The Rotary Club of Anstruther’s meeting of February 8th heard a most interesting and unusual talk from club member Andrew Lindsay on his love for pipe organs.
Today the spectacular sound that one hears in modern cathedrals may use computers to help control the mechanism for driving air into the pipes. In contrast early organs used a simple bellows system pumped by the organist’s assistant.
All organs employ subtle systems of wind boxes and valves to release air into the appropriate pipes when the player presses particular keys on the manual (keyboard). Andrew explained how different pipes of different lengths and shapes, and made from different materials, can produce notes of varying pitch and tone.
Also available to the organist is an array of ‘stops’ which can be pulled in and out likewise to vary the volume and quality of sound. For the same purpose the more sophisticated organs have two or more manuals (keyboards) banked one above the other, plus a further ‘pedalboard’ operated by the feet.
Andrew then turned to the organ in Notre Dame in Paris, definitely one of the most splendid in the world with its five manuals and a pedalboard. Rebuilt in the late nineteenth century it boasts nearly 8000 pipes and a huge number of stops, so it can produce an almost infinite range of different sounds. Some of its pipes project horizontally out from the organ structure, delivering a hugely powerful sound directly to the congregation.
Andrew finally showed a clip of Olivier Latry, one of the cathedral’s four main organists, demonstrating the organ’s versatility in an impressive feat of improvisation. Club member Charles Thrower proposed the vote of thanks.
