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Medieval Organs

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From 800 to the 1400s, the use and construction of organs developed in significant ways, from the invention of the portative and positive organs to the installation of larger organs in major churches such as the cathedrals of Winchester and Notre Dame of Paris. In this period, organs began to be used in secular and religious settings. The introduction of organ into religious settings is ambiguous, most likely because the original position of the Church was that instrumental music was not to be allowed. However, by the twelfth century there is evidence for permanently installed organs existing in religious settings such as the Abbey of Fécamp and other locations throughout Europe.

Portative and Positive Organs

Several innovations occurred to organs in the Middle Ages, such as the creation of the portative and the positive Organ. The portative organs were small and created for secular use and made of light weight delicate materials that would have been easy for one individual to transport and play on their own. The portative organ was a "flue-piped keyboard instrument, played with one hand while the other operated the bellows." Its portability made the portative useful for the accompaniment of both sacred and secular music in a variety of settings. The positive organ was larger than the portative organ but was still small enough to be portable and used in a variety of settings like the portative organ. Towards the middle of the 13th century, the portatives represented in the miniatures of illuminated manuscripts appear to have real keyboards with balanced keys, as in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.

Installation of Permanent Organs [Awfully long]

It's difficult to directly determine when larger organs began to be installed in Europe; however one of the first eyewitness accounts of organs is from Wulfstan of Winchester. This detailed account gives us an idea of what organs were like prior to the thirteenth century, when there are more records of large organs being placed in churches as well as their uses. In his account, he describes the sound of the organ: "among them bells outstanding in tone and size, and an organ [sounding] through bronze pipes prepared according to the musical proportions." This is one of the earliest accounts of organs in Europe and also indicates that the organ was large and more permanent than other evidence would suggest. The first permanently installed organ with clear evidence was one installed in 1361 in Halberstadt, Germany. The first documented permanent organ installation, it likely prompted Guillaume de Machaut to describe the organ as "the king of instruments," a characterization still frequently applied. The Halberstadt organ was the first instrument to use a chromatic key layout across its three manuals and pedalboard, although the keys were wider than on modern instruments. It had twenty bellows operated by ten men, and the wind pressure was so high that the player had to use the full strength of his arm to hold down a key.

Records of other organs permanently installed and used in worship services in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are found in large cathedrals such as Notre Dame, where in the 1300s you can find documents of organists being hired to work for the church as well as recordings stating the installation of larger and permanent organs. The earliest such notice is a record payment from 1332 from the clergy of Notre Dame to an organist to perform on the feasts St. Louis and St. Michael. The Notre Dame School also shows how organs could have been used within the increased use of polyphony, which would have allowed for the use of more instrumental voices within the music. This shows that by this point in time organs were being fully used within church services and not just in secular settings. There is proof that organs existed earlier in the medieval period based on the surviving keyboards and casings of some organs, however no pipes from organs survive from this period. Until the mid-fifteenth century, organs had no stop controls. Each manual controlled ranks at many pitches, known as the Blockwerk. Around 1450, controls were designed that allowed the ranks of the Blockwerk to be played individually. These devices were the forerunners of modern stop actions. The higher-pitched ranks of the Blockwerk remained grouped together under a single stop control; these stops developed into mixtures.

Use of Organs in the Church

From records alone it is hard to tell exactly when the organ began to be used for religious purposes in the church. There is some evidence that in cathedrals as well as parish churches organs were used in the church, but it still remains difficult to determine the exact timeline of when they were used originally, as there is very little clear evidence. Evidence of construction of organs can be found, but determining their exact use and when they began to be used in services can be difficult. There is records of more permanent organs being constructed dating back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, such as in Notre Dame, Winchester, and other churches in Europe.