A Great Story-Teller: The Pipe Organ

    It is really encouraging to receive messages from those who read my blogposts, and the response to the post on the Ripon Cathedral Organ especially was such that I have no doubt that the series on storytelling that begins with this post will also be just as enjoyable to the same audience. Now before I talk of the obvious topics, like the Radio Organ or the Theatre Organ, I shall continue from yesterday's blog on the first organ.

    One finds references to organs in the Bible, however the Hebrew word Ugab, sometimes translated as “organ,” actually refers to something like a panpipe, the subject of yesterday's post. The organ, in the form that we understand has origins in Greece. Around the year 265 BC a Greek engineer named Ctesibus invented an instrument called the hydraulis or “water organ”, one that is recognizable as remarkably similar to the modern organ in the manner of the pipe layouts. Water organs were quite loud even then and were used both for the Circus and for Imperial processions. Inscriptions are found in the celebrations as seen on the pedestal that was made by Roman emperor Theodosius when he re-erected the obelisk Pharaoh Thutmose III first erected during the 18th dynasty of Egypt. (Bottom right and left in the image below).

    Such a historic story and victory is etched into this monument! One so significant that it warranted the best of music. Two organs! The emperor of Rome celebrated in the 4th century AD in a way that is not in possible in India even today. Nowhere in India will you find two Pipe Organs under the same roof. This shows how enduring this instrument was. The aura of the organ was so powerful that the church could not help but grab it up. To read on that though, kindly wait for my post tomorrow : )