Instruments | Barrel Organ | Keyboards

On the face of it, barrels and music would seem unlikely bedfellows. Their alliance, however, goes back at least to the ninth century, when the first detailed description of a barrel organ appeared in an Arab treatise.

Mechanics of the Barrel Organ

The mechanical principle underlying all such instruments, from the automated organ and piano to the spectacular mechanical orchestras of the nineteenth century, for which Beethoven composed his notorious Battle Symphony. At its heart is a revolving cylinder or barrel, placed horizontally and bearing brass or steel pins which open (or trigger the opening) of the required pipes or keys. These are activated by puffs or currents of air provided by bellows, which are operated by the same motion that turns the barrel. The simplest of these are the little hand-cranked ‘lap’ organs used in the eighteenth century to teach canaries melodies. These of course produced only unaccompanied melodic lines.

From the sixteenth century onwards, barrels were widely used for mechanical organs and musical clocks, and many were powered by a waterwheel. Such instruments were often found in the more affluent gardens of Italy and Austria. Other organs were propelled by weight-driven clockwork.

European Developments

In Tudor England there were barrel-operated virginals, and 1687 saw a combined organ-and-spinet with 16 pipes and 16 strings, all within a single clock. In 1736, George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) wrote and arranged numerous pieces for a clock that played both bells and organ pipes. In 1790 Mozart composed a great masterpiece expressly for a form of barrel organ.

Hand-cranked barrel pianos first appeared, in Italy, late in the eighteenth century. Initially small, but by the 1880s resembling an upright piano and placed on a two-wheeled cart, they were made and played almost exclusively by Italians, until Mussolini banned all street music in 1922.

Compositions for Barrel Organ

With one important exception, barrel organs and other related instruments were used primarily for mostly domestic entertainment. In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, however, they served a purpose both practical and spiritual, providing psalm and hymn tunes, chants and voluntaries in churches and chapels throughout the land, effectively sidelining the parish organist for the best part of 200 years. The ordinary street organ joined the urban landscape at the beginning of the nineteenth century, flourishing in the streets of London and other English towns until the outbreak of the First World War.

Many of the grander barrel organs disgorged numerous overtures, symphonic movements, selections from operas, sets of waltzes and other music. One of these had a formative influence on the child Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93).

In 1825, Clementi in London produced a machine that marked a new chapter in the story of the piano, though its full import was not perceived at the time. ‘This curious instrument,’ wrote one critic, ‘furnished with a horizontal cylinder, and put into motion by a steel spring, performs without external force or manual operation, the most difficult and intricate compositions.’ For amateur piano...

To read the full article please either login or register .

Source: The Illustrated Complete Musical Instruments Handbook, general editor Lucien Jenkins

AUTHORITATIVE

An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...

CURATED

Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.

Rock, A Life Story

Rock, A Life Story

The ultimate story of a life of rock music, from the 1950s to the present day.

David Bowie

David Bowie

Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers his life, music, art and movies, with a sweep of incredible photographs.