ORGAN A/never, Gr., 6rganum, Lat., an instrument), the noblest of musical instruments, whether considered in regard to the grandeur and beauty of its sounds, the variety of its powers, or the sacral pur poses to which it is usually dedicated. It consists of a vast number of metallic and wooden pipes, divided into different stops, the wind being admitted into the pipes from a bellows, and is played on by means of a key-board. The machinery of an organ, which is rather complicated add exuedingly curious, is described in the next article.
Originally the word organum had a very extensive meaning, and signified nearly every kind of Instrument, for whatever purpose employed. By degrees it was confused to instruments of music ; after wards it was applied only to those of the pneumatic or wind kind; and finally it was exclusively used to designate that " world of sounds" which we call the organ. It can hardly be doubted that this instru ment may be traced to Pan's-pipes, or the tsris.r. it must soon have been discovered that the air may be forced into a closed cavity, acid then distributed at will to one or more tubes; and, pursuing the con trivance a little further, something like a modern organ was likely to be produced. Indeed, Mersenne, in his ' Harmonic Universelle: mention, an ancient monument in the Mattel Gardens in Rome, on which appears the representation of a pneumatic organ. It is a small chest placed on a table. In the front is a fernale figure playing on a number of keys, and on the other side ie a man blowing into the box with a pair of bellows exactly like those in present use. In llawkins'e History of Music ' (i. 403) is an engraving of this, from a copy found among the papers of Haym, the author of a history of ancient medals. St. Augustine, in his Comments on tho 56th Psalm, alludes to instrn menta inflated by bellow,. In the same pamage lie also givee ua to understand that organ was a generio ten», including every species. "Orgina," he says," dicuntur =nisi instruments musicorum," &e.
The description. left us by different authors of the musical instru ments of the early part of the middle ages, and the representations of them on several monuments, prove that attempts were made at different periods to improve them. Much thought was expended in discovering the beet method of introducing air into the pipes of the organ. For this purpose a fall of water was employed, and also what =let be understood to have been steam. William of Malmesbury describes the manner in which the latter was used. He says, " The wind, being forced out by the violence of the hot water, fills the whole cavity of the instrument, which, from several apertures, passing through brass pipes', sends forth musical noieeti." At length bellows were employed for the purpose, which were either worked by water or by hand. The application of these two powers led to the diatingnishIng terms hydraulic end pneumatic, or water-organ and wiud.organ, though, in point of fact, the ultimate result was the same in both. The invention of the former, which historians call an hydraulicon, is ascribed to Ctesibius of Alexandria, who lived about me. 150-12n. [CTESIIDIVS, in 'Imo. Div.] Vitruviue is the first writer who gives any account of an organ of that kind.
The period when the organ was introduced into the churches of Western Europe is vary uncertain. Pope \Italian is supposed to have been the first to admit the instrument, about the year 1370; but the earliest account to be at all relied on of the introduction of the instru ment in the West is, that about the year 755 the Greek emperor Copro nymus sent one as a present to Pepin, king of France. In the time of Charlemagne, however, organs become common in Europe. That prince had one built at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 812, on a Greek model, which the learned Benedictine, Bolos do Centel, in his vast but useful and excellent work,' L'Art du Facteur des argues' (1766),* considers to have been the first that was furnished with bellows without the use of water.