Embedded Files
The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. The idea for the free reed was imported from China through Russia after 1750, and the first Western free-reed instrument was made in 1780 in Denmark.
More portable than pipe organs, free-reed organs were widely used in smaller churches and in private homes in the 19th century, but their volume and tonal range were limited. They generally had one or sometimes two manuals, with pedal-boards being rare. The finer pump organs had a wider range of tones, and the cabinets of those intended for churches and affluent homes were often excellent pieces of furniture. Several million free-reed organs and melodeons were made in the US and Canada between the 1850s and the 1920s, some of which were exported. The Cable Company, Estey Organ, and Mason & Hamlin were popular manufacturers.
Alongside the furniture-sized instruments of the west, smaller designs exist. The portable, hand-pumped harmonium or samvadini is a major instrument on the Indian subcontinent developed by Indians to meet local needs. The craftsmen created a harmonium that a single person could carry, with added microtones.
History
History
During the first half of the 18th century, a free-reed mouth organ called a sheng was brought to Russia. That instrument received attention due to its use by Johann Wilde. The instrument's free-reed was unknown in Europe at the time, and the concept quickly spread from Russia across Europe. Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein (1723–1795), professor of physiology at Copenhagen, was credited with the first free-reed instrument made in the Western world, after winning the annual prize in 1780 from the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg. According to Curt Sachs, Kratzenstein suggested that the instrument be made, but that the first organ with free reeds was made by Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler in Darmstadt. The harmonium's design incorporates free reeds and derives from the earlier regal. A harmonium-like instrument was exhibited by Gabriel-Joseph Grenié (1756–1837) in 1810. He called it an orgue expressif (expressive organ), because his instrument was capable of greater expression, as well as of producing a crescendo and diminuendo. Alexandre Debain improved Grenié's instrument and gave it the name harmonium when he patented his version in 1840. There was concurrent development of similar instruments. Jacob Alexandre and his son Édouard introduced the orgue mélodium in 1844. Hector Berlioz included it in his Grand traité d'instrumentation et d'orchestration modernes, published in Paris by Schoenberger, [1843?] or [1844?], in an « Instruments nouveaux » section on pp. 290–92, and in the 1856 reprint, found on pp. 472–77 in Peter Bloom's critical edition published by Bärenreiter, Vol.24, in Kassel and New York, 2003. Berlioz also wrote about it in several subsequent journals (Bloom, p. 472, nn. 1 & 2). He used it in 1 work: L'enfance du Christ, Part 1, scene vi, where it is off stage. When he conducted it in Weimar on 21 February 1855, it was played by Franz Liszt (Bloom, p. 474, n. 3).A mechanic who had worked in the factory of Alexandre in Paris emigrated to the United States and conceived the idea of a suction bellows, instead of the ordinary bellows that forced the air outward through the reeds. Beginning in 1885, the firm of Mason & Hamlin, of Boston made their instruments with the suction bellows, and this method of construction soon superseded all others in America
Page updated
Report abuse