The Organ in France - A Study of Its Mechanical Construction, Tonal Characteristics and Literature, With Suggestions for the Registration, of French Organ Music Upon American Instruments #233332

Probably in no other country have the successive changes in methods of organ construction, during the last quarter of a century, more nearly justified the designation "revolution" than in the United States.<br><br>At the beginning of this period, making due allowance for the individual methods or characteristics of various builders, practically all organs followed a general standard with regard to character of specification and the purposes for which they were built. Organs designed for concert use were found in some of the largest auditoria, and occasionally in smaller halls; the size of church organs was governed by the proportions of the edifices in which they were placed, and to a certain extent by demands of liturgy or form of worship. A few private residences boasted instruments of more or less importance, yet differing but slightly from the standard established for the types previously mentioned.<br><br>With the successful introduction of the electro-pneumatic system, it may fairly be said, the course of organ-building entered divergent channels. The new system contained nothing in itself to alter the standard organ of the period in any respect save ease of manipulation. And yet it made possible the successive inventions, whose adoption, to any considerable degree, has produced an instrument of widely different resources from its prototype.