The organ is the embodiment of grandeur and greatness; it is rightly called the “king” in the world of music. This is the only instrument whose resonator is often the room itself, and not a wooden body. Its closest relatives are not the piano and grand piano, as it might seem, but the flute and button accordion.
This stunning instrument is magnificent in everything: a powerful sound that does not leave the listener indifferent, an inspiring appearance that amazes with its scale, unusualness and a certain antique charm, as well as the complexity and intricacy of its design.
Organ structure
The instrument has a rather complex structure, consisting of huge amount various elements: pipes, manuals, pedal keyboard, bellows, filters and electric compressors (in old times they were replaced by people - up to 10 people), registers with switches and much more.
The console, or pulpit, is the place from which the musician controls the instrument, contains manuals, a pedal keyboard, various switches, etc.
Manual – manual keyboard. One organ can have up to seven such manuals.
Register - a certain number of pipes belonging to the same “family”; they are united by timbre similarity. Register combinations are called “copulas” (from Latin - “bundles”, “connections”). At the request of customers, craftsmen can add separate registers to the organ that imitate the sound of a specific instrument.
The pedal keyboard is a foot keyboard and looks the same as a manual one. With its help, the performer controls the bass pipes. To play the pedal keyboard, organists wear specially made “sensitive” and tight shoes with very thin soles.
Organ pipes are metal, wooden and wood-metal hollow pipes of different lengths, diameters and shapes. Based on the method of sound production, they are divided into “reed” and “lobial”. The instrument can contain up to 10 thousand such pipes, the largest of them are bass ones, their height can reach up to 10 meters, and their weight can reach up to 500 kg. Sometimes the lowest sounds of the instrument are given a name, such as “whale voice.”
The organ also 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 volume of the sound does not depend on the force of pressing the key, as in a piano, for example.
The front side of the organ, visible to the audience, is only a small part of it; the rest of the “contents” are located behind the wall. Despite the external strength organ pipes, they are still quite easy to bend, so strangers are rarely allowed “inside” the instrument. Abstracts are special thin wooden slats that connect the keys to the 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 concert hall. The instrument has thirty-three thousand pipes and one thousand two hundred keys. Air is forced into the pipes by fans that rotate electric motors with a power of 600 hp. With. State of the organ at the moment not working. In 1944, it was damaged during 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 ancient Greek, “organum” means “weapon” or “instrument”. And in medieval Rus'“An organ” was called “every sounding vessel.”
Historical information
The organ is one of the most ancient instruments. The exact date of its occurrence is impossible to determine. In the II century. BC Greek master Ctesebius, was organ invented, playing using hydraulics - pumping 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 most ancient predecessor of the organ is considered to be the Pan flute, which has a similar structure - connected tubes of various lengths, each of which produces a sound of a certain pitch. Then, having decided to improve the system, they added bellows that pump air and a keyboard in which the number of keys coincided with the number of pipes.
These were hand organs that 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 were not distinguished by 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 modern instrument, but with fists and elbows, making considerable effort. The organ became a widespread instrument after its introduction in the 7th century. Catholic liturgical practice. During this same period, organs evolved from small transport instruments carried on carts to 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 to perform and increase its functionality.
Varieties
Depending on the principle of operation, the following types of organs are distinguished:
- Brass;
- Strings;
- Theatrical;
- Mechanical;
- Electronic;
- Steam;
- Hydraulic;
- Digital
The role of the “king” of instruments in musical art
Since its origins, the organ has occupied a certain place in the cultural life of mankind, having varying degrees of popularity and importance depending on historical era. The heyday, or “golden age of the organ,” is considered to be the Baroque era - XVII-XVIII centuries. During this period, such great composers as Bach, Buxtehude, Frescobaldi and others worked.
Also, different roles performed by organ in Eastern and Western Europe, or, to be more precise, in Orthodox and Catholic countries.
If in Western European Catholic countries, each city can have up to several hundred organs located in churches, then in Orthodox countries it is a concert instrument, which is not available in every city. But here, during organ performances, the halls are crowded with people who want to enjoy the luxurious organ sound.
It is impossible to find two identical organs, so this instrument is literally unique. The pipes of some specimens are capable of emitting ultra and infrasounds that cannot be detected by human hearing.
The organ is an instrument that has such unique and inimitable capabilities for simulating and combining different timbres that even the simplest melody “performed by it” turns into a gorgeous piece of music, the brightness of perception of which is enhanced by the power of sound and mesmerizing appearance tool.
Video
Watch the video below to listen and enjoy the sound of the instrument.
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 part for the hands is written on two staves - in the keys and as for. A part of pedals is often written separately on one stave. 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 gaming 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 with Hauptwerk. Schwellwerk keys are located on the gaming console at a higher 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 in different organs of different countries and eras are not the same, they are usually not designated in detail in an organ part: 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 wrote 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 Weckman
Dominico Zipoli
Cesar Frank
Video: Organ on video + sound
Thanks to these videos, you can get acquainted with the instrument, watch a real game on it, listen to its sound, and feel the specifics of the technique:
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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 man 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 that produce sounds of different pitches when struck. 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 century V. in the work "Seven Variations". One of the most famous works, in which a 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. 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 master playing this instrument well 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. That's probably why distant ancestor The violin was called a 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 today. best violinists peace. 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)
When starting to talk about the structure of the organ instrument, we should start with the most obvious.
The organ console refers to the controls, which include all the numerous keys, register change levers and pedals.
So to gaming devices include manuals and pedals.
TO timbre– register switches. In addition to them, the organ console consists of: dynamic switches - channels, a variety of foot switches and copula switch keys, which transfer the registers of one manual to another.
Most organs are equipped with copulas for switching registers to the main manual. Also, using special levers, the organist can switch various combinations from the bank of register combinations.
In addition, a bench is installed in front of the console, on which the musician sits, and next to it is the organ switch.
Example of an organ copulaBut first things first:
- Copula. A mechanism that can transfer the registers of one manual to another manual, or a pedal keyboard. This is relevant when you need to transfer the sound registers of weaker manuals to stronger ones, or transfer the sound registers to the main manual. The copulas are activated using special foot levers with locks or using special buttons.
- Channel. This is a device with which you can adjust the volume of each individual manual. At the same time, the shutters of the blinds are adjusted in the box through which the pipes of this particular manual pass.
- Memory bank of register combinations. Such a device is available only in electric organs, that is, in organs with an electrical circuit. Here we would make the assumption that an organ with an electric structure is somehow related to antediluvian synthesizers, but the wind organ itself is too ambiguous an instrument for such an oversight to be easily made.
- Ready-made register combinations. Unlike the memory bank of register combinations, which vaguely resemble the presets of modern digital audio processors, ready-made register combinations refer to organs with a pneumatic register structure. But the essence is the same: they make it possible to use ready-made settings.
- Tutti. But this device includes manuals and all registers. Here's the switch.
Manual
The keyboard, in other words. It’s just that the organ has keys for playing with your feet – pedals, so it’s more correct to say it’s a manual.
Usually there are from two to four manuals in an organ, but sometimes there are specimens with one manual, and even such monsters that have as many as seven manuals. The name of the manual depends on the location of the pipes it controls. In addition, each manual is assigned its own set of registers.
IN the main thing The loudest registers are usually located in the manual. It is also called Hauptwerk. It can be located either closest to the performer or in the second row.
- Oberwerk – a little quieter. Its pipes are located under the pipes of the main manual.
- Rückpositive – absolutely unique keyboard. It controls those pipes that are located separately from all the others. So, for example, if the organist is sitting facing the instrument, then they will be located at the back.
- Hinterwerk - This manual controls the pipes that are located at the back of the organ.
- Brustwerk. But the pipes of this manual are located either directly above the remote control itself, or on both sides.
- Solowerk. As the name itself suggests, the trumpets of this manual are equipped with a large number of solo registers.
In addition, there may be other manuals, but those listed above are used most often.
In the seventeenth century, organs had a kind of volume control - a box through which pipes with shutters passed. The manual that controlled these pipes was called Schwellwerk and was located at a higher level.
Pedals
Originally, organs did not have pedal keyboards. It appeared around the sixteenth century. There is a version that it was invented by a Brabant organist named Louis Van Walbeke.
Nowadays there are a variety of pedal keyboards depending on the design of the organ. There are both five and thirty-two pedals, there are organs without a pedal keyboard at all. They are called portables.
Usually the pedals control the bassiest trumpets, for which a separate staff is written, under the double score, which is written for the manuals. Their range is two or even three octaves lower than other notes, so a large organ can have a range of nine and a half octaves.
Registers
Registers are a series of pipes of the same timbre, which are, in fact, a separate instrument. To switch registers, there are handles or switches (for electrically controlled organs), which are located on the organ console either above the manual or next to it on the sides.
The essence of register control is this: if all registers are turned off, the organ will not sound when you press a key.
The name of the register corresponds to the name of its largest pipe, and each handle refers to its own register.
There are both labial, so reed registers. The first relate to the control of pipes without reeds, these are the registers of open flutes, there are also registers of closed flutes, principals, registers of overtones, which, in fact, form the color of the sound (potions and aliquots). In them, each note has several weaker overtones.
But reed registers, as their name suggests, control pipes with reeds. They can be combined in sound with labial pipes.
The choice of register is provided in the musical stave; it is written above the place where one or another register should be used. But matters are complicated by the fact that different times and even just in different countries organ registers differed sharply from each other. Therefore, the registration of an organ part is rarely specified in detail. Usually, only the manual, the size of the pipes and the presence or absence of reeds are accurately indicated. All other nuances of sound are left to the performer’s consideration.
Pipes
As you might expect, the sound of pipes is strictly dependent on their size. Moreover, the only trumpets that sound exactly as written on the musical staff are eight-foot trumpets. Smaller pipes sound correspondingly higher, and larger pipes sound lower than what is written on the musical staff.
The largest pipes, which are not found in all, but only in the largest organs in the world, measure 64 feet. They sound three octaves lower than what is written on the musical staff. Therefore, when the organist uses the pedals when playing in this register, infrasound is emitted.
To tune small labials (that is, those without a tongue), use a steamhorn. This is a rod, at one end of which there is a cone, and at the other - a cup, with the help of which the bell of the pipes of the organ is expanded or narrowed, thereby achieving a change in the pitch of sound.
But to change the pitch of large pipes, additional pieces of metal are usually cut out, which bend like reeds and thus change the tone of the organ.
Additionally, some pipes may be purely decorative. In this case, they are called “blind”. They do not sound, but have purely aesthetic significance.
The piano also has texture. There, this is a mechanism for transmitting the force of finger strikes from the surface of the key directly to the string. The organ plays the same role and is the main mechanism for controlling the organ.
In addition to the fact that the organ has a structure that controls the valves of the pipes (it is also called a playing structure), it also has a register structure that allows you to turn entire registers on and off.
On June 17, 1981, its keys were first touched by the hand of a musician - the outstanding organist Harry Grodberg, who performed Bach's toccatas, preludes, fantasies and fugues for Tomsk residents.
Since then, dozens of famous organists have given concerts in Tomsk, and German organ builders have never ceased to be amazed how in a city where the temperature difference between winter and summer is 80 degrees, the instrument still plays.
Child of the GDR
The organ of the Tomsk Philharmonic was born in 1981 in the East German city of Frankfurt an der Oder, at the organ-building company W.Sauer Orgelbau.
At a normal working pace, building an organ takes about a year, and the process involves several stages. First, the masters examine concert hall, determine its acoustic characteristics and draw up a project for the future instrument. Then the specialists return to their home factory, make individual elements of the organ and assemble them into a whole instrument. In the assembly shop of the factory, it is tested for the first time and the shortcomings are corrected. If the organ sounds as it should, it is again disassembled in parts and sent to the customer.
In Tomsk, all installation procedures took only six months - due to the fact that the process went without any hiccups, shortcomings or other inhibitory factors. In January 1981, Sauer specialists came to Tomsk for the first time, and in June of the same year the organ was already giving concerts.
Internal composition
By the standards of experts, the Tomsk organ can be called average in weight and size - a ten-ton instrument holds about two thousand pipes different lengths and shapes. Just like five hundred years ago, they are made by hand. Wooden pipes are usually made in the shape of a parallelepiped. The shapes of metal pipes can be more intricate: cylindrical, reverse-conical and even combined. Metal pipes are made from an alloy of tin and lead in different proportions, and for wooden ones they usually use pine.
It is these characteristics - length, shape and material - that affect the timbre of the sound of an individual pipe.
The pipes inside the organ are arranged in rows: from highest to lowest. Each row of pipes can play separately, or they can be combined. On the side of the keyboard, on the vertical panels of the organ, there are buttons, by pressing which the organist controls this process. All pipes of the Tomsk organ are sounding, and only one of them on the front side of the instrument was created in decorative purposes and doesn't make any sounds.
WITH reverse side the organ looks like a three-story Gothic castle. On the ground floor of this castle there is a mechanical part of the instrument, which, through a system of rods, transmits the work of the organist’s fingers to the pipes. On the second floor there are pipes that are connected to the keys of the lower keyboard, and on the third floor there are pipes for the upper keyboard.
The Tomsk organ has a mechanical system for connecting keys and pipes, which means that pressing a key and the appearance of sound occurs almost instantly, without any lag.
Above the performing platform there are blinds, or in other words, a channel, which hide the second floor of organ pipes from the viewer. Using a special pedal, the organist controls the position of the blinds and thereby influences the strength of the sound.
The caring hand of a master
The organ, like any other musical instrument, is very dependent on the climate, and the Siberian weather creates many problems in caring for it. Special air conditioners, sensors and humidifiers are installed inside the instrument, which maintain a certain temperature and humidity. The colder and drier the air, the shorter the pipes of the organ become, and vice versa - with warm and humid air, the pipes lengthen. Therefore, the musical instrument requires constant monitoring.
The care of the Tomsk organ is provided by only two people - organist Dmitry Ushakov and his assistant Ekaterina Mastenitsa.
The main means of combating dust inside the organ is an ordinary Soviet vacuum cleaner. To search for it, a whole campaign was organized - they were looking for one that would have a blowing system, because it is easier to blow dust from the organ, bypassing all the tubes, onto the stage and only then collect it with a vacuum cleaner.
“Dirt in the organ must be removed where it is and when it interferes,” says Dmitry Ushakov. - If now we decide to remove all the dust from the organ, we will have to completely tune it again, and this whole procedure will take about a month, and we have concerts.
Most often, façade pipes are subject to cleaning - they are visible, so fingerprints of curious people often remain on them. Dmitry prepares the mixture for cleaning façade elements himself, using ammonia and tooth powder.
Sound reconstruction
Major cleaning and tuning of the organ is carried out once a year: usually in the summer, when there are relatively few concerts and it is not cold outside. But a little sound adjustment is required before each concert. The tuner has a special approach to each type of organ pipe. For some, it is enough to close the cap, for others, tighten the roller, and for the smallest tubes they use a special tool - a stimmhorn.
You won't be able to tune an organ alone. One person must press the keys and the other must adjust the pipes while inside the instrument. In addition, the person pressing the keys controls the setting process.
First major renovation The Tomsk organ survived a relatively long time ago, 13 years ago, after the restoration of the organ hall and the removal of the organ from a special sarcophagus in which it spent 7 years. Specialists from the Sauer company were invited to Tomsk, who inspected the instrument. Then, in addition to internal renovation, the organ changed the color of the facade and acquired decorative grilles. And in 2012, the organ finally got “owners” - full-time organists Dmitry Ushakov and Maria Blazhevich.
