound released from the enclosed box is by the use of a balanced expression pedal . This is usually placed above the centre of the pedalboard , rotating away from the organist from a near vertical position ("shut") to

5985-405: The couplers repeated for convenience as pistons and toe studs. Programmable pistons allow comprehensive and rapid control over changes in registration. Newer organs in the 2000s may have multiple levels of solid-state memory, allowing each piston to be programmed more than once. This allows more than one organist to store their own registrations. Many newer consoles also feature MIDI , which allows

6090-446: The early Baroque gave way to a simpler, more polished melodic style. These melodies were built from short, cadentially delimited ideas often based on stylized dance patterns drawn from the sarabande or the courante . The harmonies, too, might be simpler than in the early Baroque monody, to show expression in a lighter manner on the string and crescendos and diminuendos on longer notes. The accompanying bass lines were more integrated with

6195-451: The enclosure to be left at any point, without having to keep a foot on the lever. In addition, an organ may have a crescendo pedal , which would be found to the right of any expression pedals, and similarly balanced. Applying the crescendo pedal will incrementally activate the majority of the stops in the organ, starting with the softest stops and ending with the loudest, excluding only a handful of specialized stops that serve no purpose in

6300-453: The fifth just above or fourth below the fundamental (e.g., Bourdon 16′), can create the impression of a stop an octave lower than the fundamental (e.g., Bourdon 32′), saving the space and money otherwise needed for larger bass pipes; such an effect is termed a resultant . This is a list of some mutation stops. Certain stops called mixtures contain multiple ranks of pipes above unison pitch, usually octave and fifths. The number of ranks in

6405-428: The fingers. The "super-octave" adds the octave above, the "sub-octave" the octave below. These may be attached to one division only, for example "Swell octave" (the super is often assumed), or they may act as a coupler, for example "Swell octave to Great" which gives the effect while playing on the Great division of adding the Swell division an octave above what is being played. These can be used in conjunction with

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6510-456: The full compass; they generally play from either Middle C, or Tenor C, to the top. In British and French organs before the Victorian period, this allowed the Cornet stop to be raised up within the case relative to the other pipes of the Great organ around it for better projection; this is known as a 'Mounted Cornet' in English and 'Cornet Séparée' in French. Though used throughout Europe, the Cornet

6615-514: The fundamental. For thirds, the 14 cent discrepancy between the just and equal tempered interval is large enough to introduce noticeable beating in chords, and tierce mixtures became uncommon with the abandonment of meantone temperaments . Mixtures have numbers that correspond to the pitch they make. For example, a mixture configured as: 12.15.19.22 contains, at its lowest note, the following ranks: 2 + 2 ⁄ 3 ′, 2′, 1 + 1 ⁄ 3 ′, 1′. Mixtures usually have 'breaks' to prevent

6720-409: The inconvenience to the builder of making very small pipes at the top of the compass. A common configuration for the breaks is that for every octave the mixture lowers by a fifth. A cornet organ stop is similar to a mixture, but they are primarily used as solo voices, though their sound is not imitative of the orchestral cornet. A cornet will always contain the fifth and major third, and, depending on

6825-450: The keyboard player what intervals are to be played above each bass note. The keyboard player would improvise a chord voicing for each bass note. Composers began concerning themselves with harmonic progressions , and also employed the tritone , perceived as an unstable interval, to create dissonance (it was used in the dominant seventh chord and the diminished chord ). An interest in harmony had also existed among certain composers in

6930-412: The keyboard to which they are assigned: in most cases 61 pipes for a rank assigned to a manual and 32 pipes for a rank assigned to the pedal. Over the course of the history of the pipe organ, there have been several different designs by which stops are actuated. In the longest-standing design, known as the slider chest , there is a strip of material (typically wood) called a slider which fits underneath

7035-433: The linear underpinnings of polyphony. Harmony is the result of counterpoint , and figured bass is a visual representation of those harmonies commonly employed in musical performance. With figured bass, numbers, accidentals or symbols were placed above the bassline that was read by keyboard instrument players such as harpsichord players or pipe organists (or lutenists ). The numbers, accidentals or symbols indicated to

7140-560: The melody, producing a contrapuntal equivalence of the parts that later led to the device of an initial bass anticipation of the aria melody. This harmonic simplification also led to a new formal device of the differentiation of recitative (a more spoken part of opera) and aria (a part of opera that used sung melodies). The most important innovators of this style were the Romans Luigi Rossi and Giacomo Carissimi , who were primarily composers of cantatas and oratorios, respectively, and

7245-404: The middle manual on three-manual instruments) is traditionally called the Great, and the upper manual is called the Swell. If there is a third manual, it is usually the Choir and is placed below the Great. (The name "Choir" is a corruption of "Chair", as this division initially came from the practice of placing a smaller, self-contained, organ at the rear of the organist's bench. This is also why it

7350-401: The mixed vocal/instrumental forms of opera , cantata and oratorio and the instrumental forms of the solo concerto and sonata as musical genres. Dense, complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously (a popular example of this is the fugue ), was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works. Overall, Baroque music was

7455-556: The most prominent Baroque composer of sacred music. The Baroque saw the formalization of common-practice tonality , an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key ; this type of harmony has continued to be used extensively in Western classical and popular music . During the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. Baroque concerts were typically accompanied by

7560-484: The new nave console of Ripon Cathedral . The system as found in Truro Cathedral operates like this: This allows four different sounds to be played at once (without thumbing down across manuals), for example: Organ stop An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air (known as wind ) to a set of organ pipes . Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by

7665-429: The number of ranks, may contain octaves, and more rarely the minor seventh, and ninth. Cornet pipes are made of metal and voiced as flutes; the 8′ rank is usually made of stopped metal pipes. The ranks will be justly tuned to reinforce the fundamental. The most common configuration of ranks for an 8′ fundamental is as follows: II = 12.17; III = 12.15.17; IV = 8.12.15.17; V = 1.8.12.15.17. Cornet stops do not usually play

7770-464: The organ into sets according to note and timbre . A set of pipes producing the same timbre for each note is called a rank , while each key on a pipe organ controls a note which may be sounded by different ranks of pipes, alone or in combination. The use of stops enables the organist to selectively turn off ("stop") certain ranks in order to produce different combinations of sounds, as opposed to hearing all sounds simultaneously. A stop may be linked to

7875-421: The organist to record performances. It also allows an external keyboard to be plugged in, which assists in tuning and maintenance. The layout of an organ console is not standardized, but most organs follow historic conventions for the country and style of organ, so that the layout of stops and pistons is broadly predictable. The stops controlling each division (see Keyboards ) are grouped together. Within these,

7980-484: The organist; each can be "on" (admitting the passage of air to certain pipes), or "off" ( stopping the passage of air to certain pipes). The term can also refer to the control that operates this mechanism, commonly called a stop tab , stop knob , or drawknob . On electric or electronic organs that imitate a pipe organ, the same terms are often used, with the exception of the Hammond organ and clonewheel organs , which use

8085-399: The original composition, typically in pieces written when organs were smaller and only had two or three manuals. It is also common to see couplers labeled as "II to I" (see Couplers below). In some cases, an organ contains more divisions than it does manuals. In these cases, the extra divisions are called floating divisions and are played by coupling them to another manual. Usually this is

8190-412: The period composers experimented with finding a fuller sound for each instrumental part (thus creating the orchestra), made changes in musical notation (the development of figured bass as a quick way to notate the chord progression of a song or piece), and developed new instrumental playing techniques. Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established

8295-561: The period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period , and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition (the galant style ). The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms

8400-428: The pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were intended for listening, not for accompanying dancers. Composers used a variety of different movements in their dance suites. A dance suite commonly has these movements : The four dance types (allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue) make up the majority of 17th-century suites. Later suites interpolate one or more additional dances between

8505-605: The première in October 1733 of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, printed in the Mercure de France in May 1734. The critic implied that the novelty in this opera was "du barocque", complaining that the music lacked coherent melody, was filled with unremitting dissonances, constantly changed key and meter, and speedily ran through every compositional device. Jean-Jacques Rousseau , who was a musician and composer as well as philosopher, wrote in 1768 in

8610-583: The purpose of borrowing at different pitches is a relatively recent development. Extension and unification are heavily used in theatre organs to produce the maximum number of voices from a minimal number of pipes. It is still typical to see a significant amount of unification and duplexing in practice organs and small church organs. Traditionally, less use has been made of extension in large church organs and those designed for classical music, with authorities tending to regard borrowing in general and extension in particular as things to be avoided if possible, except in

8715-539: The reeds, and may have only included the low AA, not AA-sharp or BB). French organs of the nineteenth century typically had manual ranges from C to g ′ ′ ′ and pedal ranges from C to f ′ ; in the twentieth century the manual range was extended to a ′ ′ ′ . The modern console specification recommended by the American Guild of Organists calls for manual keyboards with sixty-one notes (five octaves, from C to c ′ ′ ′ ′ ) and pedal keyboards with thirty-two notes (two and

8820-577: The same composition as a standalone Cornet stop. Occasionally Cornets are supplied based on a 16′ fundamental (16′, 8′, 5 + 1 ⁄ 3 ′, 4′ and 3 + 1 ⁄ 5 ′), though the individual ranks are more usually configured as separate stops (for example the Grande Tierce 3 + 1 ⁄ 5 ′ and Grand Nasard 5 + 1 ⁄ 3 ′ supplied by the Isnard brothers at St Maximin, Provence). Cornet stops in 32′ are also known, as they are able to approximate

8925-408: The same pipes instead of having their own. Part of an organist's training is to detect unification and duplexing and to create registrations that take them into account. Nonetheless, heavy unification can create issues for visiting artists with limited practice times, or those improvising compositions. Borrowing between manuals occurs in English organs from about 1700, but extension of pipe ranks for

9030-517: The same rank of pipes. For example, an 8′ Gedeckt may also be made available as a 4′ Gedeckt, either on the same or a different manual. When both of these stops are selected and a key (for example, C 3 ) is pressed, two pipes of the same rank will sound: the pipe normally corresponding to the key played (C 3 ), and the pipe one octave above that (C 4 ). Borrowing or duplexing refers to one rank being made available from multiple stop knobs, often on different manuals or pedal. Extension refers to

9135-410: The same strength due to using the same set of pipes. Straight reed choruses (16′, 8′ and 4′) have the luxury of ranks with different timbres, whereas a unified reed chorus has voices that are identical. Playing with all stops out on a heavily unified/duplexed organ may result in chords that sound thinner or emphasize higher harmonics on some notes more than others, due to notes in different octaves using

9240-555: The series, such as the " septième " or " septima " ( 1 + 1 ⁄ 7 ′) and " none " ( 8 ⁄ 9 ′). There's also an 8 ⁄ 15 ′ Major 7th which when C 4 is played sounds a B 7 below the top C 8 of a piano. Mutations usually sound at pitches in the harmonic series of the fundamental, and except when derived from unified ranks , are always tuned pure . Some organs contain mutations that are overtones of 16′ or 32′ to create difference tones , e.g., quint-bass 10 + 2 ⁄ 3 ′. Such "helper ranks" that sound at

9345-480: The sound of a 32′ reed stop without the using pipes of the same bulk or expense (as used for example by John Compton at Wakefield Cathedral, England). A Sesquialtera (or Sexquialtera) is similar to a Cornet in that it always contains a fifth and major third (justly tuned), though they normally extend to the whole range of the compass. They also rarely go beyond IV ranks, the most common being found at II or III ranks. They are not necessarily as uniform in configuration as

9450-505: The standard eight foot coupler. The super-octave may be labelled, for example, Swell to Great 4 ft; in the same manner, the sub-octave may be labelled Choir to Great 16 ft. The inclusion of these couplers allows for greater registrational flexibility and color. Some literature (particularly romantic literature from France) calls explicitly for octaves aigües (super-couplers) to add brightness, or octaves graves (sub-couplers) to add gravity. Some organs feature extended ranks to accommodate

9555-411: The standard arrangement is for the lowest sounding stops (32 ft or 16 ft) to be placed at the bottom of the columns, with the higher pitched stops placed above this, (8 ft 4 ft, 2 2 ⁄ 3 ft, 2 ft, etc.); the mixtures are placed above this (II, III, V, etc.). The stops controlling the reed ranks are placed collectively above these in the same order as above, often with the stop engraving in red. In

9660-466: The string-dominated norm for orchestras, which was inherited from the Italian opera, and the characteristically French five-part disposition (violins, violas—in hautes-contre, tailles and quintes sizes—and bass violins ) had been used in the ballet from the time of Louis XIII. He did, however, introduce this ensemble to the lyric theatre, with the upper parts often doubled by recorders, flutes, and oboes, and

9765-480: The subsequent period. Idiomatic instrumental textures became increasingly prominent. In particular, the style luthé —the irregular and unpredictable breaking up of chordal progressions, in contrast to the regular patterning of broken chords—referred to since the early 20th century as style brisé , was established as a consistent texture in French music by Robert Ballard , in his lute books of 1611 and 1614, and by Ennemond Gaultier . This idiomatic lute figuration

9870-449: The term " drawbar ". The term is also sometimes used as a synonym for register , referring to rank(s) of pipes controlled by a single stop. Registration is the art of combining stops to produce a certain sound. The phrase "pull out all the stops" , which once only meant to engage all of the voices on the organ, has entered general usage, for deploying all available means to pursue a goal. Organ pipes are physically organized within

9975-759: The term "baroque" to music of this period is a relatively recent development. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflin 's theory of the Baroque systematically to music. Critics were quick to question the attempt to transpose Wölfflin's categories to music, however, and in the second quarter of the 20th century independent attempts were made by Manfred Bukofzer (in Germany and, after his immigration, in America) and by Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune (in Belgium) to use autonomous, technical analysis rather than comparative abstractions, in order to avoid

10080-433: The tonal resources and flexibility of the organ, greater care needs to be taken by the organist in registering the organ, particularly when the composition requires many notes to sound at the same time. In a non-unified organ, voices are scaled for their intended job. As an example, the octave (4′) diapason is generally of a smaller scale and softer than the corresponding 8′ diapason rank, whereas in unification they would be of

10185-537: The top and bottom octaves when the super- and sub-couplers are engaged (see the discussion under "Unification and extension"). In a similar vein are unison off couplers, which act to "turn off" the stops of a division on its own keyboard. For example, a coupler labelled "Great unison off" would keep the stops of the Great division from sounding, even if they were pulled. Unison off couplers can be used in combination with super- and sub-couplers to create complex registrations that would otherwise not be possible. In addition,

10290-476: The transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition—the heritage of Renaissance polyphony ( prima pratica ) and the new basso continuo technique of the Baroque ( seconda pratica ). With basso continuo, a small group of musicians would play the bassline and the chords which formed the accompaniment for a melody . The basso continuo group would typically use one or more keyboard players and

10395-405: The unison off couplers can be used with other couplers to change the order of the manuals at the console: engaging the Great to Choir and Choir to Great couplers along with the Great unison off and Choir unison off couplers would have the effect of moving the Great to the bottom manual and the Choir to the middle manual. Another form of coupler found on some large organs is the divided pedal . This

10500-536: The unison or some octave of the unison pitch are called mutation stops, or sometimes "aliquots". They are rarely used on their own; rather, they are combined with unison stops to create different tone colors. A typical and distinctive sound of the organ is the cornet , composed of a flute and ranks making up its first four overtones , sounding 8′, 4′, 2 + 2 ⁄ 3 ′ (labeled 3′ on some German and Swedish organs), 2′, and 1 + 3 ⁄ 5 ′ (or 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 ′ on some German organs). The sounding length of

10605-457: The upper portion of the keyboard, and the other will control the lower portion of the keyboard. This arrangement allows the upper portion of the keyboard to sound a different registration than the lower portion, which lends a greater versatility to smaller organs, especially those with only one manual . Ranks which are neither divided nor extended (see below Unification, borrowing and extension ) generally contain as many pipes as there are keys on

10710-570: The wind supplies of an organ). Both tuned and untuned percussion stops exist (for instance, marimba and snare drum , respectively). They are commonly designed to imitate orchestral or band instruments, or to imitate non-musical sounds (for instance, thunder), or to produce unique sounds (for instance, zimbelstern ). Percussion stops are particularly common in theatre organs, which were generally made to accompany silent films . Baroque music Baroque music ( UK : / b ə ˈ r ɒ k / or US : / b ə ˈ r oʊ k / ) refers to

10815-498: Was developed before the advent of electricity , it is inherently mechanical in nature. Many organs originally built with mechanical actuators have been retrofitted with electric actuators. Other common designs include the spring chest, the cone valve chest, and the Pitman chest. The term unification refers to the practice of expanding the tonal resources of an organ without adding more pipes by allowing several different stops to control

10920-401: Was later transferred to the harpsichord, for example in the keyboard music of Louis Couperin and Jean-Henri D'Anglebert , and continued to be an important influence on keyboard music throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries (in, for example, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Frédéric Chopin ). The rise of the centralized court is one of the economic and political features of what

11025-535: Was meaningful to lump together music as diverse as that of Jacopo Peri , Domenico Scarlatti , and Johann Sebastian Bach under a single rubric. Nevertheless, the term has become widely used and accepted for this broad range of music. It may be helpful to distinguish the Baroque from both the preceding ( Renaissance ) and following ( Classical ) periods of musical history. Throughout the Baroque era, new developments in music originated in Italy, after which it took up to 20 years before they were broadly adopted in rest of

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