Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863

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Such is the organ, man's nearest approach to the creation of a true
organism.

But before the audacious conception of this instrument ever entered the
imagination of man, before he had ever drawn a musical sound from pipe
or string, the chambers where the royal harmonies of his grandest vocal
mechanism were to find worthy reception were shaped in his own
marvellous structure. The _organ_ of hearing was finished by its Divine
Builder while yet the morning stars sang together, and the voices of the
young creation joined in their first choral symphony. We have seen how
the mechanism of the artificial organ takes on the likeness of life; we
shall attempt to describe the living organ in common language by the aid
of such images as our ordinary dwellings furnish us. The unscientific
reader need not take notice of the words in parentheses.

The annexed diagram may render it easier to follow the description.

[Illustration]

The structure which is to admit Sound as a visitor is protected and
ornamented at its entrance by a light movable awning (the external ear).
Beneath and within this opens a recess or passage, (_meatus auditorium
externus_,) at the farther end of which is the parchment-like
front-door, D (_membrana tympani_).

Beyond this is the hall or entry, H, (cavity of the _tympanum_,) which
has a ventilator, V, (Eustachian tube,) communicating with the outer
air, and two windows, one oval, _o_, (_fenestra ovalis_,) one round,
_r_, (_fenestra rotunda_,) both filled with parchment-like membrane, and
looking upon the inner suite of apartments (labyrinth).

This inner suite of apartments consists of an antechamber, A,
(vestibule,) an arched chamber, B, (semicircular canals,) and a spiral
chamber, S, (_cochlea_,) with a partition, P, dividing it across, except
for a small opening at one end. The antechamber opens freely into the
arched chamber, and into one side of the partitioned spiral chamber. The
other side of this spiral chamber looks on the hall by the round window
already mentioned; the oval window looking on the hall belongs to the
antechamber. From the front-door to the oval window of the antechamber
extends a chain, _c_, (_ossicula auditus_,) so connected that a knock on
the first is transmitted instantly to the second. But as the round
window of the spiral chamber looks into the hall, the knock at the
front-door will also make itself heard at and through that window, being
conveyed along the hall.

In each division of the inner suite of apartments are the watchmen,
(branches of the auditory nerve,) listening for the approach of Sound.
The visitor at length enters the porch, and knocks at the front-door.
The watchmen in the antechamber hear the blow close to them, as it is
repeated, through the chain, on the window of their apartment. The
impulse travels onward into the arched chamber, and startles its
tenants. It is transmitted into one half of the partitioned spiral
chamber, and rouses the recumbent guardians in that apartment. Some
portion of it even passes the small opening in the partition, and
reaches the watchmen in the other half of the room. But they also hear
it through the round window, not as it comes through the chain, but as
it resounds along the hall.

Thus the summons of Sound reaches all the watchmen, but not all of them
through the same channels or with the same force. It is not known how
their several precise duties are apportioned, but it seems probable that
the watchmen in the spiral chamber observe the pitch of the audible
impulse which reaches them, while the others take cognizance of its
intensity and perhaps of its direction.

Such is the plan of the organ of hearing as an architect might describe
it. But the details of its special furnishing are so intricate and
minute that no anatomist has proved equal to their entire and exhaustive
delineation. An Italian nobleman, the Marquis Corti, has hitherto proved
most successful in describing the wonderful _key-board_ found in the
spiral chamber, the complex and symmetrical beauty of which is
absolutely astonishing to those who study it by the aid of the
microscope. The figure annexed shows a small portion of this
extraordinary structure. It is from Koelliker's well-known work on
Microscopic Anatomy.

[Illustration]

Enough has been said to show that the ear is as carefully adjusted to
respond to the blended impressions of sound as the eye to receive the
mingled rays of light; and that as the telescope presupposes the lens
and the retina, so the organ presupposes the resonant membranes, the
labyrinthine chambers, and the delicately suspended or exquisitely
spread-out nervous filaments of that other organ, whose builder is the
Architect of the universe and the Master of all its harmonies.

Not less an object of wonder is that curious piece of mechanism, the
most perfect, within its limited range of powers, of all musical
instruments, the _organ_ of the human voice. It is the highest triumph
of our artificial contrivances to reach a tone like that of a singer,
and among a hundred organ-stops none excites such admiration as the _vox
humana_; a brief account of the vocal organ will not, therefore, be out
of place. The principles of the action of the larynx are easily
illustrated by reference to the simpler musical instruments. In a flute
or flageolet the musical sound is produced by the vibration of a column
of air contained in its interior. In a clarionet or a bassoon another
source of sound is added in the form of a thin slip of wood contained in
the mouth-piece, and called the _reed_, the vibrations of which give a
superadded nasal thrill to the resonance of the column of air.

The human organ of voice is like the clarionet and the bassoon. The
windpipe is the tube containing the column of air. The larynx is the
mouth-piece containing the reed. But the reed is double, consisting of
two very thin membranous edges, which are made tense or relaxed, and
have the interval between them through which the air rushes narrowed or
widened by the instinctive, automatic action of a set of little muscles.
The vibration of these membranous edges (_chordae vocales_) produces a
musical sound, just as the vibration of the edge of a finger-bowl
produces one when a wet finger is passed round it. The cavities of the
nostrils, and their side-chambers, with their light, elastic
sounding-boards of thin bone, are essential to the richness of the tone,
as all singers find out when those passages are obstructed by a cold in
the head.

The human voice, perfect as it may be in tone, is yet always very
deficient in compass, as is obvious from the fact that the bass voice,
the barytone, the contralto, and the soprano have all different
registers, and are all required to produce a complete vocal harmony. If
we could make organ-pipes with movable, self-regulating lips, with
self-shortening and self-lengthening tubes, so that each tube should
command the two or three octaves of the human voice, a very limited
number of them would be required. But as each tube has but a single
note, we understand why we have those immense clusters of hollow
columns. As we wish to produce different effects, sometimes using the
pure flute-sounds, at other times preferring the nasal thrill of the
reed-instruments, we see why some of the tubes have simple mouths and
others are furnished with vibratory tongues. And, lastly, we can easily
understand that the great interior spaces of the organ must of
themselves furnish those resonant surfaces which we saw provided for, on
a small scale, in the nasal passages,--the sounding-board of the human
larynx.

* * * * *

The great organ of the Music Hall is a choir of nearly six thousand
vocal throats. Its largest windpipes are thirty-two feet in length, and
a man can crawl through them. Its finest tubes are too small for a
baby's whistle. Eighty-nine _stops_ produce the various changes and
combinations of which its immense orchestra is capable, from the purest
solo of a singing nun to the loudest chorus in which all its groups of
voices have their part in the full flow of its harmonies. Like all
instruments of its class, it contains several distinct systems of pipes,
commonly spoken of as separate organs, and capable of being played alone
or in connection with each other. Four _manuals_, or hand key-boards,
and two _pedals_, or foot key-boards, command these several
systems,--the _solo_ organ, the _choir_ organ, the _swell_ organ, and
the _great_ organ, and the _piano_ and _forte_ pedal-organ. Twelve pairs
of bellows, which it is intended to move by water-power, derived from
the Cochituate reservoirs, furnish the breath which pours itself forth
in music. Those beautiful effects, for which the organ is incomparable,
the _crescendo_ and _diminuendo_,--the gradual rise of the sound from
the lowest murmur to the loudest blast, and the dying fall by which it
steals gently back into silence,--the _dissolving views_, so to speak,
of harmony,--are not only provided for in the swell-organ, but may be
obtained by special adjustments from the several systems of pipes and
from the entire instrument.

It would be anticipating the proper time for judgment, if we should
speak of the excellence of the musical qualities of the great organ
before having had the opportunity of hearing its full powers displayed.
We have enjoyed the privilege, granted to few as yet, of listening to
some portions of the partially mounted instrument, from which we can
confidently infer that its effect, when all its majestic voices find
utterance, must be noble and enchanting beyond all common terms of
praise. But even without such imperfect trial, we have a right, merely
from a knowledge of its principles of construction, of the preeminent
skill of its builder, of the time spent in its construction, of the
extraordinary means taken to insure its perfection, and of the liberal
scale of expenditure which has rendered all the rest possible, to feel
sure that we are to hear the instrument which is and will probably long
remain beyond dispute the first of the New World and second to none in
the Old in the sum of its excellences and capacities.

The mere comparison of numbers of pipes and of stops, or of external
dimensions, though it gives an approximative idea of the scale of an
organ, is not so decisive as it might seem as to its real musical
effectiveness. In some cases, many of the stops are rather nominal than
of any real significance. Even in the Haarlem organ, which has only
about two-thirds as many as the Boston one, Dr. Burney says, "The
variety they afford is by no means what might be expected." It is
obviously easy to multiply the small pipes to almost any extent. The
dimensions of an organ, in its external aspect, must depend a good deal
on the height of the edifice in which it is contained. Thus, the vaulted
roof of the Cathedral of Ulm permitted the builder of our Music-Hall
organ to pile the _facade_ of the one he constructed for that edifice up
to the giddy elevation of almost a hundred feet, while the famous
instrument in the Town Hall of Birmingham has only three-quarters of the
height of our own, which is sixty feet. It is obvious also that the
effective power of an organ does not depend merely on its size, but that
the perfection of all its parts will have quite as much to do with it.
In judging a vocalist, we can form but a very poor guess of the compass,
force, quality of the voice, from a mere inspection of the throat and
chest. In the case of the organ, however, we have the advantage of being
able to minutely inspect every throat and larynx, to walk into the
interior of the working mechanism, and to see the adaptation of each
part to its office. In absolute power and compass the Music-Hall organ
ranks among the three or four mightiest instruments ever built. In the
perfection of all its parts, and in its whole arrangements, it
challenges comparison with, any the world can show.

Such an instrument ought to enshrine itself in an outward frame that
should correspond in some measure to the grandeur and loveliness of its
own musical character. It has been a dream of metaphysicians, that the
soul shaped its own body. If this many-throated singing creature could
have sung itself into an external form, it could hardly have moulded one
more expressive of its own nature. We must leave to those more skilled
in architecture the detailed description of that noble _facade_ which
fills the eye with music as the voices from behind it fill the mind
through the ear with vague, dreamy pictures. For us it loses all
technical character in its relations to the soul of which it is the
body. It is as if a glorious anthem had passed into outward solid form
in the very ecstasy of its grandest chorus. Milton has told us of such a
miracle, wrought by fallen angels, it is true, but in a description rich
with all his opulence of caressing and ennobling language:--

"Anon out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose, like an exhalation, with the sound
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,
Built like a temple, where pilasters round
Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid
With golden architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or frieze with bossy sculptures grav'n."

The structure is of black walnut, and is covered with carved statues,
busts, masks, and figures in the boldest relief. In the centre a richly
ornamented arch contains the niche for the key-boards and stops. A
colossal mask of a singing woman looks from over its summit. The
pediment above is surmounted by the bust of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Behind this rises the lofty central division, containing pipes, and
crowning it is a beautiful sitting statue of Saint Cecilia, holding her
lyre. On each side of her a griffin sits as guardian. This centre is
connected by harp-shaped compartments, filled with pipes, to the two
great round towers, one on each side, and each of them containing three
colossal pipes. These magnificent towers come boldly forward into the
hall, being the most prominent, as they are the highest and stateliest,
part of the _facade_. At the base of each a gigantic half-caryatid, in
the style of the ancient _hermae_, but finished to the waist, bends
beneath the superincumbent weight, like Atlas under the globe. These
figures are of wonderful force, the muscular development almost
excessive, but in keeping with their superhuman task. At each side of
the base two lion-_hermae_ share in the task of the giant. Over the base
rise the round pillars which support the dome and inclose the three
great pipes already mentioned. Graceful as these look in their position,
half a dozen men might creep into one of them and lie hidden. A man of
six feet high went up a ladder, and standing at the base of one of them
could just reach to put his hand into the mouth at its lower part, above
the conical foot. The three great pipes are crowned by a heavily
sculptured, ribbed, rounded dome; and this is surmounted, on each side,
by two cherubs, whose heads almost touch the lofty ceiling. This whole
portion of the sculpture is of eminent beauty. The two exquisite cherubs
of one side are playing on the lyre and the lute; those of the other
side on the flute and the horn. All the reliefs that run round the lower
portion of the dome are of singular richness. We have had an opportunity
of seeing one of the artist's photographs, which showed in detail the
full-length figures and the large central mask of this portion of the
work, and found them as beautiful on close inspection as the originals
at a distance.

Two other lateral compartments, filled with pipes, and still more
suggestive of the harp in their form, lead to the square lateral towers.
Over these compartments, close to the round tower, sits on each side a
harper, a man on the right, a woman on the left, with their harps, all
apparently of natural size. The square towers, holding pipes in their
open interior, are lower than the round towers, and fall somewhat back
from the front. Below, three colossal _hermae_ of Sibyl-like women
perform for them the office which the giants and the lion-shapes perform
for the round towers. The four pillars which rise from the base are
square, and the dome which surmounts them is square also. Above the dome
is a vase-like support, upon which are disposed figures of the lyre and
other musical symbols.

The whole base of the instrument, in the intervals of the figures
described, is covered with elaborate carvings. Groups of musical
instruments, standing out almost detached from the background, occupy
the panels. Ancient and modern, clustered with careless grace and quaint
variety, from the violin down to a string of sleigh-bells, they call up
all the echoes of forgotten music, such as the thousand-tongued organ
blends together in one grand harmony.

The instrument is placed upon a low platform, the outlines of which are
in accordance with its own. Its whole height is about sixty feet, its
breadth forty-eight feet, and its average depth twenty-four feet. Some
idea of its magnitude may be got from the fact that the wind-machinery
and the swell-organ alone fill up the whole recess occupied by the
former organ, which was not a small one. All the other portions of the
great instrument come forward into the hall.

In front of its centre stands Crawford's noble bronze statue of
Beethoven, the gift of our townsman, Mr. Charles C. Perkins. It might be
suggested that so fine a work of Art should have a platform wholly to
itself; but the eye soon reconciles itself to the position of the
statue, and the tremulous atmosphere which surrounds the vibrating organ
is that which the almost breathing figure would seem to delight in, as
our imagination invests it with momentary consciousness.

As we return to the impression produced by the grand _facade_, we are
more and more struck with the subtile art displayed in its adaptations
and symbolisms. Never did any structure we have looked upon so fully
justify Madame de Stael's definition of architecture, as "frozen music."
The outermost towers, their pillars and domes, are all _square_, their
outlines thus passing without too sudden transitions from the sharp
square angles of the vaulted ceiling and the rectangular lines of the
walls of the hall itself into the more central parts of the instrument,
where a smoother harmony of outline is predominant. For in the great
towers, which step forward, as it were, to represent the meaning of the
entire structure, the lines are all curved, as if the slight discords
which gave sharpness and variety to its less vital portions were all
resolved as we approached its throbbing heart. And again, the half
fantastic repetitions of musical forms in the principal outlines--the
lyre-like shape of the bases of the great towers, the harp-like figure
of the connecting wings, the clustering reeds of the columns--fill the
mind with musical suggestions, and dispose the wondering spectator to
become the entranced listener.

The great organ would be but half known, if it were not played in a
place fitted for it in dimensions. In the open air the sound would be
diluted and lost; in an ordinary hall the atmosphere would be churned
into a mere tumult by the vibrations. The Boston Music Hall is of ample
size to give play to the waves of sound, yet not so large that its space
will not be filled and saturated with the overflowing resonance. It is
one hundred and thirty feet in length by seventy-eight in breadth and
sixty-five in height, being thus of somewhat greater dimensions than the
celebrated Town Hall of Birmingham. At the time of building it, (1852,)
its great height was ordered partly with reference to the future
possibility of its being furnished with a large organ. It will be
observed that the three dimensions above given are all multiples of the
same number, thirteen, the length being ten times, the breadth six times
and the height five times this number. This is in accordance with Mr.
Scott Russell's recommendation, and has been explained by the fact that
vibrating solids divide into _harmonic lengths_, separated by _nodal
points_ of rest, and that these last are equally distributed at aliquot
parts of its whole length. If the whole extent of the walls be in
vibration, its angles should come in at the nodal points in order to
avoid the confusion arising from different vibrating lengths; and for
this reason they are placed at aliquot parts of its entire length. Thus
the hall is itself a kind of passive musical instrument, or at least a
sounding-board, constructed on theoretical principles. Whatever is
thought of the theory, it proves in practice to possess the excellence
which is liable to be lost in the construction of the best-designed
edifice.

* * * * *

We have thus attempted to give our readers some imperfect idea of the
great instrument, illustrating it by the objects of comparison with
which we are most familiar, and leaving to others the more elaborate
work of subjecting it to a thorough artistic survey, and the rigorous
analysis necessary to bring out the various degrees of excellence in its
special qualities, which, as in a human character, will be found to mark
its individuality. We shall proceed to give some account of the manner
in which the plan of obtaining the best instrument the Old World could
furnish to the New was formed, matured, and carried into successful
execution.

It is mainly to the persistent labors of a single individual that our
community is indebted for the privilege it now enjoys in possessing an
instrument of the supreme order, such as make cities illustrious by
their presence. That which is on the lips of all it can wrong no
personal susceptibilities to tell in print; and when we say that Boston
owes the Great Organ chiefly to the personal efforts of the present
President of the Music-Hall Association, Dr. J. Baxter Upham, the
statement is only for the information of distant readers.

Dr. Upham is widely known to the medical profession in connection with
important contributions to practical science. His researches on typhus
fever, as observed by him at different periods, during and since the
years 1847 and 1848, in this country, and as seen at Dublin and in the
London Fever Hospital, were recognized as valuable contributions to the
art of medicine. More recently, as surgeon in charge of the Stanley
General Hospital, Eighteenth Army Corps, he has published an account of
the "Congestive Fever" prevailing at Newborn, North Carolina, during the
winter and spring of 1862-63. We must add to these practical labors the
record of his most ingenious and original investigations of the
circulation in the singular case of M. Groux, which had puzzled so many
European experts, and to which, with the tact of a musician, he applied
the electro-magnetic telegraphic apparatus so as to change the rapid
consecutive motions of different parts of the heart, which puzzled the
eye, into successive _sounds_ of a character which the ear could
recognize in their order. It was during these experiments, many of which
we had the pleasure of witnessing, that the "side-show" was exhibited of
counting the patient's pulse, through the wires, at the Observatory in
Cambridge, while it was beating in Dr. Upham's parlor in Boston. Nor
should we forget that other ingenious contrivance of his, the system of
_sound-signals_, devised during his recent term of service as surgeon,
and applied with the most promising results, as a means of
intercommunication between different portions of the same armament.

In the summer of 1853, less than a year after the Music Hall was opened
to the public, Dr. Upham, who had been for some time occupied with the
idea of procuring an organ worthy of the edifice, made a tour in Europe
with the express object of seeing some of the most famous instruments of
the Continent and of Great Britain. He examined many, especially in
Germany, and visited some of the great organ-builders, going so far as
to obtain specifications from Mr. Walcker of Ludwigsburg, and from
Weigl, his pupil at Stuttgart. On returning to this country, he brought
the proposition of procuring a great instrument in Europe in various
ways before the public, among the rest by his "Reminiscences of a Summer
Tour," published in "Dwight's Journal of Music." After this he laid the
matter before the members of the Harvard Musical Association, and,
having thus gradually prepared the way, presented it for consideration
before the Board of Directors of the Music-Hall Association. A committee
was appointed "to consider." There was some division of opinion as to
the expediency of the more ambitious plan of sending abroad for a
colossal instrument. There was a majority report in its favor, and a
verbal minority report advocating a more modest instrument of home
manufacture. Then followed the anaconda-torpor which marks the process
of digestion of a huge and as yet crude project by a multivertebrate
corporation.

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