THE REGISTRATION OF AMERICAN ORGAN MUSIC, 1863-1912. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

A Dissertation 

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School 

of Cornell University 

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of  

Doctor of Musical Arts 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
by 

Michael Ray Plagerman 

 August 2025  



  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

© 2025 Michael Ray Plagerman 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



  

THE REGISTRATION OF AMERICAN ORGAN MUSIC, 1863-1912. 
 

Michael Ray Plagerman 
 

Cornell University 2025 
 
 
 American organ music of the second half of the nineteenth century is neither well known 

nor widely played, often relegated to performances on historic American organs rather than 

occupying an established place in the canon. Similarly, scholarship on this music is lacking. 

While there is abundant material treating late nineteenth-century organs, there is little writing 

about the music and its performance. Among the performance topics least treated in this 

scholarship is registration. The inherent variability of registration as a practice, adapting 

registration suggestions as needed depending on the organ, is a barrier to its study, and previous 

examinations of registrations are too vague to communicate applicable concepts. 

 Many treatises and tutors about organ playing were published in the second half of the 

nineteenth century. These documents offer insights into both the actual registrations used as well 

as the theory behind their selection. Writers used analogies to painting and orchestration to 

convey their views of registration. The motivation behind these comparisons was to describe the 

process of registration adaptation based both on practical necessity and personal taste. The 

development of the orchestra, orchestral instruments, and orchestral writing allow the analogies 

of writers on registration to be interpreted through the current practice of their time. This reveals 

an understanding of registration that is flexible and relies more on the organist’s opinions and 

tastes than the printed indications might suggest. 

 One common practice of the second half of the nineteenth century was to indicate 

registration solely through the use of dynamic markings. Treatises and tutors of the time 

commonly included registration tables describing the creation of a crescendo with stops. These 



  

tables list various combinations of stops from pianissimo through fortissimo, revealing a 

spectrum of sounds that can be used to interpret the dynamic markings in the published music. 

Dynamic markings are thus revealed to be communicators not only of volume but of timbre, 

communicated through the suggested combinations of stops.  

 Examining the treatises and tutors in addition to the published music that does contain 

specific registration indications reveals the ways in which stops were used when a piece calls for 

a more characteristic or solo/accompaniment registration than the general registration tables 

would convey. This serves as an interpretive key to pieces that contain no registration markings 

at all as well as serving as a basis for adjustment and alteration.  

 Of central importance to this dissertation are George Elbridge Whiting’s Organ 

Accompaniment and Extempore Playing (1887), Dudley Buck’s Illustrations in Choir 

Accompaniment (1892), and Everett Truette’s Organ Registration (1919). Unlike tutors, which 

contained only brief instructions at the front and were mostly musical examples intended for 

completely inexperienced organists, these three major treatises are intended for students with 

advanced levels of ability on the instrument. Coupled with the study described above, the 

extensive writings of Whiting, Buck, and Truette reveal a registration practice that went beyond 

the markings on the page, relying on them for initial guidance but then both allowing and 

expecting the organist to orchestrate the piece in accordance with their taste and the character of 

the music. 

 

 

 

 



 iii 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 

Michael Plagerman is a native of Washington state, where he currently resides with his 

wife, Erin, and works as the Director of Sacred Music at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, 

Seattle. Michael holds degrees from Pacific Lutheran University (B.Mus. Organ Performance, 

summa cum laude), the University of Notre Dame (M.S.M, Craig Cramer Prize in Organ 

Performance), and Cornell University (M.F.A., D.M.A.). He has studied with Barry Williams, 

Paul Tegels, David Dahl, Craig Cramer, Douglas Reid, Annette Richards, Christophe Mantoux, 

and Nathan Laube. 

 In addition to his work as an organist, Michael is also a choral director. He has studied 

choral direction with Richard Nance, Brian Galante, Andrew McShane, and Stephen Spinelli. 

Michael is currently the Director of Sacred Music at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, 

Seattle, where he conducts the two primary choirs, including the all-professional Cantorei, which 

presents between four and six concerts annually, with annual large-scale commissions. 

Previously, Michael has served as the graduate assistant director of the Cornell University 

Chorale and the Cornell University Chamber Singers, and in the same role for the Women’s 

Liturgical Choir and Basilica Schola at the University of Notre Dame. He holds the Choirmaster 

Diploma from the American Guild of Organists. 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 iv 

DEDICATION 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

To my grandparents, Carol, Don, Eugene, and Perlene. 
 

To my parents, David and Janis. 
 

To my beloved, 
Erin. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 



 v 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
 

 All academic pursuits are community endeavors, and I am both grateful and indebted to 

the communities that have supported, cajoled, encouraged, challenged, and engaged me in this 

process. My deepest gratitude to the graduate student community at Cornell University, 

particularly Dr. Matthew Hall, Dr. Anna Steppler, Dr. Samanthe Heinle, and Dr. Stephen Spinelli, 

without whose insights and countless hours of conversation this document would not exist. 

 I wish also to thank my family, who have long supported my musical, educational, and 

professional pursuits. Particular thanks go to my parents, who managed to both encourage and 

keep me humble. This would also not have been possible without the encouragement of my 

grandmothers, Carol and Perlene, both of whom have been constant and unwavering supporters 

of my musical endeavors and have provided ample encouragement to the completion of this 

degree. 

 My gratitude also goes out to my special committee, Professors Annette Richards, David 

Yearsley, and Roger Moseley, without whom I would not have been able to complete this degree. 

I am particularly grateful to Professor Richards for the many and tremendous opportunities that 

she made possible during my tenure at Cornell, particularly in facilitating my time of study with 

Christophe Mantoux and Nathan Laube. 

 Finally, my most inexpressible gratitude goes to my wife, Erin, without whose gentle 

encouragement, copy-editing skills, and willingness to listen to inhumane hours of organ music 

and my musings on it, this dissertation would not have reached completion. 

  
  

 

 



 vi 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Biographical Sketch ii. 

Dedication iv. 

Acknowledgements v. 

Table of Contents vi. 

Introduction 1 

Chapter 1: Concepts in Registration 14 

 Analogies for Registration: Descriptions and Implications 15 

 Organ Registration and Orchestration 18 

Quantitative Shifts in Nineteenth-Century Orchestration Techniques and Their Parallels 

in Organ Registration 24 

 The Notation of Registration 29 

 Limits of Registration Indications and A Case for Flexibility 36 

 Console Assistants, Pistons, and Mechanical Aids 53 

 Conclusion 55 

Chapter 2: Registration through Dynamic Markings 56 

 The Softest Stop 57 

 The Addition of Stops and Their Dynamic Positions 66 

 The Final Stop in a Crescendo  79 

 Pedal Registration 81 

 Couplers 82 

 The Role of the Swell Box in a Crescendo 85 

 Notation for Registration and Swell Box Based Dynamic Alterations 86 



 vii 

 Conclusion 93 

Chapter 3: Characteristic Registration 95 

 Diapasons 97 

 Flutes 104 

 Strings 109 

 Reeds 114 

 Rules for Combinations 121 

 Exceptional Registrations 122 

 Conclusion 123 

Chapter 4: Application as a Case Study 124 

Conclusion 144 

Bibliography 146 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 
 



 1 

Introduction 
 
 On the evening of October 3, 1863, two-thousand fifty-four people gathered in the 

Boston Music Hall to watch a dimly lit, heavy green curtain slowly drop to the sound of a grand 

crescendo, revealing both the sight and sound of America’s newest concert hall organ.1 As the 

volume reached its zenith, the curtain hit the floor and to the sudden blaze of calcium arc lights 

and thunderous applause, a new age in American organ performance was born.2 This organ, built 

by E.F. Walcker of Ludwigsburg, Germany, was the first major organ to be imported from 

Europe, and its dedication concert, which followed the theatrics described above, represented a 

substantial change in the landscape of secular organ recitals and of large-scale organ composition 

in America.  

As Barbara Owen has described, organ music in secular settings in pre-Civil War 

American was largely limited to simple, short, and uncomplicated works, or transcriptions of 

popular pieces originally written for other musical media suitable for the mostly small organs 

found in the still fledgling country.3 As solo organ concerts gradually gained popularity, their 

programs increasingly contained more music written specifically for the organ, much of which 

had come to be regarded as “high art” music.4 The core of this newly forming canon was the 

music of J.S. Bach, brought to the United States by American organists who had studied in 

Germany, primarily John Knowles Paine, Eugene Thayer, and Dudley Buck.5  

 
1 Barbara Owen, The Great Organ at Methuen (Organ Historical Society Press, 2011), 49. 
2 Barbara Owen, “The Opening of the Great Organ in Boston Music Hall: A Letter from Miss Jane Kingsford to 
Miss Julia Ward,” The Tracker 40, no. 2 (1996): 11-14. 
3 Barbara Owen, “The Maturation of the Secular Organ Recital in America’s Gilded Age,” Nineteenth-Century 
Music Review 12 (2015): 95-101. 
4 Ibid. 
5 Michael Broyles, “Haupt’s Boys: Lobbying for Bach in Nineteenth Century Boston,” Bach Perspectives vol. 5: 
Bach in America, ed. Stephen A. Crist (University of Illinois Press, 2003), 37-56. 



 2 

Michael Broyles has pointed out that the exposure of American organists to Bach was 

well-timed in that it aligned with a boom in American organ building. Prior to the mid nineteenth 

century, organs would not reliably have had the resources to play Bach.6 By 1863, the Music Hall 

organ dedication program comprised almost exclusively music written for the organ, including 

three works by Bach and Mendelssohn’s third organ sonata.7 The performers on this program 

included prominent musicians such as John Knowles Paine, Eugene Thayer, George Morgan, and 

B.J. Lang.8  

 In the second half of the nineteenth century, these organists and others like them would 

come to constitute the most prominent musicians in the country. The “Boston Six,” more 

formally known as the Second New England School – Horatio Parker, John Knowles Paine, 

George Chadwick, Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell, and Arthur Foote – were all active 

organists and composers for the organ. Their works were published and played widely. By the 

mid-1870s the American classical musical scene was burgeoning. As John Ogasapian and N. Lee 

Orr have discussed at length, the second half of the nineteenth century was the period when most 

of America’s symphony orchestras were established, including the New York Philharmonic 

(1842), Boston Symphony Orchestra (1881), the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1891), and the 

Philadelphia Orchestra (1900).9 Patrick S. Gilmore’s Peace Jubilee in 1869 featured works by 

Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Schubert, and Wagner to crowds numbering as high as 

fifty thousand.10 

 
6 Ibid, 47. 
7 Owens, The Great Organ at Methuen, 54-55. 
8 Ibid. 
9 John Ogasapian and N. Lee Orr, Music of the Gilded Age (Greenwood Press, 2007), 15-16.  
10 Ibid, 10-11. 



 3 

This was the period in which the first American music conservatories were established, 

modeled primarily on their German counterparts, where many of their professors had been 

educated.11 All of the most prominent early American conservatories offered organ studies, with 

Eugene Thayer teaching at the Boston Conservatory, John Knowles Paine at Harvard (not a 

conservatory, as such, but an institution with an important music program at the time), and 

George Whiting and Dudley Buck, with occasional help from Paine, at the New England 

Conservatory.12  

Organ building also thrived in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Builders such as 

Hook and Hastings, William Johnson, George Hutchings, George Jardine, and many others, 

rapidly expanded their businesses to meet growing demand for both more and larger instruments. 

Orphe Ochse has noted that Boston area builder William Goodrich (1777-1833) built forty-nine 

organs in his lifetime, eleven of which were chamber organs, while the E. & G.G. Hook Co. was 

producing a similar number of organs in roughly three years by the middle of the 1850s.13  

Today, in 2025, only slightly over a century and a half later, the rich repertory of organ 

music by American composers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has largely fallen 

out of use, consigned to specialty recitals on ‘historic’ organs.  While the orchestral and chamber 

music of the Second New England school are held up as great artistic products of the time, the 

organ music tends to receive far fewer accolades. The scholarship on organ performance in the 

second half of the nineteenth century mirrors this, though a few authors have explored the 

repertoire in a concerted fashion. Christopher Marks has written on the evolution of pedal 

technique and its relationship to organ building as taken from the writings and compositions of 

 
11 Ibid, 72-73. 
12 Andrew Unsworth, “Organ Pedagogy and Performance Practice in Boston, 1850-1900” (Ph.D. diss., Duke 
University, 2001), 71-76 and 80-81. 
13 Orphe Ochse, The History of the Organ in the United States (Indiana University Press, 1975), 103.  



 4 

Dudley Buck.14 Marks has also written about the development of an American musical style 

through the lens of the early American organ sonata.15 An earlier examination of American organ 

sonatas can be found in Jerome Butera’s dissertation “Form and Style in Two American Sonatas: 

The Grand Sonata in E-Flat, op.22, of Dudley Buck, and The Sonata in E-flat, op. 65 of Horatio 

Parker.”16 Jonathan Hall has also examined the structure of Buck’s Grand Sonata and has 

suggested a connection between not only this sonata and its successors in the same genre, but 

between this piece and ragtime and other “varied carols” in the American repertoire of the time.17 

N. Lee Orr has contributed substantially to the scholarly literature on organs, composers, and 

performance practice. Of note is his article “Dudley Buck and the Coming of Age of the 

American Organ,” which details the increasing popularity of the organ as a concert instrument 

and the impact on that increase of Buck and his contemporaries.18 Barbara Owen has also written 

a considerable amount on the context surrounding American organ music in the nineteenth 

century. A substantial portion of the scholarly literature focusing on the second half of the 

nineteenth century comprises composer biographies that are most useful, from a performance 

perspective, for their bibliographies.19 Though there is not an abundance of scholarly research on 

the performance of music from this period, primary sources are many, creating a field rich for 

study and interpretation. 

 
14 Christopher Marks, “Dudley Buck and the Evolution of the American Pedal Technique” Keyboard Perspectives 4 
(2011): 49-67.  
15 Christopher Marks, “Organ Sonatas and the Development of an American Musical Style,” Keyboard Perspectives 
11 (2018): 37-59.  
16 Jerome Butera, “Form and Style in Two American Sonatas: The Grand Sonata in E-Flat, op.22, of Dudley Buck, 
and The Sonata in E-flat, op. 65 of Horatio Parker” (DMA thesis, American Conservatory of Music, Chicago, 1982). 
17 Jonathan Hall, “Dudley Buck’s Grand Sonata in E-flat: The Architecture of an American Masterpiece,” The 
Diapason (April 2012): 20-21. 
18 N. Lee Orr, “Dudley Buck and the Coming of Age of the American Organ” in Litterae Organi: Essays in Honor of 
Barbara Owen (OHS Press, 2005), 211-32. 
19 See: N. Lee Orr, Dudley Buck (University of Illinois Press, 2008); Nicholas Tawa, Arthur Foote: A Musician in 
the Frame of Time and Place (Scarecrow Press, 1997); William K. Kearns, Horatio Parker, 1863-1919: His Life, 
Music, and Ideas (Scarecrow Press, 1990); and John C. Schmidt, The Life and Works of John Knowles Pain (UMI 
Research Press, 1980). 



 5 

Similarly abundant are extant nineteenth-century American organs. Unlike the readily 

available repertoire, American organ building has been studied in much greater depth. Orphe 

Ochse’s seminal work The History of Organbuilding in the United States remains the primary 

guide to the course that organ building followed into mid-twentieth century North America. It is 

a thorough documentation of the general trends in organ building and, while it lacks minutely 

detailed description of individual organs and detailed examination of individual builders, it 

remains the foremost source for consultation on general trends and discussions of the 

relationships between builders, regions, and styles. Further finely grained scholarship on 

American organ builders, usually focusing on individual organs, is to be found in the many 

articles published by the Organ Historical Society in The Tracker. Each issue of this periodical 

normally features an in-depth examination of at least one historic organ, and the most prolific 

authors of these articles are Rollin Smith and Stephen Pinel. Smith, particularly, has articles in 

well over half of all the issues of The Tracker, and the majority are analyses of single 

instruments, often including a careful description of the relationship between the organ in 

question and that builder’s output in general. Among the many organs of the second half of the 

nineteenth century that survive the following are particularly notable examples: Hook and 

Hastings’ Op. 801 (1875) in Holy Cross Cathedral, Boston; Hook and Hastings’ Op. 828 (1876), 

originally for the 1876 Centennial Exposition, now located in St. Joseph’s Cathedral (RC), 

Buffalo; Hilborne Roosevelt’s Op. 113 (1883) in First Congregational Church, Great Barrington; 

Hutching’s Op. 140 (1897) in the Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Boston; 

Woodberry and Harris’ Op. 100 (1892) in St. Mary’s Church (RC), Charlestown. 

The early European training of and influence on American musicians is widely 

acknowledged, if not extensively documented. Douglas Bomberger’s 1991 dissertation, “The 



 6 

German Musical Training of American Students, 1850-1900,” demonstrates the importance of 

German pedagogy in late nineteenth-century America. Though not specifically about the organ, 

his study is structured around the major conservatories at which American organists studied, and 

around some of the most notable students at each institution. Four of the students he highlights 

(George Whitefield Chadwick, John Knowles Paine, Horatio Parker, and Edward MacDowell) 

were prominent organist composers of the Second New England School.20  

As John Ogasapian and N. Lee Orr have discussed, the notion of “high art” music was 

born of German idealism, first transmitted by German immigrant musicians to the United 

States.21 Though largely the preserve of the elite, this music gained increasing popularity in the 

second half of the century.22 The training of American students in Germany later in the century 

was both an affirmation of the place of German music in late nineteenth-century America and the 

means by which American composition would gain its legitimacy.  

Andrew Unsworth’s 2001 dissertation, “Organ Pedagogy and Performance Practice in 

Boston, 1850-1900,” clarifies the ways in which European, and specifically German, 

pedagogical practices translated into organ study in Boston.23 His approach to this project is 

similar in both scope and methodology to Jon Laukvik’s Historical Performance Practice in 

Organ Playing, Part 2: The Romantic Period.24 Both describe instruments, the writings of 

prominent organists and composers, and musical scores to shed light on issues of phrasing, 

 
20 Douglas Bomberger, “The German Musical Training of American Students, 1850-1900” (Ph.D. diss., University 
of Maryland College Park, 1991), 70-189. 
21 John Ogasapian and N. Lee Orr, Music of the Gilded Age, American History Through Music Series (Greenwood 
Press, 2007), 13. 
22 Ibid. 
23 Unsworth, “Organ Pedagogy.” 
24 Jon Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, Part II: The Romantic Period (Carus-Verlag, 
2010). 



 7 

touch, articulation, and technique. While my approach in this dissertation will be similar, I will 

focus on a different but equally important aspect: registration. 

In organ scholarship generally, writing about registration is lacking. Apart from the 

registration tutors of the mid-twentieth century like those of E. Harold Geer25 and Jack C. 

Goode,26 both of which are contemporary treatises rather than historical studies, the general 

approach to this topic has been to list stoplists and describe registration suggestions with little 

interpretation or critical discussion. Laukvik dedicates fifty-two pages of his book to an 

examination of registration practice in Germany and France in the Romantic period. This section 

is largely a catalogue of writings about, or descriptions of, registration suggestions offered by 

composers, organists, and theorists of the time.27 Laukvik then situates those suggestions within 

the context of organ building in the relevant location.  

Andrew Unsworth and Ian Classe are the only two authors who have discussed 

registration at the American organ. Unsworth’s project is not primarily about registration, and his 

description of practices is relevant for his overall goal of discussing pedagogical practices in 

Boston. He describes the teaching of registration through treatises, noting that two approaches 

were generally applied: descriptions in prose and examples in the context of compositions.28 He 

then goes on to document the various writings of authors of the period. While many of the 

sources explored by Laukvik come from the footnotes of first editions, autographs, or writings of 

composers about specific performance practices, information about American registration 

practice almost all comes from published organ tutors that were designed to educate 

 
25 E. Harold Geer, Organ Registration in Theory and Practice (Belwin-Mills, 1957). 
26 Jack C. Goode, Pipe Organ Registration (Abingdon Press, 1964). 
27 Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, 144-177 and 191-210.  
28 Unsworth, “Organ Pedagogy,” 225-232. 



 8 

inexperienced organists. As such, much of the material they contain is rudimentary and reveals 

little about the underlying principles that guided a more advanced practice of the art.  

Ian Classe’s 2019 thesis, “Pipes of the Past: Registration Practices of Selected American 

Composers for the American Centennial Era Organ,” seeks more specifically to address this 

particular topic.29 Unfortunately, his study is limited not only to the uninterpreted description of 

primary sources but to a much smaller set of sources than Unsworth examines.  

It is inherently difficult to generalize about registration practices that are variable, 

instrument-specific, and tailored to specific times and places. But the limiting of scholarship on 

nineteenth-century American registration to lists of source documents, with little attempt at 

interpretation, results, I would suggest, not so much from the challenges posed by the sources, as 

from the fact that French pedagogy, with its emphasis on standardization, came to dominate 

American organ teaching and performance in the second half of the twentieth century. Timothy 

Pyper’s dissertation, “Performance Practice at the English Organ Circa 1880-1940,” describes 

the technical and musical legacy of French organists, in particular Marcel Dupré, on American 

performance practice.30 As Pyper notes, the exacting style of Dupré left no room for the opinion 

or preferences of the organist in the interpretation of music. As Dupré wrote, “the interpreter 

must never allow his own personality to appear. As soon as it penetrates the work has been 

betrayed.”31 This score- and composer-centric view of performance limits the organist to 

reproducing what can be seen in the score or otherwise demonstrated to be the intention of the 

 
29 Ian Classe, “Pipes of the Past: Registration Practices of Selected Composers for the American Centennial Era 
Organ” (DMA diss., University of Kansas, 2019). 
30 Timothy Pyper, “Performance Practice at the English Organ Circa 1880-1940” (DMA diss., Cornell University, 
2011). 
31 Marcel Dupré, Philosophie de Musique (Tourain: Collegium Musicum, 1984), 43; quoted in Pyper, “Performance 
Practice at the English Organ Circa 1880-1940” (DMA diss., Cornell University, 2011), 13. 



 9 

composer. But this interpretive paradigm is unrelated to earlier American nineteenth-century 

music. 

Scholarship on French organ performance practice is substantial. Rollin Smith’s Toward 

an Authentic Interpretation of the Organ Works of César Franck, Orphe Ochse’s Organists and 

Organ Playing in Nineteenth Century France and Belgium, Fenner Douglass’ Cavaillé-Coll and 

the French Romantic Tradition, and John Near’s Widor on Organ Performance Practice and 

Technique are but a few examples. Of these authors, only Near deals with registration at all, 

though he does it rather comprehensively. In his commentary on Widor’s writing, Near not only 

describes the registrations that Widor gives in his music, but also connects those to the 

compositional structure of the piece in a fashion that raises interesting questions and suggests 

novel answers for the modern organist playing these works on non-French symphonic organs.  

American registration practice of the late nineteenth century was personal and highly 

interpretive, since published music contained few registration indications. Authors who wrote 

about registration were quick to note that it is ultimately up to the organist to decide the 

registration of the piece based not exclusively on the desires of the composer, but also on the 

performer’s own preferences. In his book Organ Registration (1919), Everett Truette writes that 

he hopes the young organist “will fully consider the various opinions [of various organists] in 

forming his personal taste and individuality in registration.”32 In a note at the top of his second 

organ sonata, Dudley Buck writes, “The Registration throughout this work, is intended as 

suggestive rather than obligatory.”33  

 
32 Everett Truette, Organ Registration: A Comprehensive Treatise on the Distinctive Quality of Tone of Organ Stops, 
the Acoustical and Musical Effect of Combining Individual Stops, and the Selection of Stops and Combinations for 
the Various Phases of Organ Compositions: Together with Suggested Registration for One Hundred Organ 
Compositions, hymns, and anthems intended to be played on specific organs (C.W. Thompson and Co., 1919), 
preface. 
33 Dudley Buck, Sonata No. 2, Op. 77 (G. Schirmer, 1868), introductory note. 



 10 

The most substantial and prominent of the late nineteenth-century treatises, namely 

George Elbridge Whiting’s Organ Accompaniment and Extempore Playing (1887), Dudley 

Buck’s Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment (1892), and Everett Truette’s Organ Registration 

(1919), delve more fully into the nature of this flexibility and its application in performance. 

Many documents were published during the period covered by this dissertation that described 

how to play the organ, but the majority of those were short tutors intended to give a total novice 

a rough framework of how to approach the organ. The documents by Whiting, Buck, and Truette 

treat more advanced topics in greater detail. This allows for a deeper reading and reveals more 

about their underlying practices than do other tutors. My dissertation will examine the sections of 

these works dealing with registration, considering not only the given registration suggestions, but 

also the underlying reasons for these suggestions, and their relationships to published music and 

organs of the time. 

The title of George Whiting’s Organ Accompaniment and Extempore Playing makes his 

aim clear, but does not reveal the way in which he undertakes the subject. This one hundred 

seventeen-page document consists mostly of musical examples of pieces adapted from other 

musical mediums for the purpose of accompanying the choir. The prose describing each 

example, where there is any prose at all, is brief.34 Of the use of the treatise Whiting wrote, “A 

text book of this character is a great help to the pupil, as it partly takes the place of the teacher 

when the pupil is practicing alone. It will also be found valuable for reference after the pupil’s 

studies are completed…”35 This reveals that Whiting intended his treatise to be used at the organ 

 
34 George Elbridge Whiting, Organ Accompaniment and Extempore Playing, Op. 50 (New England Conservatory of 
Music, 1887). 
35 Ibid, preface. 



 11 

in a practical capacity. He notes at the conclusion of the preface that the work should take the 

student two or more years to complete. 

In contrast to Whiting’s highly practical treatise, Dudley Buck’s Illustrations in Choir 

Accompaniment is a much more theoretical work, delving into greater detail about the underlying 

reasons behind his suggestions.36 Buck wrote about his detailed writing that he  

has endeavored in all cases where he has advocated the use, or counselled the avoidance, 
of a given manner of accompaniment or registration, not to make it the simple assertion 
of an opinion, but to give the ‘reason why.’ He believes it to be the only way by which the 
student can deduce truly general principles, and thus make the work available to his own 
requirements.37 
 

Buck also specifies that this work is not meant for a beginner at the organ. In addition to 

specifying that treatise is meant for early career organists, he requires that the user have a 

familiarity with “the elements of Harmony, at least to the extent of a knowledge of intervals, the 

ordinary progressions of chords, etc.”38 Though the vast majority of what Buck considers is the 

relationship between an organ accompaniment and an ensemble, solo voice, instruments, or other 

musical media, his detailed writing reveals a great deal about his thoughts on registration. 

 Everett Truette’s Organ Registration is unquestionably the most revealing document 

about registration of the three.39 Not only is it the only treatise of the time that treats registration 

exclusively, but it is also exhaustive in its approach. Truette describes conventions surrounding 

organ nomenclature, the acoustic principles of organ building, the construction and character of 

many organ stops, and offers hundreds of pages describing possible uses of all these stops. 

Truette does not seem to have a specific readership in mind for his work. Though he notes that 

 
36 Dudley Buck, Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment: With Hints in Registration: A Hand-Book (Provided with 
Marginal Notes for Reference) for the Use of Organ Students, Organists, and Those Interested in Church Music (G. 
Schirmer, 1892). 
37 Ibid, 3. 
38 Ibid. 
39 Truette, Organ Registration. 



 12 

his frequent repetition of certain statements in the text “will ensure a permanency in the mind of 

the young organist,” he clearly means for the work to be used by organists at all different points 

in their education.40 The basic descriptions of nomenclature are useful to new organists, while his 

descriptions of pipe construction and particular ways of using the organ are interesting and useful 

to any reader. Truette is open about the fact that any document treating registration must rely on 

the personal opinions of the writer.  

 This dissertation relies heavily on the use of first editions of musical works published in 

the second half of the nineteenth century. Necessarily, then, we must consider how editorial 

policy during publication may have affected the presentation of the composers’ intended 

markings. In his dissertation “Performance Practice at the English Organ” Timothy Pyper 

reckons with this very question, ultimately noting that it is not often possible to clearly determine 

to whom a given marking might belong. In the preface to his discussion of slur markings he 

writes, “it is well known that early twentieth-century publishing houses added gratuitous slurs to 

newly-edited works of older composers. However, the possibility of unauthorized editorial 

intervention in the works of English composers living in the early 20th century remains for now a 

largely unexplored realm of research.”41 This is similarly true of the publications of late 

nineteenth-century Bostonian organ composers, whose publishers did not reveal their editorial 

policies. The fact remains that the published documents themselves are testaments to actual 

practices. Whether the composer intended for a certain marking to be present does not change the 

reality of its published existence, which through distribution became normative. Further 

 
40 Ibid, preface. 
41 Pyper, “Performance Practice at the English Organ,” 54. 



 13 

exploration of house editorial policies is required to clarify the relationship of the publications to 

the composer’s manuscripts.42  

 This dissertation explores the various concepts and practices described in sources 

concerning registration between 1863 and 1912. This period begins with the installation of the 

Walcker organ at the Boston Music Hall, and it ends with the installation of the Kotzschmar 

Memorial Organ by Austin at Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine. As one of the earliest civic 

organs, the latter typified the new “orchestral” style of organ building and is a major example of 

the shift in organ building from a symphonic concept to an orchestral one that happened in the 

first decades of the twentieth century. I examine the principles that undergirded Buck, Whiting, 

and Truette’s understandings of registration, including the implications of comparisons they 

make between registration and other arts. This careful reading of the treatises is then applied to 

scores. In pieces with printed indications, I will examine the relationship between the principles 

of registration discussed above and the suggested registrations shown in the scores. In those 

pieces that do not include indications, the foundational principles will be used to suggest possible 

combinations of stops. In my final chapter, I will apply the results of this exploration to a real-

world scenario at the organ. Taking this material to the console allows for an embodied 

experience of the discipline of registration, guided by the sources, that lifts the research off the 

page and into practice, and enacts the final part of the process that Buck, Whiting, and Truette all 

advocate - namely, experimentation. 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 

42 One curious practice in the music of Arthur Foote as published by Arthur P. Schmidt will be considered in chapter 
three of this work in relationship to specific selected pieces in his output. 



 14 

Chapter 1: 
 

Concepts in Registration 
 

 That registration is the least treated of the various aspects of organ playing, both in 

primary and secondary literature, should not be taken as an indication that it is less important for 

organ performance practice. Nor should the relative silence on this topic be read as a tacit 

acknowledgement of a kind of free-for-all necessitated by differences among organs. In his 

treatise Organ Stops and Their Artistic Registration (1921), George Ashdown Audsley 

enigmatically points out the unique opportunity afforded the organist in the selection of stops: 

What a wonderful world of tone the organist can live in if he only realizes his 
birthright— his citizenship in the land of beautiful sound. The organist stands supreme in 
the musical world—the master of the most stupendous, the most wonderful musical 
instrument ever conceived by the mind and fabricated by the hand of man. Think of it, O 
ye Organists, and rise to the level of your birthright!1  

The challenge posed for the scholar by registration practice is its inherent variability. As Buck 

writes in Illustrations in Choral Accompaniment, “A master may carefully mark given pieces as 

to the use of certain stops. The student takes it to another instrument, and the effect is found to be 

quite different, and in most cases unsatisfactory.”2 Even this is based on the unreliable 

assumption that the alternate organ has the requisite stops. The art of registration is essentially 

one of adjusting. The organist must adapt, translate, and adjust the wishes (stated or implied) of 

the composer, ‘reorchestrating’ according to the resources available on a particular instrument. 

My study of nineteenth-century registration practice seeks to understand not only the sounds and 

 
1 George Ashdown Audsley, Organ Stops and Their Artistic Registration (The H.W. Gray Co., 1921), 10-11. 
2 Dudley Buck, Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment: With Hints in Registration: A Hand-Book (Provided with 
Marginal Notes for Reference) for the Use of Organ Students, Organists, and Those Interested in Church Music (G. 
Schirmer, 1892), 4. 

 



 15 

common uses of particular stops and stop combinations, but also the aesthetic considerations and 

real-world factors (technological, musical, physiological) that governed organists’ choices. 

This chapter examines common analogies for registration and their implications, common 

markings for registration, and whether those markings are prescriptive or descriptive. It argues 

that much more information about the registration of American organ music of the late 

nineteenth century is available than is present in the score. To uncover this information, I explore 

the way registration was conceptualized by organists of the period. 

 
Analogies for Registration: Descriptions and Implications 

 In attempting to communicate the vagaries and nuances of registration practice at the 

organ, both Dudley Buck and Everett Truett resort to comparisons well beyond the organ art, 

turning to the visual arts of painting and color photography, and in music, the art of 

orchestration. Because these comparisons deal with the less formulaic, less observable, and less 

concrete elements of registration practice, they offer useful evidence of the ways registration was 

conceived and theorized. Though the temptation arises to make more of such comparisons than 

their authors intended, this chapter will explore some of them, situating Truette and Buck’s 

understanding of musical sounds within a broader concept of the arts, and delving into the 

possible implications of these comparisons for organ registration.  

 Both Buck and Truette make use of the analogy with painting in their treatises. For Buck, 

registration is like painting in that it can only truly be learned by experience, once the first 

principles have been mastered. He writes: 

 …registration, in any complete or elaborate sense, can not be taught, but … it 
may be learned. If this seem paradoxical, a simile drawn from the practice of a sister art – 
Painting – may serve to make this clear.  

A comparative beginner in this latter art, whose master instructs him how to apply 
certain colors to a given painting, could doubtless reproduce his work were the same 



 16 

subject given him and the same colors and shades of color supplied him. Under changed 
conditions, he would be helpless. What then is the course pursued? The student must 
learn to mix colors, and produce his own shades through experimental knowledge of the 
general principles which govern the process. These general principles will still apply to 
the changed conditions he is sure to meet with in his own work. They afford him a sure 
criterion of judgment as to how to proceed when removed from his master’s advice and 
counsel, and implant within him that germ which it is his own responsibility to develop. 

Thus with the organ. A master may carefully mark given pieces as to the use of 
certain stops. The student takes it to another instrument, and the effect is found to be 
quite different, and in most cases unsatisfactory. The tone-color does not suit the new 
conditions. With the painter it is not the mere knowledge of how to manipulate the brush, 
nor with the organist how to manipulate the keys, but behind that must lie a knowledge of 
general principles of combination which can be adapted to varying circumstances.3 

 
 Buck resorts to a comparison to elucidate a simple concept: that different situations 

require different solutions. The distinction between what can be taught and what must be learned 

through experience is not unique to any discipline, artistic or otherwise. What Buck is 

highlighting here is a notion of the relationship between the composer, the teacher, and the 

performer. In the second paragraph of the quote, the “master” is a teacher communicating a 

process of replication. In the third paragraph, however, the “master” takes on more of the 

characteristics of a composer as well, in marking actual registrations for a given piece. Whether 

Buck intends for the master to be read as pedagogue, composer, or something of both is unclear, 

and drawing a distinction between the two may not be necessary. The purpose of the quote is to 

describe the need for creative flexibility when given different resources.  

In saying “the student takes it to another instrument, and the effect is found to be quite 

different, and in most cases unsatisfactory,” Buck is suggesting that the given registration is 

possible on the new instrument. He even dispenses with any possible confusion that could arise 

from the analogy by specifying that the master has marked the piece with specific stop 

suggestions.   

 
3 Ibid, 4-5. 



 17 

 For instance, if we imagine that the master has called for a trumpet, but was referring to 

the more classically inspired trumpets found on earlier American organs, the use on a new organ 

of a French-style harmonic trumpet, like those that were included on American organs later in 

the century would not have the same effect. Even a similarly constructed stop in a different room 

might have a completely different effect. In the case of our imaginary example, a French 

Hautbois might be a more satisfactory stop for the purpose, though its character would be quite 

different from either form of trumpet. 

Truette also uses painting to describe the process of adjustment and experimentation in 

registration. He writes: 

The young organist who seeks a knowledge of registration must develop a personal taste 
and imagination, with regard to the tone of the various stops of the organ, so that he can 
make good use of the knowledge already mentioned. Just as a painter may have a 
thorough knowledge of every color on his palette, and yet be a poor colorist, so may an 
organist be familiar with the tone of the organ stops in general, and yet be lacking in any 
individual taste for registration. Such taste must be ordinate to be of much value.4 
 

Truette, like Buck, expects the organ student to learn the fundamental qualities of the individual 

stops, their ‘colors,’ and the basic principles of their combination; like Buck, he expects the 

student to develop the ability to make independent judgements as to effective combinations of 

sounds. 

Truette does not limit his use of this analogy to a description of coloristic adjustment born 

of good education and diligent experimentation. His second analogy reveals more about the 

underlying aesthetic ideal at which Buck hints. Truette writes: 

In pictorial art, there is much beauty in steel engravings, etchings, and photographs, 
whether printed in blue, sepia or platinum tints, but the oil-painting overshadows them 

 
4 Everett Truette, Organ Registration: A Comprehensive Treatise on the Distinctive Quality of Tone of Organ Stops, 
the Acoustical and Musical Effect of Combining Individual Stops, and the Selection of Stops and Combinations for 
the Various Phases of Organ Compositions: Together with Suggested Registration for One Hundred Organ 
Compositions, hymns, and anthems intended to be played on specific organs (C.W. Thompson and Co., 1919), 
10. 



 18 

all, not only in the beauty and variety of coloring, but in faithfully reproducing all the 
colors of the subject. 
 With organ music, similar conditions prevail. A few compositions are like steel 
engravings. They are satisfactory if played correctly in notes, rhythm, and relative power 
of the various phrases, even if tonally monochromatic, so to speak. Most organ 
compositions, however, lose a large part of their charm if rendered in this manner.5 

Particularly interesting in this quote is Truette’s reference to the art of photography. 

Photography is uniquely similar to the organ in that its development and use is inherently limited 

to technological innovation. Though experiments in color photography had been ongoing since 

the middle of the nineteenth century, at the time of Truette’s writing in 1919 color photography 

was still in its early stages of development.6  

Truette’s preference for painting thus evinces a clear and explicit desire for nuance, 

shading, subtlety of tone, and variation of color based on a visual medium that epitomizes a 

sophisticated and rich treatment of color. The question of the practical application of this 

aesthetic to registration practice will be taken up in the last section of the chapter.   

Organ registration and orchestration 

The second analogy commonly resorted to by writers on the art of organ registration is 

that of orchestration. The comparison of the organ to an orchestra, or at least to other 

instruments, was far from an innovation of the nineteenth century. Stop names themselves are 

sufficient demonstrations of this, with flutes, trumpets, oboes, trombones, and other stops that 

imitate orchestral instruments having been a feature of organ building since as far back as the 

late sixteenth century. The nineteenth-century organ, however, saw a demonstrable effort on the 

part of builders to bring their instruments more closely in line with the aesthetics of the 

 
5 Ibid,11. 
6 William S. Johnson, Mark Rice, and Carla Williams, The George Eastman Collection, A History of Photography, 
(Taschen Bibliotheca Universalis, 2023), 301-305. 



 19 

orchestra. As Jon Laukvik has shown, the primary changes that German, French, and American 

organ building underwent in the nineteenth century were an increase in the size of instruments, 

the inclusion of more eight-foot flue stops, and a greater variety of reeds that, coupled with the 

use of the swell box – a primarily French and English innovation – allowed for even crescendos 

and more seamless transitions between colors than on earlier organs.7  

This style of organ building has been termed “symphonic,” which, as Joris Verdin has 

discussed, relates to the idea of the organ as an ensemble, whose sounds are valued for their role 

in combination, rather than primarily considered on their own merits.8 This sense of ensemble is 

related to the proliferation of eight-foot stops, since an increase in number of like sounds 

generally has the effect of creating a more cohesive sound. This proliferation also allows for the 

less obtrusive entry of bolder sounds into the texture. A symphonic organ, then, may also have 

more distinct sounds, many of which would have been stops at eight-foot pitch, without 

compromising its ensemble.9  

This was also true of the organs of E.F. Walcker, whose tonal concept, Paul Peeters has 

pointed out, found favor with Cavaillé-Coll, though the Frenchman would ultimately make 

changes in his organs that would include stronger reeds and upperwork through the use of two 

chests per division to allow for variation in pressure among stops.10  

As both Laukvik and Verdin have discussed, the symphonic organ in Germany and 

France developed without solo stops as a prominent element. In England and America, however, 

 
7 Jon Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, Part 2: the Romantic Period, trans. Christopher 
Anderson (Carus-Verlag, 2010), 144-152 and 191-199. 
8 Joris Verdin, “Aspects of French Symphonic Organ Music: L’Organiste Liturgique, L’Organiste Moderne, 
L’Organiste Practique,” The Diapason (June 2008): 26. 
9 Stoplists for Cavaille-Coll organs can be found in: Jesse Eschbach, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll: Aspects of His Life and 
Work, Vol. I, A Compendium of Known Stoplists (Verlag Peter Ewers, 2012). 
10 Paul Peeters, “Walcker and Cavaillé-Coll: A Franco-German Competition,” in The Organ as a Mirror of Its Time: 
North European Reflections 1600-2000, ed. Kerala Snyder (Oxford University Press, 2002), 248-251. 



 20 

theses stops were retained and continually developed through the century, becoming central to 

the stoplists of English and American instruments. Indeed, these organs would regularly feature 

divisions labeled “Solo” that contained stops on higher pressure than the rest of the organ. This 

suggests that not only were English and American organ builders and organists concerned with 

the “symphonic” character of their instruments, but also with the ability to create bigger, more 

prominent solo sounds within that overall cohesion.  

The idea of the symphonic organ and the notion of orchestration, however, are uneasy 

bedfellows. Verdin’s assertion that “the ‘symphonic organist’ is comparable with the conductor; 

it is up to him to decide whether the oboe solo works with the accompaniment of the strings, for 

example,” is misleading. I can think of very few composers who would extend to the conductor 

the power of orchestrating the music they perform, but the oddity of that idea reveals the 

relationship between symphonic organs and the idea of orchestration as an analogy for 

registration. Truette clarifies the relationship: “Registration bears the same relation to organ 

music that orchestration bears to orchestral music. The selection and combination of the 

orchestral instruments are generally spoken of as ‘orchestral coloring;’ the selection and 

combination of the stops of an organ are likewise classed as ‘organ coloring.’”11 In symphonic 

organ music, then, the organist is less conductor than orchestrator, sharing in that part of the 

compositional process. While the composer of a piece for the organ may intend certain sounds, 

variety in the scope of available stops will ultimately make it necessary for the organist to adjust. 

Indeed, as Buck noted in his analogy to painting, one need not even find the requested resources 

lacking for the effect to be subpar. 

 
11 Truette, Organ Registration, 9. 



 21 

Despite the potential richness of this analogy between orchestration and organ 

registration practice, neither primary nor secondary sources give much consideration to what it 

means to “orchestrate” a piece at the organ, or what that might imply for performance. On one 

level, orchestration and registration are similar in that they are both the process of selecting 

sounds. Jon Laukvik discusses the orchestration of organ music briefly as follows: 

During the baroque era registrations existed that could satisfy a number of quite varied 
formal structures, whereas in the romantic era a close relationship emerged between 
formal or textural structure with registration based on such an orchestral approach. Works 
with different musical context as Bach’s Praeludium und Fuge in E-flat major BWV 552 
and B minor BWV 544 are presented in organo pleno and develop their expressive 
potential in the tension between registration and structure. The organ works of Liszt and 
Reger however should first be ‘orchestrated.’12 

 
Laukvik seems to be suggesting that the essential element of orchestration at the organ is simply 

a more frequent changing of stops. Regrettably, he does not discuss this concept further and it is 

not taken up by any other writers. However, Truette’s comparison suggests a deeper connection 

between registration and orchestration than their immediately apparent similarity as disciplines 

in sound selection. 

Nineteenth-century instructions on actual orchestration bear striking resemblance to 

organ tutors. Berlioz’s famous Treatise Upon Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration 

(1844/55) is an exhaustive set of descriptions of orchestral instruments and their ranges, timbres, 

uses, and limitations. This is identical in approach to the stop-by-stop descriptions of both 

Audsley and Truette and, to a lesser extent, the tutors of John Stainer, Frederic Archer, Edward 

John Hopkins, and others who, though they do not describe an exhaustive number of individual 

stops, do take the time to mention the four families of organ tone and occasionally to give one or 

two examples of each. Berlioz’s mention of the organ within his treatise is worth comment for its 

 
12 Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice, 147.  



 22 

direct comparison between the organ and the orchestra, not just between the undergirding 

principles of their sound combinations. 

The organ…seems to present itself in the instrumental hierarchy, under two aspects: as an 
instrument belonging to the orchestra, or as being in itself a complete and independent 
orchestra. It is doubtless possible to blend the organ with the diverse constituent elements 
of the orchestra, and it has even been many times done: but it is strangely derogatory to 
this majestic instrument, to reduce it to this secondary state… The Organ and the 
Orchestra are both Kings: or rather, one is the Emperor, the other, Pope.13 

 
 That organists like Buck and Truette should famously compare new and uniquely 

versatile organ designs to the flexibility and cohesive sound concept of an orchestra is 

interesting, but more captivating still is that the sentiment was shared by an orchestral composer 

and master of orchestration such as Berlioz. The comparison of the organ with the Pope might 

betray Berlioz’s interest in religious music which might, in turn, explain his admiration of the 

organ, but it is nonetheless clear that the grouping together of the organ and the orchestra was a 

phenomenon that reached beyond only organists. 

 Much of the secondary writing about trends in orchestration dates from the early to 

middle twentieth century, and, like treatments of organ registration, these explorations tend to be 

largely collections of primary sources or lists of instruments and their functions rather than 

interpretive studies. Although numerous documents from the nineteenth century are readily 

accessible, including original publications, manuscripts, and treatises on the topic, tutors on 

orchestration such as Cecil Forsyth’s Orchestration (1914), Joseph Wagner’s Orchestration: A 

Practical Handbook (1959), and Walter Piston’s Orchestration (1969) are all handbooks that 

give descriptions of orchestral instruments in the same fashion as Berlioz, rather than accounts 

that relate historical practices of orchestration to the repertoire.   

 
13 Hector Berlioz, A Modern Treatise Upon Instrumentation and Orchestration, trans. Mary Cowden Clarke 
(Novello, Ewer, and Co., 1858), 127. 



 23 

Adam Carse’s The History of Orchestration (1964), on the other hand, describes 

innovations to orchestral instruments in the nineteenth century that parallel the innovations made 

by organ builders in the same period. The addition of keys and various other mechanical devices 

to wind and brass instruments made possible chromaticism, increased speed, fuller tone, more 

volume, and truer intonation.14 Perhaps in response, some of the most substantially developed 

stops in nineteenth-century organs were the reeds (corresponding to both brass and woodwind 

instruments in different ways), whose increased power and faster speech was made possible by 

higher wind pressures – exploited by Cavaillé-Coll in the divided divisions of his organs, and 

facilitated by the invention of the Barker machine. 

 Carse’s description of nineteenth-century orchestration trends offers still another parallel 

with the organ: “Orchestration of the early nineteenth-century composers shows thorough 

appreciation of the value of clearness in dealing with the colours of the orchestra. The tone of 

each instrument is allowed to be heard in its native state as well as with the admixture of alien 

tone-colour.”15 Organs too, as Orphe Ochse has noted of the 1860s and 70s, were “clear and 

assertive…the principal ensemble on the Great present[ing] an exciting chorus. The bold, bright 

color is quite satisfying to the modern ear.”16  

There are even parallels between individual organ stops and orchestral instruments. Carse 

points out the increasing use of the clarinet rather than the oboe for solo purposes, along with the 

frequent doubling of violins in octaves.17 The inclusion of the Clarinet on American organs in the 

mid-nineteenth century was becoming common, even ubiquitous on three manual organs, whose 

 
14 Adam Carse, The History of Orchestration (Dover, 1964), 200-219. 
15 Ibid, 230. 
16 Orphe Ochse, The History of the Organ in the United States (Indiana University Press, 1975), 209. 
17 Carse, The History of Orchestration, 232-233 and 236. 



 24 

Choir divisions nearly always contained one. Octave doubling of right-hand parts was also an 

increasingly common feature of mid to late nineteenth-century organ music. 

That the organ and orchestra share concrete parallels, in addition to general conceptions 

of blend and balance, brings into greater relief the differences between them. Namely, the 

orchestra is made of many players who, without much difficulty, can start and stop playing as the 

score requires, doing so with all manner of musical deftness that allows for seamless transitions 

between volume levels and colors. A particular feature of mid to late nineteenth-century 

orchestration was, as Carse points out, the building of a crescendo not simply with each musician 

playing louder, but with players coming into or dropping out of the texture.18 This led to an 

increase not only in the types of instruments in the orchestra, but in the number of each of those 

instruments.19 In the same way, the organist adds stops to create a crescendo and, just as this 

effect requires a greater number of like players in an orchestra, so it requires of the organ a 

greater number of like stops, especially those at eight-foot pitch, a dominant trend in nineteenth-

century organ building. Nevertheless, the organist, regardless of the sophistication of the 

equipment, has difficulty recreating these effects with the subtlety of the individual musicians in 

an orchestra. I will discuss the creation of the organ crescendo in detail below. 

 

Quantitative shifts in nineteenth-century orchestration techniques and their parallels in 

organ registration 

A recent study of historical orchestration offers interesting insights into the parallels 

between nineteenth-century orchestration and organ registration practice.  Song Hui Chon, David 

Huron, and Dana DeVlieger’s “An Exploratory Study of Western Orchestration: Patterns through 

 
18 Ibid, 231. 
19 Ibid. 



 25 

History” identifies a lack of actual guidance regarding the concepts behind instrument 

combinations that is similar to the paucity of detailed instruction regarding organ registration 

concepts.20 Their results reveal two features of mid to late nineteenth-century orchestration 

practice that are relevant to organ registration: a shift in the use of dynamic markings in 

orchestral scores, and the presence of common groupings of instruments in orchestral music. 

Citing an earlier study by Ladinig and Huron (2010),  the authors discuss the ways 

notated dynamics in keyboard music, specifically, shifted from an average notated dynamic of 

between mezzo-piano and mezzo-forte in the late eighteenth century to between piano and mezzo-

piano in the late nineteenth century.21 Chon, Huron, and DeVlieger point out that this could 

result from a shift in the baseline dynamic level or from a change in usage of dynamic 

markings.22 These authors do not account for instrumental development through the nineteenth 

century, when the increasing power of these instruments would certainly have made the possible 

dynamic range louder overall, and thus brought the average dynamic marking down to achieve a 

similar actual volume level. Though their study does not include the organ, there are possible 

parallels. The eight-foot stops that proliferated in the nineteenth century were not predominantly 

loud. Though organs were becoming capable of louder sounds overall, this was accomplished not 

only through the inclusion of louder stops, but by an increase in the number of stops that were 

not themselves very loud. The effect of this type of growth is that the addition or subtraction of 

any one of these milder stops would have contributed only subtle shifts in volume and color, 

resulting in a more even gradient of volume and color possibilities within a given dynamic level. 

 
20 Song Hui Chon, David Huron, and Dana DeVlieger, “An Exploratory Study of Western Orchestration: Patterns 
Through History,” Empirical Musicology Review 12, no. 3-4 (2017): 116-159. 
21 Ibid, 121. 
22 Ibid. 



 26 

The other relevant finding of the 2017 study has to do with common instrument 

combinations. The authors identify three instrumental groupings commonly used together: “Core 

Winds,” Strings,” and “Effects.”23 While members of the String group are obvious, the Core 

Winds include flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and French horn. The Effects category includes the 

tuba, trumpet, trombone, and piccolo.24 Within the strings are two sub-clusters: the violas 

through the contrabasses, and the violins through the cellos. The Core Winds are likewise 

grouped into two sub-clusters: the flute and oboe, and the clarinet and bassoon.25 

From the perspective of the organist, grouping the Core Winds and Strings together and 

leaving the Effects on their own reveals a separation similar to that between the fonds d’orgue 

and the anches chests of Cavaillé-Coll organs. The increase in power of reeds and number of 

flues was the trend not only in France but also in Germany, England, and America as well. The 

use of the foundations of the organ, adding the reeds to achieve more power, mimics the use of 

the Strings and Core Winds of the orchestra, as categorized by this study. Orchestral instruments 

are also categorized by their range. While most organ stops play throughout the compass of the 

manual or pedal, they play in different ranges and their ambitus changed their categorization on 

the organ as well. Stops at two-foot pitch and higher, for instance, were normally placed on the 

anches chests of Cavaillé-Coll organs.  

The playing on the organ of music written for other instruments is a practice that dates 

from centuries or more before the nineteenth century. Such transcriptions constituted the core of 

the organ repertoire well past 1850. In an 1856 recital played by George W. Morgan and William 

 
23 Ibid, 131. 
24 The non-applicable instruments are all in percussion family. 
25 Chon, Huron, and DeVlieger, “An Exploratory Study of Western Orchestration,” 131. 



 27 

Mason, over half of the pieces were transcriptions of orchestral works.26  As Barbara Owen has 

noted, this trend was about to undergo a period of lessened popularity. The increasing 

prominence of the concept of organ music as “high art” resulted in music composed for the organ 

receiving pride of place.27 Though transcription playing never died out entirely and regained 

prestige early in the next century, its lack of prominence in the time in which Buck, Whiting, and 

Truette were writing is clear in its lack of specific treatment in their treatises. Unfortunately, 

Buck and Whiting limit their discussion of orchestral transcriptions at the organ to the playing of 

orchestral reductions for accompanimental use. As such, their discussions are limited to the 

relationship between the accompaniment and the soloist or choir and reveal little about their 

thoughts on the relationship between combinations of orchestral instruments and their translation 

into organ registrations.  

Nevertheless, some information is to be gleaned from Truette, who cautions, for instance, 

against the drawing of stops for orchestral effect based solely on the sharing of their names.28 

Though he does not give this example, in imitation of the strings of the orchestra one can 

imagine drawing only the stops labeled Violin and Gamba on the organ, along with one or two 

flutes and the Oboe. What would be a perfectly lovely sound for an orchestra might be equally as 

lovely on the organ, but it would likely not produce a convincing sonic imitation of the original 

(which would be achieved by drawing other stops in addition). Truette likewise explains that, 

though they are not replicated in the orchestra, mutations and mixtures are necessary for the 

organ to achieve a similar degree of brilliance.29 He later states, “In some of the [organ] 

 
26 Barbara Owen, “The Maturation of the Secular Organ Recital in America’s Gilded Age,” Nineteenth-Century 
Music Review 12 (2015): 98. 
27 Ibid, 100-117. 
28 Truette, Organ Registration, 11. 
29 Ibid, 40. 



 28 

‘transcriptions’of orchestral compositions, the student will hear many surprising effects of which 

the orchestra itself is entirely innocent, in the attempt of the performer to make the organ sound 

‘orchestral’. Many of these effects are ingenious; some are startling.”30 

Regrettably, Truette does not describe any such attempts. He does, however, offer one 

direct suggestion for combinations of stops that create the same effect as the orchestra. For an 

imitation of the entire collected strings of the orchestra, he suggests using the Gamba, Voix 

Céleste, Viol d’Amour, Gamba Céleste (if the organ has one), Oboe (if it is softly voiced), and 

Vox Humana.31 The last stop he describes as a “… ‘timbre creator,’ [adding] a little of the vitality 

which is so noticeable in the combined strings of the orchestra.”32 Of note here is that Truette 

does use the strings of the organ to imitate the instruments of the orchestra directly, but he colors 

them too, filling out their tone with a broad reed (the Oboe) and offering them some muted 

brilliance by way of a narrow-scaled reed with a short resonator: the Vox Humana.  

Analogies between organ registration and both visual arts and orchestration reveal a great 

deal about what undergirded the practice of stop selection. The analogy to painting suggests the 

possibility of a highly fluid ideal of registration coloring featuring frequent stop changes, each 

having a small effect on the sound to achieve a greater sense of nuance. The comparison with 

orchestration clarifies this by suggesting the most frequent alteration being within like colors, 

with the addition or subtraction of more potent sounds being reserved for special moments 

defined either by specific character or simply greater volume. The greatest degree of seamless 

flexibility exists in both the orchestra and the organ in the softer realm of combinations, which is 

shown orchestrally in the decreasing average dynamic range found in published music that, along 

 
30 Ibid, 138. 
31 Ibid, 96. 
32 Ibid. 



 29 

with a possible parallel in organ use, has been described earlier in this section. While 

comparisons between the uses of organ stops named after instruments and their orchestral 

counterparts reveal only sporadic parallels, the body of eight-foot flue tone in the late nineteenth-

century organ can be seen to parallel the Core Winds and Strings groups of the orchestra.  

Ultimately, the comparison between the organ and the orchestra goes further than just 

suggesting an ideal of cohesive sound and blend. Developments in orchestral instruments parallel 

developments in organ building and the changing uses of orchestral instruments are mirrored in 

organ registration. That organists and orchestrators begin to compare their work to each other 

suggests that orchestration at the organ consisted of the same frequent, fluid addition and 

subtraction of stops determined by phrase, mood, gesture, color, and volume as its multi-player 

counterpart.33 

 
The Notation of Registration 

 Most organ tutors of the nineteenth century do not generally describe registration 

indications or offer specific suggestions for notating registrations. Some offer very basic 

guidance in a few combinations, but generally they leave this topic alone. Even among larger 

treatises that discuss registration, descriptions of ways to indicate stop combinations are scant. 

Since Buck was primarily writing about accompaniment or improvisation, one might not expect 

to see a discussion of the kinds of registration indications appropriate to repertoire. The same is 

true of Whiting’s treatise: there are, after all, no indications at all in the piano reductions of solo 

and choral accompaniments. Truette’s seminal work on registration, however, does discuss 

notational conventions; there is much, too, to be gleaned from the printed music itself. This 

 
33 It should be noted that this applies to the use of the organs, not their construction. The “orchestral” organ – that is, 
an organ that seeks to literally imitate the orchestra – is a wholly twentieth-century phenomenon that is not treated in 
this dissertation. 



 30 

portion of the chapter examines both Truette’s description of registration indications, and those 

present in the music of Dudley Buck and two other notable composers of the late nineteenth 

century: Arthur Foote and Horatio Parker. 

 For what might be taken as a straightforward topic, Truette dedicates a surprising ten 

pages to its treatment. He begins by specifying that the reason for this lengthy treatment is that 

printed indications must be interpreted, already suggesting a flexibility of process that defies 

simple adherence to the letter of the law.34 He furthers this by saying that many registration 

indications are “superfluous to organists of experience.”35 Truette’s introductory remarks to this 

chapter describe registration indications as tools for communicating the composer’s ideas, in 

order to give the organist general directions for registration rather than absolute rules. In part, 

this is an acknowledgment that organ dispositions are not standardized, but Truette’s approach to 

registration appears to go beyond these merely practical considerations. While no organs are 

identical, late nineteenth-century American instruments of three manuals were increasingly 

common and such organs did share common features. They had choruses from stops at sixteen-

foot pitch through mixtures on the Great, capped by large-scale reeds of at least eight- and four-

foot, with a sixteen-foot if the organ was large enough. The Choir division always contained a 

combination of soft strings and flutes at eight-foot pitch, typically with a Dulciana, and it 

included a Clarinet as its primary reed. The Swell, which was based on a sixteen-foot Bourdon, 

contained the largest collection of eight-foot stops, a soft mixture, and a Cornopean or Trumpet, 

typically darker and softer than its Great counterparts. Pedal divisions remained small through 

the end of the century, typically containing sixteen- and eight-foot stops in each tonal family 

along with a sixteen-foot reed. This commonality among instruments would have made 

 
34 Truette, Organ Registration, 105. 
35 Ibid. 



 31 

registration indications simple to follow; Truette’s decision, then, to write about interpretation 

and alteration transcends mere necessity and is emblematic of an underlying ideal. 

 Truette’s treatment of manual indications is essentially a list of divisional names and their 

abbreviations, although he offers additional comment on the tendency in America and Germany 

to indicate manuals with Roman numerals. He provides the table shown in Figure 1.1 to clarify 

this. Where the German use of Roman numerals corresponds to the placement of the manual on 

the console, with I being the lowest and IV the highest, the English use the numerals to describe 

the importance of the division within the instrument. So, in the English system, the Great is 

labelled as primary, the Swell secondary, the Choir tertiary, and the Solo quaternary.   

 

Figure 1.1 – Truette’s Manual Indication Table.36 

 The problem with this description is that it is not clear whether an American composer 

would use the English or German method. The potential for ambiguity here is borne out in the 

repertoire where, in many cases, the manual indications follow neither system consistently. 

Dudley Buck’s 6 Short Choral Preludes, Op. 49 (1871), for example, uses Roman numeral 

indications that are more closely aligned with the English use as described by Truette, but they 

 
36 Ibid, 104. 

CHAPTER XI
INDICATING THE REGISTRATION

WHILE the selection of stops and combinations, for various phases of
organ compositions, is a large part of the study of registration , the
method of indicating the registration in printed organ music , and of
interpreting the indications , is an important branch of the study . In
indicating the registration one should keep in mind two important fea
tures : first , the desired combinations ; and second , the best method of
obtaining the specified combinations without disturbing the natural flow
of the music.
Many minute indications fo

r

the registration may seem superfluous

to organists of experience , but I think that all organ instructors will
agree that organ students are unable to register a composition by

instinct . They must acquire a taste and ability for such registration ,

and that ability can be acquired only through a careful study of the
minute details of registration indications . The fact that organists
are frequently unable to follow al

l

the composer ' s registration indica
tions , on account of the difference in organs , does not seem to me to be

any argument against the use of clear and definite indications . The
organist certainly can obtain a better idea of the composer ' s intentions ,

and also is better able to adapt them to the organ on which he is playing ,

irrespective of its shortcomings , if the composer has placed definite
registration indications in his composition .

As the repertoire of organ music , with which an organist becomes
equipped , generally consists of compositions which are published by

American , English , French , and German publishers , it is necessary that
organists should be familiar with the various terms and expressions
which are used in the various countries to indicate the different key
boards .

A COMPARATIVE TABLE O
F MANUAL AND PEDAL INDICATIONS

English Eng . Ger . German French
Great (Gt . ) I I II | Hauptwerk (Hptw . ) ( H . W . ) | Grand Orgue ( G . O . )

( G . )

Hauptmanual ( Hptm . ) ( H . M . )

Swell ( Sw . ) I II III | Oberwerk (Oberw . ) (Obw . ) | Récitif ( Récit . ) ( R . )

( O . W . )

Schwellerwerk
Choir (Ch . ) | III Unterwerk (Unterw . ) ( U . W . ) | Positif ( Pos . ) ( P . )

Ruckwerk ( R . W . )

Positiv
Bolo ( So . ) | IV IV | Solowerk Clavier des Bombardes

Echo (Ech . ) T V VT Echowerk
Pedal ( Ped . ) Pedal (Ped . ) Pédale (Ped . )

104



 32 

do not follow it exactly. The first piece, “Choral Prelude on ‘Mear,’” (Figure 1.2) opens with 

manual indications that would suggest the Great and Swell (‘Man. I, Man II’), but the 

registration indications – which were always printed in italics within the music in Buck’s 

publications – designate ‘Man. I’ as the Swell, and ‘Man. II’ as the Choir. What Buck is 

describing with the Roman numerals is not the Great and Swell, but the relationship between the 

two voices: melody and accompaniment. 

 

Figure 1.2 – Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘Mear,’” mm. 1-8.37 

Similarly, Arthur Foote uses manual indications to communicate the relative importance 

of the divisions, rather than the divisions themselves. The example in Figure 1.3 shows an initial 

registration marking that is already at odds with Truette’s description; manual I is listed as Swell 

and II is listed as Choir. In the same fashion as the example from Buck above, the primary 

indication denotes not the division but the dominant character of this registration relative to that 

of the ‘second’ manual. In this example, the relationship is not between solo and accompaniment, 

but between a brighter registration —a potent Salicional and a Quintadena, with its prominent 

second harmonic— and a less assertive sound on the Choir of flutes at eight and four foot. Both 

examples seem to favor the spirit of the English system, which was based on the relationship 

between divisions rather than referencing any specific manual. Since the English method was 

 
37 Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘Mear,’” in Short Chorale Preludes on Familiar Church Tunes and Designed 
Primarily for Studies in Obligato Pedal Playing, Op. 49 (White, Smith, and Perry, 1871). 



 33 

based on relationships, the Roman numerals could be applied to any manual, depending on its 

function in the registration. 

 

Figure 1.3 – Arthur Foote, “Tempo di Minuetto,” Op. 71, No. 5, mm. 1-5.38 

 Like manual indications, indications for stops themselves were inconsistent. In Organ 

Registration Truette writes, “To anyone who has examined much English and American organ 

music, it is apparent that there is an absence of any established system of indicating the stop 

movements.” While the listing of stops to be used in a piece seems like a simple affair that could 

offer little confusion, the example in Figure 1.4 from Horatio Parker’s Concert Piece No. 1 

(1890) shows the type of confusion that may often be encountered in this repertoire.  

The piece opens with a Swell registration of eight- and four-foot stops, a Clarinet on the 

Choir, and the eight and four foots on the Great, with a sixteen- and eight-foot pedal registration. 

This indication leaves considerable room for interpretation, as, apart from the Clarinet, it 

specifies only pitch level, not timbre. The forte marking in the first measure could justify the 

inclusion of reeds at these pitches, particularly in the Swell. Further uncertainty arises from the 

arrow in measure one, which seems to be pointing to a solo melody on the Great. This is clearly 

 
38 Arthur Foote, “Tempo di Minuetto,” Op. 71, No. 5, in Compositions for Organ (Arthur P. Schmidt, 1912), mm. 1-
5. 



 34 

not the case, however, because by measure 11 it becomes impossible to play the top note as a 

solo. This is confirmed in measure 17, when Parker specifies that the left hand moves to the 

Swell. With that clarification this measure raises a new question: what does the instruction “Gt. 

Op. Diap.” mean? Assuming that the Open Diapason was included in the initial registration, are 

we meant to reduce to only that stop? In that case, the single Diapason, however fully voiced, 

would hardly seem to constitute a mezzo-forte. Further, we are told to remove the Great to Pedal 

coupler, which was originally called for in the opening registration, as were the manual couplers. 

It seems likely that the manual coupler stays on as the Great is reduced to the Open Diapason 

alone, yielding a melody only slightly set apart from the accompaniment and thus realizing the 

mezzo-forte called for in all three parts. While the result seems to meet the requirements of the 

composer, the lack of clear indications complicates the process of deciding on this approach. 



 35 

 

Figure 1.4 – Horatio Parker, Concert Piece No. 1, mm. 1-21.39 

 Truette’s description of still-further vagueness in registration indications is as succinct as 

such a description can be: “Some composers do not specify the combinations, but indicate only 

‘F’ and ‘P.’ Some composers indicate the manuals without naming any stops. Other composers, 

 
39 Horatio Parker, “Concert Piece,” Op. 17, No. 1 (G. Schirmer, 1890), mm. 1-21. 



 36 

while specifying the combinations which they desire, indicated these combinations only in the 

measures when they are required.”40 Numerous examples of all of these are to be found widely in 

organ music of the second half of the nineteenth century. 

 Whatever the precipitating factors behind the lack of notational consistency, a high 

degree of interpretation was required of organists, as they brought printed music into sounding 

life on organs of all sizes and a wide variety of styles. Registration indications in organ music 

were intended as jumping-off points for the organist, to be read as suggestive rather than 

prescriptive. It is this notion that the next section of the chapter explores. 

 
Limits of Registration Indications and a Case for Flexibility 

 Dudley Buck includes this note at the start of his Sonata No.2, Op. 77 (1877): “The 

registration throughout this work, is intended as suggestive rather than obligatory.” This notion 

of freedom to change and experiment is inherent to the great American organ composers of this 

time. Like Buck, Truette writes,  

Inasmuch as the registration of a composition depends, to a great extent, on personal 
taste, and there is always a wide diversity in all matters of taste, it will at once be seen 
how impractical it would be to attempt to promulgate any absolute rules for the guidance 
of the young organist. A certain combination of stops may be considered pleasing by one 
organist, and objectionable by another organist.41 

 
As the previous section makes clear, Truette was keenly aware of registration conventions and, 

were deviation from those not only allowable but normal, it would not, in fact, be difficult to 

give rules for registration: do what the composer says, or get as close as you can. This is not 

what any of these writers suggests. And yet neither were they indifferent to the suggestions of the 

composer. In his section on registration indication, Truette writes, “The organist can certainly 

 
40 Truette, Organ Registration, 109. 
41 Ibid, 10. 



 37 

obtain a better idea of the composer’s intentions, and also is better able to adapt them to the 

organ on which he is playing…if the composer has placed definite registration indications in his 

composition.”42 Clearly, the composer’s intention and a basic understanding of registration 

principles are the starting point for any registration.  

 The basic question of registration is not whether a given registration is obligatory, but 

whether it is prescriptive or descriptive. As discussed above, registration indications are to be 

interpreted not only according to need, but also preference. The question then arises as to 

whether registration changes should be limited to noted instances or if their frequency is also 

open to interpretation and adjustment. I believe that not only are given registrations meant for 

interpretation, but so too are the frequency of registration changes. The latter half of this chapter 

details my reasons for this assertion.  

 The analogies described in the first portion this chapter serve as the basis for this 

understanding of flexibility. Painting, particularly, demands a fluid use of color and shading that 

requires a constant alteration of the medium to create the desired nuance and, as Truette says, a 

faithful reproduction of all the colors of the subject. The second portion of his comparison 

between visual art and organ playing is worth rereading here: “A few compositions are like steel 

engravings. They are satisfactory if played correctly in notes, rhythm, and relative power of the 

various phrases, even if tonally monochromatic, so to speak. Most organ compositions, however, 

lose a large part of their charm if rendered in this manner.”43 When Truette writes about tonal 

monochromaticism, he is writing about tone color (that is, the various stops of the organ), not 

harmonic tonality. There is a clear desire for nuance that the mere following of registration 

 
42 Ibid, 104. 
43 Ibid, 11. 



 38 

indications would not always realize. Further, Truette puts the burden of coloration on the 

organist, not the composer, reinforcing the idea of non-notated registration alteration. 

 The discussion of orchestration as it relates to registration shows how this nuance may 

have been carried out. The later nineteenth-century trend of adding and withdrawing like players 

to nuance the sound is exactly possible on the organ. The adding and subtraction of less 

prominently voiced eight-foot flue stops, increasingly prolific in organs of the time, would have 

a similar effect as this practice in orchestration. The use of a core group of winds for most of the 

music with occasional use of so-called “effects” instruments can also be reproduced on the 

organ. The eight- and four-foot stops, possibly including soft reeds, form the core of the organ 

sound, with louder reeds showing up only in forte sections or for solo use.  

 While the individual stops involved in registration changes will be examined in later 

chapters, the orchestral comparison raises the question as to when in an organ piece stops might 

be changed, even when such stop changes are not indicated in the score. Of primary interest are 

the ways changing instrumentation in orchestral music relates to the construction of phrases and 

the articulation of sections, and how all of that translates to organ repertoire. Possible answers to 

these questions are suggested the orchestral music of composer-organists John Knowles Paine, 

Arthur Foote, and George Whitefield Chadwick. 

 From the outset of Paine’s Symphony No. 1, Op. 23, composed between 1872 and 1875 

(Figure 1.5), the interaction between musical material and instrumentation is evident. The strings 

form the core of the ensemble, often with the bassoon doubling the cellos. The “Core Winds”– 

flutes, oboes, and clarinets – form a group that punctuates large chords. The brass enter only in 

the most emphatic moments. The first phrase of the work goes from measure two through 

measure five and comprises two parts, the first an ascending stepwise line, the second a 



 39 

punctuated eight-quarter-quarter gesture. At the shift from the stepwise section to the more 

assertive gesture, Paine adds the winds. He then essentially repeats this orchestration and phrase 

construction in measures six through eight, after which he expounds upon the assertive figure 

before combining them toward the end of the given example. Even in this early example, Paine is 

fluidly introducing color mid-phrase in a way decided by the character of the line as defined, in 

this instance, by the rhythmic content. Important to our discussion is the fact that stop changes at 

the organ would be largely possible in the same locations that Paine changes his orchestration. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 40 

 



 41 

 

Figure 1.5 – John Knowles Paine, Symphony No. 1, Op. 23, mm. 1-14.44 

 
44 John Knowles Paine, Symphony No. 1, Op. 23 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1908), mm. 1-14. 



 42 

 The thematic development that takes place from measures 17-21 (Figure 1.6) shows this 

timbral difference between differing content even more starkly, as Paine separates the opening 

phrase’s constituent parts by setting them in distinctly different orchestral groupings in order to 

elaborate on their characteristics before ultimately coming to a large crescendo and the second 

theme of the piece shortly thereafter. 



 43 

 

Figure 1.6 – Paine, Symphony No. 1, Op. 23, mm. 15-22.45 

 
45 Ibid, mm. 15-22. 



 44 

 The second movement from Arthur Foote’s Suite for Orchestra, Op. 36 shows a toggling 

in and out of colors in the middle of a section of similarly constructed phrases and textures to 

nuance the sound at the high point of the section. Beginning with strings alone, we see in 

measure nine the introduction of the horns (Figure 1.7). Their introduction could almost go 

unnoticed by the listener since their effect is only to broaden the texture for the climax of the 

violins at measure 12. In a continuation of this section of the piece Foote repeats this textural 

broadening, but uses the winds to accomplish the goal. 



 45 

 

 

Flutes 

Oboes 

Clarinets 

Bassoons 

Horns 

Trumpets 

Trombones 
and Tubas 

Timpani 

Violins 

Violas 

Cellos and 
Double Basses 



 46 

 

Figure 1.7 – Arthur Foote, Suite for Orchestra, Op. 36, Mov. II, mm. 9-28.46 

 
46 Arthur Foote, Suite for Orchestra, Op. 36, mov. II (Arthur P. Schmidt, 1896), mm. 9-28. 



 47 

 The third movement of George Whitefield Chadwick’s Symphony No. 3 (Figure 1.8) has a 

full but light texture played at a spritely vivace non troppo. Measures 25-32 show a trading off of 

melodic figures between the horns and the flute/oboe pair while the strings hum along 

underneath with the original motivic material of the movement. 

 

Figure 1.8 – George Whitefield Chadwick, Symphony in F, mov. III, mm. 25-32.47 

 
47 George Whitefield Chadwick, Symphony in F, mov. III (Arthur P. Schmidt, 1896), mm. 25-32. 

Flutes 

Oboes 

Clarinets 

Basoons 

Horns 

Trumpets 

Timpani 

Violins 

Violas 

Cellos and 
Double Basses 



 48 

 It is clear from these examples that composers add and remove instruments freely 

throughout, even in the middle of melodic or motivic material. This kind of orchestration is 

neither practical at the organ, nor would it be effective, given that stops in the organ sound 

throughout their compass at, functionally, a single volume level: the ability to introduce 

individual timbres in a texture subtly, at different dynamic levels on discreet pitches, is the 

essential difference between the organ and the orchestra. However, stop changes are possible at 

the organ more frequently than generally notated, and the addition of new stops can by be 

carefully masked.  

Further evidence for the possibility of extensive registration changes made in the course 

of a piece, even in the absence of specific indications from the composer, is to be found in late 

nineteenth-century German organ music. Germanic approaches to registration are centrally 

important as models for American practices as Germany was the primary center of study for 

American organists in the mid to late nineteenth century. As Douglas Bomberger notes, in the 

fifty years between 1850 and 1900, over five thousand American musicians of various types 

studied in German conservatories, primarily those in Leipzig, Dresden, Frankfurt, Berlin, and 

Munich.48 Five of the composers of the Second New England School - John Knowles Paine, 

Arthur Foote, George Chadwick, Edward McDowell, and Horatio Parker - studied in Germany at 

one of these institutions and all of them are associated with organ composition and playing in 

addition to their other instrumental and choral works.49 Dudley Buck was also a student in both 

Leipzig and in Dresden. It was in Dresden that his studies with Johann Gottlob Schneider, 

 
48 Douglas Bomberger, “The German Training of American Musicians, 1850-1900” (PhD diss., the University of 
Maryland, 1991), 8-20. 
49 Each of these studied in different regions and are treated in their associated chapters in Bomberger’s dissertation.  



 49 

himself a student of Johann Christian Kittel, brought the works of J.S. Bach into Buck’s 

repertoire.50 

Andrew Unsworth has examined the effect of this European training on organ pedagogy 

in Boston during the latter half of the nineteenth century. 51 He notes that, with the advent of 

conservatories whose professors primarily studied in Germany, Bostonian conservatory organ 

training took on the same characteristics as its German counterparts.52  

In later nineteenth-century Germany it was common for the organist to change 

registration in the middle of phrases, primarily for the purpose of crescendos or diminuendos. 

This was made possible by the Walze,53 whose operation added or subtracted stops in a way 

designed to be as seamless as possible, giving the very real effect of gradually adding orchestral 

instruments to a moment of musical climax. Reger’s Symphoniche Phantasie und Fuge, Op. 57 

(1901) is perhaps an extreme example of this, but the very first page (Figure 1.9) shows several 

phrases, all of which take place during a long, gradual addition of stops as notated by the 

crescendo indication.54 

 

 

 

 

 

 
50 N. Lee Orr, Dudley Buck (University of Illinois Press, 2008), 6-8. 
51 Andrew Unsworth, “Organ Pedagogy and Performance Practice in Boston, 1850-1900” (Ph.D. diss., Duke 
University Department of Music, 2001), 69-105. 
52 Unsworth notes that the founders of the Boston Conservatory, the German-born Julius Eichberg, and the New 
England Conservatory, Eben Tourjée, specifically set out to set up conservatories based on European models.. 
53 A discussion of the development of the Walze in German romantic organs can be found in: D.W. Adams, “Modern 
Organ Style in Karl Straube’s Reger Editions” (Ph.D. Thesis Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2007), 7-40. 
54 A description of the difference between the term crescendo and the use of the hairpin in Reger can be found in 
Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice at the Organ, Part II: The Romantic Period, 184. 



 50 

 

Figure 1.9 – Max Reger, Symphonische Phantasie und Fuge, Op. 57, mm. 1-3.55 

American evidence for mid-phrase registration alterations is found in Buck’s Illustrations 

in Choral Accompaniment. In the section dealing with the physical manipulation of stops, Buck 

describes the use of fixed combination pedals to move between dynamic levels, such as from 

 
55 Max Reger, Symphonische Phantasie und Fuge, Op. 57 (J. Aibl Verlag, 1901), mm. 1-3. 



 51 

mezzo-piano to mezzo-forte or forte. He then writes the organist “may desire but a slight increase 

or decrease of tone, or it may be that he wishes to gain or reject a certain quality of tone.”56 After 

this, he describes various methods of freeing one hand or the other so that stops can be added or 

withdrawn. He notes later in the chapter that stops in a gradual crescendo or decrescendo should 

be added or withdrawn on strong beats to reinforce the natural accent and to mitigate whatever 

perceptible emphasis the alteration might cause.57 He also notes that these principles apply not 

only to the small, simple pieces he uses for illustrations, but that they will find their “greatest use 

in pieces of larger form and more artistic character.”58 The most complete example that Buck 

offers (Figure 1.10) gives a clear example of how stops were added or withdrawn within a piece. 

This process involves taking over certain parts with the hand opposite the stop jam to be 

manipulated, deciding on the least intrusive and most analytically appropriate moment in the 

music to make an alteration, carrying out the change, and repeating the process. 

 
 
 
 
 

 
56 Buck, Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment, 20. 
57 Ibid, 23. 
58 Ibid, 24. 



 52 

 
To begin: Eight-foot stops of the Great (no reeds), coupled with Swell Open Diapason 8’ 
and Octave 4’, Pedal “properly balanced.” 
a = free left hand, 
b = draw Great Octave 4’ and Flute 4’ 
c = substitute hands on the chord 
d = draw Great Twelfth 22/3 and Fifteenth 2’ 
e = draw Swell Reeds at eight foot (with Mixture ad libitum) 
f = draw Great Trumpet 8’ 
g = admonition to not draw stops here due to the lower range of the melody 
h = draw Great Double Diapason 16’ or Bourdon 16’, whichever the organ has 
I = draw Great Mixtures 
 

Figure 1.10 – Dudley Buck, Illustrations in Choral Accompaniment, Example 20 (piece name 
not given), with simplified description of movements and alterations.59  
 

Truette goes into more detail than Buck about the physicality of this type of stop change, 

but with less specificity about what sort of changes might happen. Of interest in his coverage of 

this topic is the following note:  

If a certain change of stops is indicated in the printed copy, or it seems desirable to the 
organist to make a change at a certain point, where there is no rest or natural break in the 
phrase for either hand, the organist must sacrifice either some of the notes or the intended 
registration. If he decides to omit some of the notes, he should omit the less important 
notes or figures in one hand or the other.60 

 
 

59 Ibid, 24-25. 
60 Truette, Organ Registration, 116. 

24 CHOIR ACCOMPANIMENT.

selection of 6tops from the different manuals at the outset, and not by gradually drawing all the

stops of one manual and then proceeding to the next. As a matter of course, instruments of
tolerably complete appointment are necessary to produce the effects described. In small organs
it is often impossible to produce other effects than those here termed " radical."

Application From the preceding remarks, it should be evident that expertness in freeing the hands from
of stop-cre«- ^e manuais, and t]ms being able to manipulate the registers, will find its greatest use in pieces

of larger form and more artistic character than the plain tunes. Still, even in these the organist
frequently desires to change the registration, moved thereunto either by (1) sentiment of the
words, or (2) the fact that, in this country, a congregation commencing a tune rarely begin it
" lustily and with a good courage," but gather increasing confidence and power as they proceed.
Thus the last verse of a hymn will frequently require double the support which was ample for
the first verse. We again recur to Example 6 as an illustration (somewhat exaggerated) of both
crescendo and diminuendo in this sense.

Example 20.

With one con - sent let all tho earth,

iEEEEE^E
&

To God their cheer - ful

-<9

fe^ffe^l
Ei-fe2:

voi - ces raise;

I
Efc :S=±—

-#- II

4__^ « S 3U*
rt wl

Glad homage pay with aw rui mirth, And sins; be - fore Him sonirs of praise.

F
:«- :± I

•jr

" Leading-
lone."

Intonation.

At the commencement of the tune by choir and congregation, we will suppose the

accompaniment to consist of the eight-foot stops of the Great Organ (without reeds) coupled to

Diapasons and Octave (four-foot) of the Swell, with the Pedal Organ properly balanced.
The organist frees his left hand at a, passing it over his right to the Great Organ registers,

drawing the four-foot stops (Octave and Flute) exactly with b.

Here it will be noticed that the Pedal leaves the lower for the upper octave in order that
the bass may not be too distant from the other parts.

At e, the hands shift upon the same chord, freeing the right hand to add the Twelfth and
Fifteenth to the Great Organ at d.

At e, add Swell Reeds of eight feet (with Mixture ad libitum). An increase of power is
preferable at this point, rather than with the entrance of the following measure, although that



 53 

Not only does Truette confirm that registration changes can take place in locations not notated in 

the printed music; he also suggests that some notes of the piece can be eliminated for the purpose 

of making a registration change that is not notated. This suggests that printed notes can, under 

certain circumstances, be sacrificed to the goal of artistic registration. 

 
Console Assistants, Pistons, and Mechanical Aids 

 Whiting, Buck, and Truette make no mention of the use of console assistants, and of the 

three only Truette touches upon the use of mechanical aids for registration changes.61 Truette is 

unquestionably in favor of these. In England, Henry Willis had replaced the old-style 

composition pedals with manual pistons as early as 1847.62 In 1876, the New York-based organ 

builder Hilborne Roosevelt debuted the first combination action settable from the console on his 

organ for the Centennial Exhibition.63 Though not yet universally included on organs at the end 

of the nineteenth century, these devices were considered important, and organists and organ 

builders were increasingly advocating for their inclusion on all instruments. The following quote 

from the November 1897 issue of The Pianist and Organist demonstrates the importance 

attached to these systems: 

It has been usually a difficult matter to convince organ-building committees of churches, 
of the comparatively high importance of mechanical devices for the control of an 
instrument. What they usually are after in purchasing an organ is power and volume of 
sound, or variety of tone-color. They know, of course, that stops are intended to be 
combined, and that combinations are more or less effective means of varying the tonal 
effects of the instrument; but the idea that facilities of getting every resource in the organ 
under the easy, accurate and quick control of the organist are worth more, relatively, than 
a large number of stops, is not readily grasped, although it seems evident enough when 
clearly understood.64 
 

 
61 Ibid, 76-80. 
62 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 209. 
63 Ibid. 
64 Editorial in The Pianist and Organist (The Virgil Practice Clavier Co., November 1897), cited in Ochse, The 
History of the Organ, 209. 



 54 

 The lack of mention of mechanical assists should not necessarily be read as evidence that 

they were not used. Apart from the impossibility of proving a negative, the approval of Truette 

and other commentators of mechanical aids suggests that there was a desire for nimble and quick 

changes of stops. While it is clearly incumbent upon the organist to develop the skills required to 

change stops by hand, the idea of using mechanical registration assistance is not condemned. 

Indeed, Truette writes, “It does not enhance the beauty of the music to see the organist, with 

waving hands, oscillating from one side of the console to the other, while arranging his 

combinations.”65  

 Buck, Whiting, and Truette do not mention the practice of having human assistants. 

However, if frequent seamless varying of registration was the goal, and mechanical assists were 

neither ubiquitous nor particularly advanced, then the use of human assistants must, at the very 

least, have been occasionally allowable. 

Though there is no more evidence than this, we can at least say that the art of making 

registration changes was the topic of much discussion, and that any mechanical aid that could 

expedite this process was welcomed. Though the use of assistants was not advocated for, neither 

was it forbidden. This demonstrates, first, that registrations were likely not changed in sections 

where no notated material could be sacrificed without the piece suffering. The primary examples 

of this are imitative and melodic writing, since in most homophonic writing amendments to the 

notes can be made in order to free a hand without causing a distraction to the listener. Second, it 

shows that registrations should not only be changed where obvious or easy, since pistons in any 

form make all manner of more frequent changes possible. 

 

 
65 Truette, Organ Registration, 115. 



 55 

Conclusion 

The idea, new to America in the middle of the nineteenth century, of the organ as 

symphonic (an instrument in which sounds “play together”), coupled with developments in 

orchestral instruments and the effect of those developments on the orchestra and its use, caused 

composers and organists to more closely and literally associate the organ with the symphony 

orchestra. Concomitantly, organists, composers, and writers on the organ began to conceive of 

the instrument in “symphonic” terms. The ideal for these new symphonic organs and for 

performance on them was nuance, shading, emphasis, and adjustment, as exemplified by 

analogies to painting and, more directly, orchestration. From orchestration we gain insight into 

the nature and frequency of changes in color at the organ, underscoring changes in musical 

character that might take place in units as small as the subphrase. Music by German composers 

for the organ, as well as evidence from Buck and Truette, suggests that stop changes could and 

did occur frequently, even when not specifically called for by the composer, and even if some 

musical material may need to be sacrificed to achieve this end. The registration of organ music 

was carefully designed with the character of the piece in mind, with organists using the 

composer’s suggestions as guidelines, rather than objective marks to be achieved and 

maintained. Much more can be done to render the orchestral ideal of these works than any noted 

suggestion could or was intended to convey. 

  

  



 56 

Chapter 2: 
 

Registration Through Dynamic Markings 
 

 As discussed in the previous chapter, American organ compositions in the second half of 

the nineteenth century did not reliably contain registration suggestions. Often, only a dynamic 

marking is given at the beginning of a piece, and the organist must construct a registration that 

corresponds to the marking. Particular challenges and opportunities for the exercise of taste and 

experience are posed by the transition from one dynamic level to another: the art of crescendo 

and decrescendo. This is a topic treated at length in several treatises and tutors, where instruction 

on how to create crescendos with the addition of stops (rather than simply opening the swell box) 

explains how to create dynamic changes, and which stops are appropriate to a particular dynamic 

level. Even with a convention in place regarding what registrations constituted a particular 

dynamic level, the use of a volume designator to indicate registration leaves open a variety of 

possibilities in timbre within that dynamic level. These suggestions provide guidance to the 

organist and a framework for conceiving the sounds that might be used in playing the piece.  

The practice of using dynamic markings as registration indicators was common even in 

the most advanced compositions. Dudley Buck’s Sonata No. 1 (1868) has a starting registration 

(Figure 2.1) that calls for the dynamic level forte on the Great, in conjunction with the 

“diapasons and reeds” of the Swell; the latter are unspecified regarding number, pitch level or 

type. The remainder of the Sonata includes only indications for changes within divisions, such 

as, “reduce Gr. Org. to mf,” while mentioning no specific stops.1  

 
1 Everett Truette, Organ Registration: A Comprehensive Treatise on the Distinctive Quality of Tone of Organ Stops, 
the Acoustical and Musical Effect of Combining Individual Stops, and the Selection of Stops and Combinations for 
the Various Phases of Organ Compositions: Together with Suggested Registration for One Hundred Organ 
Compositions, hymns, and anthems intended to be played on specific organs (C.W. Thompson and Co., 1919), 4. 



 57 

 

Figure 2.1 – Initial registration suggestion from Dudley Buck’s Grand Sonata in E-flat, Op. 22.2  
 

To clarify the practice of using dynamic markings as registration indications, the authors 

of tutors and treatises published tables of crescendo orders and their corresponding dynamic 

levels. These tables of crescendos also show that dynamic markings were not only indications of 

volume, but also implied timbres. Though there are differences between the authors, the fact that 

so many wrote about how to interpret registrational dynamic markings suggest that there were 

conventions surrounding the performance practice of these markings and that it was not left to 

arbitrary preference.  

In comparing dynamically indicated registrations for the purposes of understanding 

general practices four key questions arise: 

1. What is the first/quietest sound? 
2. How are stops subsequently added? By pitch, by harmonic content, by literal volume, 

etc.? 
3. How do couplers and manual changes factor into the schema? 
4. What is the role of the swell box in the crescendo? 

 

The Softest Stop 

 If dynamic markings denote timbre as well as volume, then defining pianissimo in a 

registration context requires that we understand the relationship between the actual volume of a 

 
2 Dudley Buck, Grand Sonata in E-flat, Op. 22 (G. Schirmer, 1868), mm. 1-4. 

     
    

 

  

 

 
 

  



 58 

stop and its color. German sources on the topic differ from each other considerably, both in the 

stops they call for and in the specificity of their descriptions. In his Vollständige Orgelschule 

(1796), Justin Heinrich Knecht writes that “if the desire is to imitate an orchestral crescendo at 

the organ, first draw one stopped sixteen-foot and eight-foot rank after another to express the 

transition from pianissimo to piano. Then the open eight-foot stops are drawn gradually…3”  It 

must be assumed that Knecht does not intend the sixteen foot to be played alone as the starting 

registration, as that would be contrary to the stated desire for a strong eight foot line, and thus the 

starting point of his crescendo is a stopped eight flute. The preface to Felix Mendelssohn’s organ 

sonatas, written a half-century later in 1845, is limited in its description of the crescendo, but 

calls for “some of the soft eight-foot stops combined” as the pianissimo level. The Walze of 

Friederich Ladegast’s 1855 organ in Schwerin Cathedral initially draws the Zartflöte eight foot4 - 

a stop that, despite its name, was a cross between a Flute and a Fugara, the latter a string at eight- 

or four-foot pitch.5 Wilhelm Volckmar states in 1863 that the crescendo begins with a soft flue.6 

Josef Rheinberger, in both his fifth and ninth organ sonatas, written in 1878 and 1885, 

respectively, indicates that the Salicional is the first stop drawn. 

 English organs of the early nineteenth century were still comparatively small, having only 

one or two manual divisions, each manual based on a Diapason/Stopped Diapason duo with no 

other eight-foot stops, as in the 1818 Thomas Elliot organ in Ashridge, Hertfordshire (Figure 

2.2), and only infrequently having a pedal division. This is reflected in suggestions for crescendo 

from the earlier part of the century. Joseph Alexander Hamilton’s Catechism of the Organ (1842) 

 
3 Justin Heinrich Knecht, Vollständige Orgelschule, Part II, quoted in Jon Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice 
in Organ Playing, Part 2: the Romantic Period, trans. Christopher Anderson (Carus-Verlag, 2010), 153. 
4 Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice in Organ, 158. 
5 Audsley, Organ Stops and Their Artistic Registration (The H.W. Gray Co., 1921), 292. 
6 Wilhelm Volckmar, Orgelschule (Leipzig, 1863), 101, cited in Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice in Organ 
Playing, 154. 



 59 

describes a crescendo beginning with the Open Diapason, adding the Stopped Diapason, and 

then simply continuing to add stops up the harmonic progression.7 Even here we see that 

absolute volume was not the primary consideration, as the Stopped Diapason was certainly the 

softer of the two eight-foot options. 

 
Great 
Open Diapason 8’ 
Open Diapason (G) 8’ 
Stopped Diapason 8’ 
Principal 4’ 
Flute 4’ 
Twelfth 22/3’ 
Fifteenth 2’ 
Sesquialtera II 
Mixture II 
Trumpet 8’ 
Pedal Diapason 8’ 
 

 
Swell 
Open Diapason 8’ 
Stopped Diapason 8’ 
Principal 4’ 
Hautboy 4’ 

Figure 2.2 - 1818 Thomas Elliot organ, Ashridge, Hertfordshire.8 
 

Though soft stops such as the Dulciana or Clarabella were common on medium to large 

organs constructed after 1850, they do not appear to have been used as part of the gradual 

crescendo, but rather to color the initial piano registration. W.T. Best’s Modern School for the 

Organ (1847) assumes a substantial three-manual organ, featuring three eight-foot stops in each 

of the manual divisions, each of different scale and construction (Figure 2.3).  

 

 

 

 

 

 
7 James Alexander Hamilton, Catechism of the Organ (R. Cocks, 1842), 36. 
8 Nicolas Thistlethwaite, The Making of the Victorian Organ (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 444. 



 60 

 

Figure 2.3 – The specification of an ideal organ9 given by W.T. Best in Modern School for the 
Organ (1847).10 
 

Even with these resources at hand, Best includes all three of the eight-foot stops at the 

piano dynamic in each division as seen in the table of his proposed order of stop additions 

(Figure 2.4). We can presume that Best intends for the pedal to be coupled to the manual in all 

cases, as the Great forte registration would overwhelm the given Pedal accompaniment. The 

actual volume of the given registrations for each dynamic level mirrors the respective power of 

that division within the organ. So, the first piano given would be loudest on the Great, then the 

Swell, and softest on the Choir.  

Best gives two options each for piano and mezzo-piano, with the deciding factor being 

pitch range. The first option includes reeds but nothing above four-foot pitch, while the second 

option in each category includes upperwork and not reeds. It is not safe to assume that he simply 

would have used the softest stop available to him as a pianissimo, since his suggestions err 

 
9 Best is not using the German model of manual indication here, as the indications are not designations of where to 
play, but of the manual’s location on the console. In Best’s published music manuals most commonly are referred to 
by abbreviations of their proper names, i.e. Gt. for Great, Ch. for Choir, Sw. for Swell, etc.  
10 William Thomas Best, Modern School for the Organ (Cocks and Co., 1847), 11. 

 12 

Clarabella and Dulciana on the choir, and an Open and Stopped Diapason plus Dulciana on the 

Swell. On such an instrument it would have been possible to construct a crescendo in the 

German fashion. Later documents [such as?] suggest, however, that this was unlikely to have 

been common practice. [citation?] 

 W.T. Best’s 1855 Willis organ at St. George’s Hall in Liverpool certainly held its own in 

the world for size and scope at 113 stops, but for the purposes of his 1847 Modern School for the 

Organ he describes a more modest 3-manual organ.19 As Nicholas Thistlethwaite has suggested, 

this organ, with its unusual number of mixtures, more closely resembles the classically-inflected 

instruments of William Hill than the latest Willis instruments: 20

First Manual 
(Choir Organ) 

 
1. Viola-di-Gamba 8’ 
2. Claribella 8’ 
3. Dulciana 8’ 
4. Wald-flute 4’ 
5. Gemshorn 4’ 
6. Doublette II  2’ & 1’ 
7. Piccolo 2’  
8. Corno-Inglese  8’ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Second Manual 
(Great Organ) 

 
1. Double Open   16’ 
    Diapason 
2. Open Diapason 8’ 
3. Stopped Diapason 8’ 
4. Salicional 8’ 
5. Octave 4’ 
6. Octave-Quint 3’ 
7. Super-Octave 2’ 
8. Fourniture II 
9. Sesquialtera III 
10. Mixture II 
11. Double Trumpet 16’ 
12. Trombone 8’ 
13. Trumpet 8’ 
14. Clarion 4’ 
 

Third Manual 
(Swell Organ) 

 
1. Double Dulciana 16’ 
2. Open Diapason 8’ 
3. Stopped Diapason 8’ 
4. Hohl-Flute 8’ 
5. Octave 4’ 
6. Octave-Quint 3’  
7. Super-Octave 2’ 
8. Echo-Cornet V 
9. Oboe 8’ 
10. Cornopean 8’ 
11. Horn 8’ 
12. Clarion 4’ 
13. Contra Fagotto 16’ 
 
 
 

Pedal Organ 
 
 
1. Double Open   32’ 
    Diapason 
2. Open Diapason 16’ 
3. Violon 16’ 
4. Octave 8’ 
5. Super-Octave 4’ 
6. Sesquialtera V 
7. Trombone 16’ 
8. Trumpet 8’ 
 
 
 
 
 
 

For this imagined organ Best suggests the following crescendo schema:21
 

 

 

 
19 Best Modern School for the Organ, 11. 
20 Thistlethwaite, 346. 
21 Best Modern School for the Organ 14. 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 61 

toward louder dynamics than would have been necessary given the range of stops available in the 

organ; after all, he lists one possibility for a piano registration in the Swell that includes all the 

stops up to two-foot pitch. While we might suppose that the swell box would have been closed, a 

softer registration would certainly have been possible. It seems that rather than being concerned 

with absolute volume, Best is concerned with relative volume compared to the louder end of the 

spectrum, seamlessness of transition – which is most difficult to achieve with the initial addition 

of the large eight-foot stops such as the Open Diapason—and clarity of the fundamental pitch as 

supported by sufficient stops with upper harmonic content.  

  

 

Figure 2.4 – The order of the addition of stops according to dynamic gradations as developed 
from Best’s Modern School for the Organ (1847).11  
 

 
11 Ibid, 14. 
 

 13 

 

 

 
 Best’s table is difficult to interpret not only because he lists the crescendo intra-

divisionally rather than conceptually across the organ, but also because he includes more than 

one option for some dynamic levels. The differences between these options are not consistent, 

and they do not always appear to be gradations of the suggested dynamic. While the two forte 

 
Dynamic Marking Choir Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 
Dulciana 
Clarabella 
Wald-Flute 

Violon 
Octave 

forte 

Clarabella  
Dulciana 
Wald-Flute 
Piccolo 
Doublette 

Open Diapason 
Octave 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Dynamic  Choir Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 
Dulciana 
Clarabella 
Wald-Flute 

Violon 
Octave 

forte 

Clarabella  
Dulciana 
Wald-Flute 
Piccolo 
Doublette 

Open Diapason 
Octave 

 
 

Dynamic  Great Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 
Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Salicional 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
piano 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 

Open Diapason 
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Salicional  
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
 

forte 

Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 

Open Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

forte 

Double Trumpet 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 

Double Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Trumpet 

fortissimo 

Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 
Mixture 
Trombone 
Trumpet 
Clarion 

Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Trombone  
Trumpet 

fortissimo 

Trombone 
Trumpet 
Clarion 
Double Trumpet 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Trombone  
Trumpet 

fortissimo 
(Full 

Organ) 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 
Mixture 
Double Trumpet 
Trombone 
Trumpet 
Clarion 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Sesquialtera 
Trombone  
Trumpet 

 
Dynamic  Swell Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 

Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Horn 

Violon  
Octave 

piano 

Double Dulciana 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
piano 

Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Contra Fagotto 
Cornopean 
Oboe 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
piano 

Double Dulciana 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Super-Octave 
Echo Cornet 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Double Dulciana 
Open Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Echo Cornet 
Contra-Fagotto 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Open Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Oboe 
Cornopean 
Horn 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Double Dulciana 
Open Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Contra-Fagotto 
Oboe  
Cornopean 
Horn 
Clarion 

Violon  
Octave 

forte 
(Full 

Swell) 

Double Dulciana 
Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Echo-Cornet 
Oboe 
Cornopean 
Horn 
Clarion 
Contra-Fagotto 

Double Open Diapason 
Violon  
Octave 

 

 13 

 

 

 
 Best’s table is difficult to interpret not only because he lists the crescendo intra-

divisionally rather than conceptually across the organ, but also because he includes more than 

one option for some dynamic levels. The differences between these options are not consistent, 

and they do not always appear to be gradations of the suggested dynamic. While the two forte 

 
Dynamic Marking Choir Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 
Dulciana 
Clarabella 
Wald-Flute 

Violon 
Octave 

forte 

Clarabella  
Dulciana 
Wald-Flute 
Piccolo 
Doublette 

Open Diapason 
Octave 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Dynamic  Choir Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 
Dulciana 
Clarabella 
Wald-Flute 

Violon 
Octave 

forte 

Clarabella  
Dulciana 
Wald-Flute 
Piccolo 
Doublette 

Open Diapason 
Octave 

 
 

Dynamic  Great Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 
Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Salicional 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
piano 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 

Open Diapason 
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Salicional  
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
 

forte 

Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 

Open Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

forte 

Double Trumpet 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 

Double Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Trumpet 

fortissimo 

Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 
Mixture 
Trombone 
Trumpet 
Clarion 

Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Trombone  
Trumpet 

fortissimo 

Trombone 
Trumpet 
Clarion 
Double Trumpet 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Trombone  
Trumpet 

fortissimo 
(Full 

Organ) 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 
Mixture 
Double Trumpet 
Trombone 
Trumpet 
Clarion 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Sesquialtera 
Trombone  
Trumpet 

 
Dynamic  Swell Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 

Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Horn 

Violon  
Octave 

piano 

Double Dulciana 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
piano 

Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Contra Fagotto 
Cornopean 
Oboe 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
piano 

Double Dulciana 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Super-Octave 
Echo Cornet 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Double Dulciana 
Open Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Echo Cornet 
Contra-Fagotto 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Open Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Oboe 
Cornopean 
Horn 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Double Dulciana 
Open Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Contra-Fagotto 
Oboe  
Cornopean 
Horn 
Clarion 

Violon  
Octave 

forte 
(Full 

Swell) 

Double Dulciana 
Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Echo-Cornet 
Oboe 
Cornopean 
Horn 
Clarion 
Contra-Fagotto 

Double Open Diapason 
Violon  
Octave 

 

 13 

 

 

 
 Best’s table is difficult to interpret not only because he lists the crescendo intra-

divisionally rather than conceptually across the organ, but also because he includes more than 

one option for some dynamic levels. The differences between these options are not consistent, 

and they do not always appear to be gradations of the suggested dynamic. While the two forte 

 
Dynamic Marking Choir Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 
Dulciana 
Clarabella 
Wald-Flute 

Violon 
Octave 

forte 

Clarabella  
Dulciana 
Wald-Flute 
Piccolo 
Doublette 

Open Diapason 
Octave 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Dynamic  Choir Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 
Dulciana 
Clarabella 
Wald-Flute 

Violon 
Octave 

forte 

Clarabella  
Dulciana 
Wald-Flute 
Piccolo 
Doublette 

Open Diapason 
Octave 

 
 

Dynamic  Great Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 
Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Salicional 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
piano 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 

Open Diapason 
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Salicional  
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
 

forte 

Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 

Open Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

forte 

Double Trumpet 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 

Double Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Trumpet 

fortissimo 

Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 
Mixture 
Trombone 
Trumpet 
Clarion 

Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Trombone  
Trumpet 

fortissimo 

Trombone 
Trumpet 
Clarion 
Double Trumpet 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Trombone  
Trumpet 

fortissimo 
(Full 

Organ) 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Salicional 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Fourniture 
Sesquialtera 
Mixture 
Double Trumpet 
Trombone 
Trumpet 
Clarion 

Double Open Diapason 
Open Diapason 
Violon 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Sesquialtera 
Trombone  
Trumpet 

 
Dynamic  Swell Organ Pedal Organ 

piano 

Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Horn 

Violon  
Octave 

piano 

Double Dulciana 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
piano 

Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Contra Fagotto 
Cornopean 
Oboe 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
piano 

Double Dulciana 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Super-Octave 
Echo Cornet 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Double Dulciana 
Open Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Echo Cornet 
Contra-Fagotto 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Open Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Oboe 
Cornopean 
Horn 

Violon  
Octave 

mezzo-
forte 

Double Dulciana 
Open Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Stopped Diapason 
Octave 
Super-Octave 
Contra-Fagotto 
Oboe  
Cornopean 
Horn 
Clarion 

Violon  
Octave 

forte 
(Full 

Swell) 

Double Dulciana 
Open Diapason 
Stopped Diapason 
Hohl-Flute 
Octave 
Octave-Quint 
Super-Octave 
Echo-Cornet 
Oboe 
Cornopean 
Horn 
Clarion 
Contra-Fagotto 

Double Open Diapason 
Violon  
Octave 

 



 62 

 The desire for brighter rather than darker stops for a pianissimo is echoed in John 

Stainer’s tutor, The Organ (1877), in which Stainer lays out a crescendo schema intra-

divisionally in the manner of Best but orders the additions one stop at a time (Figure 2.5). Here, 

Stainer reveals the entire gradual construction of the crescendo rather than just delineating 

waypoints in its course.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 63 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PEDAL REED-STOPS. 

51. The FOLLOWING LIST  includes the chief stops of this class:-- 
LENGTH. . NAYE. 

... Contra Fagotto 

... ... Of 32-feet length ... { Contra Posaune 

... Contra Bombarde 

1 ... 
Fagotto or Bassoon 
Trombone 

... ... ... ..a 

.a. 

Of 16-feet length Posaune 
Bombard ... ... 

... Ophicleide ... 
Bassoon ... ... Of 8-feet length ... ... Clarion or Trumpet 

... ... Of q-feet length ... Octave Clarion 

CHARACTER. 

Soft, but only useful in combination. 

Most useful addition to full power. 

Soft and frequently useful. 

Adds weight to a forte combination. 

Of great power and grandeur. 

Soft and useful. - 
Gives brilliancy to a forte combination, 
Adds brilliancy. 

COMBINATION OF STOPS. 

The following tables of combinations will teach the student the principles on which stops are added 
to each other, and what stops to draw when practising by himself. It  will be found that in the case of a large 
organ the numbers of Foundation, Mutation, and Compound stops remain in much the same proportion as  in a 
small instrument. 

GREAT ORGAN. 

52. The progressive stages of tone on the Great Organ will be (if the instrument has no Choir Organ)-- 
Dulciana, 8 feet 
Lieblich or 
Stopped Diapason, 8-feet tone 1 1 p (bright) (other combinations as  below). 
Gamba (if soft), 8 feet 
Flute, +feet tone or 4 feet 

Or (if there is a Choir Organ)- 
Clarabella, or Claribel Flute, 8 feet, or 
Stopped Diapason, 8-feet tone 
Soft Open Diapason, 8 feet 

I "  P ... ... ..a 

Large Open Diapason, 8 feet ... ,.. ... ... ... ' I (Ei)](f,?i$rl (almost mf f) 
Gamba or Viola, 8 feet ... -.. ... ... ... ... ... brighter) 
Flute, or Harmonic Flute, 4 feet ... ... ... ... ... 
Principal (or Octave), 4 feet ... ... ... ... ... ... ... -.. 
Double Diapason, 16 feet, or 16-feet tone ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 
Twelfth, 2 feet 8 inches ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 

..a 

Fifteenth, 2 feet ... ". . ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ..- 
f 

Sesquialtera ... ... .-. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .-. *.. ... 
Mixture ... ... ... ... ....... ... ... --. ... ..a ... ... ..a 

Double Trumpet, 16 feet ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . <. ... 
Trumpet, 8 feet ,.. ... ... ,.. .,. ... ... ... ... ... ..- 0.0 e.. 

Clarion, 4 feet ... . . - ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ee* 0.. 

If the Great Organ pipes a,re not on a high pressure of wind, the following would be a common 
gradation of power on a small instrument :- 

Stopped Diapason, 8-feet tone 
.. ... ... Clarabella, 8 feet. 

... ... Open Diapason, 8 feet ... 1 

... ... Principal; 4 feet. ... ... ... 
... ... ... Flute, 4-feet tone ... ... f 

... ... ... ... ... Twelfth, 2Q feet ... 
... ... ... ... ... Fifteenth, 2 feet ... 

... ... Eourdon, 16-feet tone ... ... ... 
... ... ... ... ... Sesquialtera 

* 
... .-. 

... ... ... ... Trumpet, 8 feet ... ... ... 

The Stopped Diapason and Clarabella or Harmonic Flute (8 feet) are valuable a s  solo stops. 
A good "Small Open Diapason" is often most useful as a solo stop, especially in the middle and 

lower portions. . .  
Other combinations, such as  Flute, +feet tone, with Bourdon, 16-feet tone, or the Trumpet with or 

without the Diapasons, will be found available for special effects. 

SWELL ORGAN. 

53. The chief characteristic of the Swell Organ is  the number of its reed-stops. The fine crescendo 
obtained by their use accounts for this. 

The following will show the ordinary gradations of tone required :- 

Vex Angelica (or Voix Celeste)* or 
Salcional, or 
Dulciana, 8 feet, or... ... 

... Echo Gamba, 8 feet .., (rather fuller) P 
Stopped Diapason, or ... ... ... 
Lieblich, 8-feet tone mf ... Open Diapason, 8 feet ... ... ... ... 
Double Dulciana, or 1 ... ... ... ... ... 

In 1 I . . * 

Bourdon, 16-feet tone 
Principal (or Octave), 4 feet ... ... ... ... ... ... 
Hautboy (or Oboe), 8 feet ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 
Fifteenth, 2 feet .,. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 
Cornopean or -.. ... ... ... ... 1 .". . -. -. . ..- 
Trumpet, 8 feet 
Sesquialtera, or 
Mixture, or ] . . .  ... ... ... ... . -. ... ... 
Echo Cornet 
Double Trumpet, 16 feet ... ... ... ... .-. .-. ... ... 

... Clarion, 4 feet ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 

* The V o x  Angelica (or Voix Celeste) is rarely used in combinatiota; 

If the Great Organ pipes a,re not on a high pressure of wind, the following would be a common 
gradation of power on a small instrument :- 

Stopped Diapason, 8-feet tone 
.. ... ... Clarabella, 8 feet. 

... ... Open Diapason, 8 feet ... 1 

... ... Principal; 4 feet. ... ... ... 
... ... ... Flute, 4-feet tone ... ... f 

... ... ... ... ... Twelfth, 2Q feet ... 
... ... ... ... ... Fifteenth, 2 feet ... 

... ... Eourdon, 16-feet tone ... ... ... 
... ... ... ... ... Sesquialtera 

* 
... .-. 

... ... ... ... Trumpet, 8 feet ... ... ... 

The Stopped Diapason and Clarabella or Harmonic Flute (8 feet) are valuable a s  solo stops. 
A good "Small Open Diapason" is often most useful as a solo stop, especially in the middle and 

lower portions. . .  
Other combinations, such as  Flute, +feet tone, with Bourdon, 16-feet tone, or the Trumpet with or 

without the Diapasons, will be found available for special effects. 

SWELL ORGAN. 

53. The chief characteristic of the Swell Organ is  the number of its reed-stops. The fine crescendo 
obtained by their use accounts for this. 

The following will show the ordinary gradations of tone required :- 

Vex Angelica (or Voix Celeste)* or 
Salcional, or 
Dulciana, 8 feet, or... ... 

... Echo Gamba, 8 feet .., (rather fuller) P 
Stopped Diapason, or ... ... ... 
Lieblich, 8-feet tone mf ... Open Diapason, 8 feet ... ... ... ... 
Double Dulciana, or 1 ... ... ... ... ... 

In 1 I . . * 

Bourdon, 16-feet tone 
Principal (or Octave), 4 feet ... ... ... ... ... ... 
Hautboy (or Oboe), 8 feet ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 
Fifteenth, 2 feet .,. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 
Cornopean or -.. ... ... ... ... 1 .". . -. -. . ..- 
Trumpet, 8 feet 
Sesquialtera, or 
Mixture, or ] . . .  ... ... ... ... . -. ... ... 
Echo Cornet 
Double Trumpet, 16 feet ... ... ... ... .-. .-. ... ... 

... Clarion, 4 feet ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 

* The V o x  Angelica (or Voix Celeste) is rarely used in combinatiota; 



 64 

 

 

Figure 2.5 – Crescendo tables for Great, Swell, and Choir in John Stainer’s The Organ (1919)12 

Stainer shows how to build the crescendo separately in each division, starting with one 

stop and then listing additions up to the full organ. The initial recommendation of flute stops for 

a pianissimo in the Great should not be understood as the starting point for a crescendo over the 

entire organ. In listing crescendos for each division Stainer is forced to account for the voicing of 

each. In the Great, for instance, he lists five eight-foot stops (if the organ in question has a Choir 

division, which is important): Clarabella, Stopped Diapason, Soft Open Diapason, Large Open 

Diapason, and Gamba. Considering that the Gamba would have been a more aggressive string, 

there is no other sensible order in which to add these. The Clarabella would have no appreciable 

effect on the Stopped Diapason were the latter to be drawn first. The Gamba is the keenest of 

these five ranks and would not have firmly established the fundamental pitch were it to be the 

initial sound, and it is only sensible that the Soft Open Diapason should precede the addition of 

its “large” counterpart. In the Swell, Stainer begins with either soft strings or the Dulciana with 

the possible inclusion of smaller flutes to broaden the sound. 

 
12 John Stainer, The Organ (Novello & Co., 1877), 30-32. 
 

Some beautiful effects may be obtained by playing an octave higher on such combinations as the 
folIswing :- - 

Double Dulciana, 16 feet ; 
Bourdon, 16-feet tone ; Double Trumpet, r6feet (if soft) ; 

Stopped Diapason or Lieblich, 
[~ulciana or Salcional, 8 feet Hautboy, 8 feet. 

8-feet tone ; 
If the stops of a Swell Organ are thoroughly well balanced as  to tone, a mysterious and solemn effect 

can often be obtained by using all the stops except the reeds, or, as  it is termed, playing L L  full without reeds." 
On many Swells the following is a peculiar but charming combination :- 

Bourdon, 16-feet tone, or Double Dulciana, 16 feet 
... Stopped Diapason, 8-feet tone ... 

... ... ... Open Diapason, 8 feet 
... ... Principal, 4 feet ; Flute, 4-feet tone 
::: 1 

... 
... Fifteenth, 2 feet, or Piccolo, 2 feet ... . .. 

The stops on the Swell often used for solos are- 
Haufboy (alone, or with a - Cornopean or Trumpet (alone Accompanie~ on 

Accompanied on Choir, ). or with a Diapason) Diapason) ... ... ... Choir, p, or Great, pp. 
The Swell Organ derives its name from the fact that its pipes are enclosed in a Swell box, the opening 

and closing of which gives the effect of increasing and diminishing the volume of sound. This is controlled by 
means of a contrivance named the Swell pedal, which is moved by the right foot of the performer. 

CHOIR ORGAN. 
54. As a rule, stops of a delicate quality of tone are generally assigned to the Choir Organ, T h e  

following would be ordinarily a graduated list of combinations on the Choir Organ :- 
Dulciana, or . 

... Salcional, 8 feet 
Viol da Gamba, 8 feet. .. ... 
Lieblich or 
Stopped Diapason, 8-feet tone (bright) ... 

... Clarabella ... ... ... 
... Open Diapason ... ... ... 27 

(very bright) 
... Flute, 4 feet ... ... ... ..- 

... Principal, 4 feet ... ... ... ... 
Double Dulciana, or Double Stopped Diapason, 16 feet 
Piccolo or 
Flageolet, 2-feet tone ... ... ... ... ... ... 

Solo combinations on Choir Organ :- 
Flute, 4 feet ... Very bright and Flute,4feet 
Viol da Gamba, 8 feet pretty. Clarabella, or Clear and sweeL 

Lieblich ... 
Clarinet, or 
Cremona, or 
Krummhorn, or 
Corno di Bassetto, 8 feet, Very full and rich, but soon becomes monotonous. 

with 
Lieblich, or Clarabella 
Piccolo, 2 feet 
Stopped Diapason, or 1 Very brilliant for rapid mns in variations, Euc. Must be used! 

Lieblich I sparingly. 

Some beautiful effects may be obtained by playing an octave higher on such combinations as the 
folIswing :- - 

Double Dulciana, 16 feet ; 
Bourdon, 16-feet tone ; Double Trumpet, r6feet (if soft) ; 

Stopped Diapason or Lieblich, 
[~ulciana or Salcional, 8 feet Hautboy, 8 feet. 

8-feet tone ; 
If the stops of a Swell Organ are thoroughly well balanced as  to tone, a mysterious and solemn effect 

can often be obtained by using all the stops except the reeds, or, as  it is termed, playing L L  full without reeds." 
On many Swells the following is a peculiar but charming combination :- 

Bourdon, 16-feet tone, or Double Dulciana, 16 feet 
... Stopped Diapason, 8-feet tone ... 

... ... ... Open Diapason, 8 feet 
... ... Principal, 4 feet ; Flute, 4-feet tone 
::: 1 

... 
... Fifteenth, 2 feet, or Piccolo, 2 feet ... . .. 

The stops on the Swell often used for solos are- 
Haufboy (alone, or with a - Cornopean or Trumpet (alone Accompanie~ on 

Accompanied on Choir, ). or with a Diapason) Diapason) ... ... ... Choir, p, or Great, pp. 
The Swell Organ derives its name from the fact that its pipes are enclosed in a Swell box, the opening 

and closing of which gives the effect of increasing and diminishing the volume of sound. This is controlled by 
means of a contrivance named the Swell pedal, which is moved by the right foot of the performer. 

CHOIR ORGAN. 
54. As a rule, stops of a delicate quality of tone are generally assigned to the Choir Organ, T h e  

following would be ordinarily a graduated list of combinations on the Choir Organ :- 
Dulciana, or . 

... Salcional, 8 feet 
Viol da Gamba, 8 feet. .. ... 
Lieblich or 
Stopped Diapason, 8-feet tone (bright) ... 

... Clarabella ... ... ... 
... Open Diapason ... ... ... 27 

(very bright) 
... Flute, 4 feet ... ... ... ..- 

... Principal, 4 feet ... ... ... ... 
Double Dulciana, or Double Stopped Diapason, 16 feet 
Piccolo or 
Flageolet, 2-feet tone ... ... ... ... ... ... 

Solo combinations on Choir Organ :- 
Flute, 4 feet ... Very bright and Flute,4feet 
Viol da Gamba, 8 feet pretty. Clarabella, or Clear and sweeL 

Lieblich ... 
Clarinet, or 
Cremona, or 
Krummhorn, or 
Corno di Bassetto, 8 feet, Very full and rich, but soon becomes monotonous. 

with 
Lieblich, or Clarabella 
Piccolo, 2 feet 
Stopped Diapason, or 1 Very brilliant for rapid mns in variations, Euc. Must be used! 

Lieblich I sparingly. 



 65 

In considering an interdivisional crescendo it is important to understand the relationship 

between the manuals where dynamics are concerned. Stainer’s note that “…stops of a delicate 

quality of tone are generally assigned to the Choir Organ” clarifies that the first stop drawn 

across the entire organ would likely have been in the Choir, ergo, a Dulciana. 

The initial inclusion of Diapason tone quality – that is, a timbre somewhere between a 

flute and a string – is described by both Best and Stainer in all divisions of the instrument. 

Stainer’s initial drawing of the Dulciana in the Choir is confused by our modern understanding 

of the Dulciana as a string. In Organ Registration, Everett Truette describes the Dulciana as a 

member of the diapason family, though softer in quality than the Open Diapason. Audsley 

affirms this in his later Organ Stops and Their Artistic Registration (1921),13 lamenting that the 

modern practice of “giving the stop more character” (by which he means narrower scaling) ruins 

its original purpose in the organ, namely, to serve as a small Diapason.14 This understanding of 

the Dulciana supports the idea of a diapason-like sound as the starting point in a crescendo. 

American organs up to the middle 1870’s varied widely in size, scope, and style, making 

any such description of the crescendo as given by the European writers almost impossible to 

apply directly to instruments on the other side of the Atlantic. The introduction to George 

Whiting’s Twenty Preludes, Postludes, Etc. for the Organ, Op. 27 (1877) lists the Dulciana as the 

first stop to be added.15 Eugene Thayer’s description of organ stops in his Complete School of 

Organ Playing (1880) also lists the Dulciana as a piano stop, though he gives both the eight-foot 

Bourdon and Viola da Gamba as pianissimo options.16 Varieties of opinion are to be expected, 

 
13 Audsley, Organ Stops, 112-115 
14 Ibid. 
15 George Elbridge Whiting, Twenty Preludes, Postludes, Etc. for Organ, Op. 27, Book 1 (Arthur P. Schmidt Co., 
1877), introduction.  
16 Eugene Thayer, Eugene Thayer’s Complete Organ School, Book III, “Registration” (Eugene Thayer, 1880), 5. 



 66 

and it is possible that Thayer simply had a different preference for his softest sound, but it is 

worth noting that he called for the Bourdon and Viola da Gamba drawn together for a pianissimo,  

thus creating a hybrid diapason sound. 

To summarize, despite variation in instruments, practices, national styles of playing, and 

countless other factors, the writings of English, German, and American authors suggest that the 

pianissimo would have been a sonority with considerable upper harmonic content, from the 

narrow-scaled Zartflöte on the Ladegast organ in Schwerin to the later Dulciana. When no such 

stop was present and the available options were limited to a diapason and a flute, writers 

preferred the former, rather than its certainly quieter counterpart. Stainer lists dual stop 

registrations combining flutes and strings in the pianissimo range of registrations as 

combinations evocative of the Diapason family, particularly when soft diapasons like the 

Dulciana were not available. None of the documents from the period suggests that the crescendo 

begins from a pianissimo created by a single stopped flute. 

 

The Addition of Stops and Their Dynamic Positions 

Beginning with a soft sound and creating a crescendo by adding stops can be 

accomplished in primarily two ways, with variation possible within each: one either adds stops in 

ascending pitch order, finishing with mixtures and reeds, or one adds stops of different pitch and 

timbre in a mixed order. Regardless of approach, the first few additions would have been stops at 

eight-foot pitch. All the writers of the time stress the importance of a well-supported eight-foot 

line. According to Dudley Buck,  

…we deduce as a fundamental principle, both in accompaniment and in the use of the 
organ as a solo-instrument, the predominance of the eight-foot-tone as being in unison 



 67 

with the voice. The violation of this principle more frequently leads to bad combinations 
in accompaniment than the selection of unsuitable qualities of tone for a given piece.17  
 

Wilhelm Volckmar, Justin Heinrich Knecht, John Stainer, W.T. Best, George Whiting and Everett 

Truette all ask for the first additions to the crescendo to be at eight-foot pitch. Among the 

German sources, Volckmar’s description gives the clearest description of eight-foot additions: “If 

a gradual crescendo in the most imperceptible gradations is to be made beginning, say, with a 

soft eight-foot flue, then the stops are drawn in something like this order: dark eight-foot stops, 

brighter eight-foot stops.”18 Ernst Friedrich Richter, in his revised Katechismus der Orgel (1896), 

insists that stops of differing character be added together. He lists groupings of three stops, all of 

which include a stopped flute, a string, and a hybrid stop such as a Gemshorn. Though Richter 

does not list an order for these additions, it is likely that he would have observed the darker-then-

brighter order of Volckmar. 19 To add a brighter stop such as a Viola da Gamba to an already 

bright Dulciana would yield a sound too rich in upper harmonics to sufficiently maintain the 

clarity of the fundamental. The Walze at Schwerin also added stops in this order, with the two 

additions after the Zartflöte, in order, being the Lieblich Gedackt and the Flauto Traverso – 

stopped and open constructions respectively.20 

While the English sources are somewhat more obscure for their tendency to list stops of a 

given dynamic range in groups rather than in order of a crescendo, and then only for a single 

division, they do agree that darker stops are those to be drawn first in combination with the 

starting sound. Fredric Archer’s crescendo description in The Organ (1869) calls for the 

 
17 Dudley Buck, Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment: With Hints in Registration: A Hand-Book (Provided with 
Marginal Notes for Reference) for the Use of Organ Students, Organists, and Those Interested in Church Music (G. 
Schirmer, 1892), 6. 
18 Volckmar, Orgelschule, quoted in Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, 154. 
19 Ernst Richter, Katechismus der Orgel (Leipzig, 1896), 221, quoted in Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice 
in Organ Playing,156-157. 
20 Walze mechanism of the Ladegast organ at the Cathedral in Schwerin, quoted in Laukvik, Historical Performance 
Practice in Organ Playing, 158. 



 68 

following order of eight-foot additions: Dulciana, Lieblich Gedackt, Hohlflöte, Viola da Gamba, 

and Diapason. Stainer’s registration table in The Organ lists the Lieblich or Stopped Diapason as 

the second additions to the Choir, followed by the Clarabella and the Open Diapason. This order 

of hybrid-dark-bright continues in his tables for the Great and Swell.  

George Whiting’s Twenty Preludes likewise orders stop additions from darker to brighter, 

ending with the diapasons. Though the strings would certainly have been brighter stops than a 

Diapason, the relative power of the latter, particularly in American organs of the late nineteenth 

century where that stop comes to be of very large-scale construction, seems to position it in a 

group somewhat on its own among its eight-foot counterparts.  

On the addition of four-foot stops Buck writes, “To know when it is proper to add four-

foot stops…it is simply necessary for the student to realize the following conditions: 1. Whether 

the eight-foot tone is so firmly established as to warrant this addition… If the voices are 

powerful enough to firmly establish this, the effect of the octaves added by means of the four-

foot stops will always be good.”21 While Buck requires only that the eight-foot line be 

sufficiently present as to not be outbalanced by four-foot stops (for which the entire compliment 

of eight-foot stops would not have been necessary) Volckmar says, more specifically, that the soft 

four-foot flutes should be drawn before the addition of the eight-foot principals.22 The Schwerin 

Walze likewise begins to include quiet stops at four-foot (Flauto Dolce 4’, Flautino 4’, Gedackt 

4’, etc.) ahead of the louder eight-foot stops.23 Both Ladegast and Volckmar apply to the four-

foot additions the order of scaling used for the eight-foot stops. First, stops of hybrid flute-string 

character are added, then stopped flutes, then open flutes, then strings, then principals. 

 
21 Buck, Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment, 6. 
22 Volckmar, Orgelschule, 101, quoted in Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, 154. 
23 Walze in Schwerin Cathedral Ladegast organ, quoted in Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice in Organ 
Playing, 158. 



 69 

English models differ from this practice in that they apply a pitch-based crescendo. This 

is clearly seen in the early example from Joseph Hamilton (1865), wherein he observes the 

following order:24 

1. Open Diapason 
2. Stopped Diapason 
3. Principal [a four-foot stop] 
4. Twelfth [which he earlier notes should be drawn either with or after the two-foot] 
5. Fifteenth 
6. Sesquialtera 
7. Mixture 
8. Trumpet 

 
In this small organ, with only two eight-foot stops and no other duplication of pitch levels, this is 

the only possibility for making a crescendo. But the practice was preserved well into the age of 

larger organs. The 1855 Willis organ at St. George’s Hall in Liverpool where W. T. Best was 

organist was, at one hundred stops, one of the largest organs of its time, but even the imagined 

organ that Best invents for demonstrative purposes in his Modern School for the Organ is 

substantial (Figure 2.3). Though the latter reflects an earlier style of organ building, replete with 

nineteen ranks of mixtures, it would certainly have been capable of the mixed-pitch additions 

described by Volckmar. Yet the crescendo described by Best calls for all of the eight-foot stops to 

be on in any given division prior to the addition of the four foots. Stainer also observes this 

order, adding the four-foot stops in the same order of scaling as the German writers, but only 

after all the eight-foot stops are on.  

 American organists largely preserved the crescendo method prominent in the European 

country of their training. George Whiting undertook most of his organ study in England, and 

much of it directly under the tutelage of Best. Consequently, in Twenty Preludes he calls for the 

addition of the first four foot following “all the eight-foot stops except the Gamba and Reeds,” 

 
24 James Alexander Hamilton, Catechism of the Organ (Cooks, 1865), 36. 



 70 

though he does include the earlier addition of a single four-foot flute as a possibility.25 

Meanwhile, Buck and Truette, whose training was primarily German, call for a mixed order of 

pitch additions. In Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment Buck writes: 

To know when it is proper to add four-foot stops to an eight-foot accompaniment, it is 
simply necessary for the student to realize the following conditions: 
1. Whether the eight-foot tone is so firmly established as to warrant this addition… If 

the voices are powerful enough to firmly establish this, the effect of the octaves added 
by means of the four-foot stops will always be good; especially if the character of the 
piece is of a cheerful nature. For brilliant effects, with a chorus of sufficient power, 
stops of two feet become necessary.26 

 
That Buck calls for eight foot of sufficient power to maintain the fundamental line rather than 

simply all of the eight foot is a clear indication that his intention is for those additions to be 

mixed. Truette’s description of the “grand crescendo” (Figure 2.6) likewise calls for a mixing in 

the addition of stops at eight- and four-foot. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
25 George Whiting, Twenty Preludes, Postludes, Etc., for Organ, preface. 
26 Buck, Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment, 6. 



 71 

 

 
 
Figure 2.6 – Progressive order of the stops for a grand crescendo from Truette’s Organ 
Registration.27 
 

 
27 Truette, Organ Registration, 82. 

 34 

larger and more swelling divisions with more effective swell shades on balanced rather than 

hooked pedals. Truette describes exactly the manner of their use in his description of the 

additions of an ideal Grand Crescendo. 

“Progressive Order of the Stops for a Grand Crescendo  
In a Three-Manual Organ with 36 Speaking Stops52 

(Sw. and Ch. Swells closed at the outset) 
 

Sw. to Gt., Ch to Gt., and Sw. to Ped. 
Sw. Æoline and Bourdon Bass 
Ch. Dulciana 
Sw. Salicional 
Ped. Bourdon 
Sw. Gedeckt (St. Diapason) 
Sw. Violina 4 ft. 
Sw. Flute 4 ft. 
Ch. Melodia 
Sw. Diapason 
Ped. Gedeckt 8 ft. 
Sw. Oboe 
     Open the Sw. swell one half 
Ch. Flute d’Amour 
     Open the Ch. swell one half 
Sw. Viol d’Orchestre 
     Open the Sw. swell wide 
Gt. Doppel Floete 
Gt. Gamba (old style) 

A-Ch. Diapason 
Gt. Flute Har. 4 ft.  
Sw. Cornopean 
Ped. Violone 
Sw. Bourdon Treb. and Flautino 

B-Sw. Dolce Cornet 
     Open Ch. swell wide 
Ped. Cello 
Gt. Diapason 
Gt. to Ped. 
Ped. Diapason (16ft.) 
Gt. Octave 

C-Gt. 16 ft. Diapason 
Ped. Flute 8 ft.  
Ch Piccolo 
Gt. 12th and 15th  
 

52 Truette, 82. 

 35 

Gt. Mixture 
Gt. Trumpet 

 
Below this list Truette concludes, “The following stops are purposefully omitted from the Grand 

Crescendo: Vox Humana, Voix Céleste, Clarinet, and Tremolos; Sw. to Ch., Ch. to Ped., and all 

Sub and Super Couplers.”53  

  This list lays out a crescendo that begins with soft stops of thin scale, progresses to large 

scale stops, then adds stops at four feet prior to the addition of the Diapasons. The oboe comes 

on prior to stops above two feet, and the Great reed is the last stop added. More interestingly, 

Truette’s use of the swell pedal does not massage the addition of stops by opening one division, 

adding to the closed division, then closing the former while opening the latter. The use of the 

swell boxes in this instance seems to mute the addition of the potently harmonic strings of the 

organ which are then let loose to mask the entrance of the diapasons. Truette considers the 

Twelfth and Fifteenth to be a unit for these purposes. Finally, Truette adds the Cornopean after 

having completely opened the Swell and tops the division with the mixture. In the Great, this 

order is reversed, adding the mixture followed by the trumpet.   

Section Conclusion 

 The general principles of a crescendo spectrum are as follows: 

 The German crescendo started with a soft 8-foot hybrid flue, added the 8-foot flutes from 

darker to lighter, then alternated the addition of 4-foots with the narrower scaled flues from 

narrower to wider and lower to higher, ending with the 4-foot principals. Then add upward 

through partials and mutations with their upper neighbors first. The decision whether to end with 

the mixture or the loud reeds is left to the style of those stops. The practice changed across the 

 
53 Ibid. 



 72 

 The addition of the sixteen foots likewise varies according to national style. Though an 

earlier practice like that of Knecht called for the successive addition of eight- and sixteen-foot 

stops in alternation, the later sources tend to call for at least some sixteen foots after several, but 

not all, of the eight foots have been drawn. In Volckmar this is prior to the addition of eight-foot 

strings.28 The Walze on the Schwerin Ladegast organ draws several four-foot flutes before the 

Viola sixteen-foot.  

 Understanding the position of the sixteen-foot additions – and later the final stops in the 

crescendo– requires a discussion of the changes in German organ building taking place in the 

middle of the nineteenth century. Jon Laukvik’s discussion of these changes offers the most 

substantial commentary on these shifts. Laukvik points out that Friedrich Ladegast’s tendency to 

incorporate older pipework into rebuilt instruments and his general position as a transitional 

builder between late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century organs and the “romantic” organ of 

the second half of the century result in his organs having a greater number of higher pitched 

mixtures.29  

Based on the novel concepts of Abbé Vogler, organs by E.F. Walcker were the first to 

begin a trend toward stoplists containing more eight-foot tone in a wider variety of colors than 

the organs of the early to mid-eighteenth century. By the time of Wilhelm Sauer’s prominence in 

the latter half of the nineteenth century, a complete shift to organs of decidedly symphonic 

character based on higher wind pressures and featuring stronger sixteen-foot stops and an 

astonishing number of eight-foot stops had taken place.30  

 
28 Volckmar, Orgelschule, 101, quoted in Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, 154. 
29 Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice, 158. 
30 Ibid, 145-46 



 73 

As Laukvik has pointed out, the firm establishment of the fundamental tone was 

considered critical in the second half of the nineteenth century. This initially took the form of a 

rejection of mixtures. Various writers including Walcker, Josef Rheinberger, Sigismund 

Neukomm, and Otto Wangemann all wrote not that the organ contained too little fundamental 

tone, but that the mixtures obscured it.31 The trend of reducing the number, pitch, and number of 

ranks of mixture stops continued through the century, along with the increase in eight-foot stops, 

ultimately resulting in specifications like that of a 1898 Röver organ referenced by Laukvik.32  

There was a turn toward the inclusion of more mixtures at the end of the nineteenth 

century, particularly in the instruments of Wilhelm Sauer. Two forces are likely at play in this 

changing trend. First, Laukvik has noted that the Alsatian New German Organ Reform 

movement, led by Emile Rupp and Albert Schweitzer, advocated for the inclusion of mixtures 

into new organs.33 

The second factor in the introduction of more mixtures was likely the input of Karl 

Straube. In his book Max Reger and Karl Straube, Christopher Anderson describes Straube’s 

popularity as an organist in Germany and the influence he had in the sphere of organ building 

there.34 Two instruments that Straube was involved in either the design or alteration of are those 

of St. Thomas Church, Leipzig in 1888 and 1908, and the 1905 organ in the Berlin Cathedral, 

both built by Wilhelm Sauer. Anderson’s comparison of the St. Thomas organ before and after 

the augmentation requested by Straube reveals an increase in mixture tone that looks like the 

stoplist of the Berlin Cathedral organ.35 Anderson’s discussion does not focus on this increase in 

 
31 Ibid, 149-151. 
32 Ibid, 151. 
33 Laukvik, 152. 
34 Christopher Anderson, Max Reger and Karl Straube: Perspectives on an Organ Performing Tradition (Ashgate, 
2003). 
35 Ibid, 52-59. 



 74 

mixtures, however, because the more substantial change is the inclusion of vastly more stops at 

eight-foot pitch. The inclusion of additional mixtures – particularly those of low pitch, as these 

were – did not occur to increase prominence in the ensemble but ensure their balance with the 

eight-foot line. 

The need for more stops at eight and sixteen foot in the manuals paralleled a change, in 

the second half of the century, from a compositional style that generally favored the middle of 

the compass to the frequent use of the far treble regions for chordal writing. The example in 

Figure 2.7 from Reger’s Symphonische Phantasie und Fuge (1901) demonstrates both the 

necessity for a powerful eight-foot line, but also for increased numbers of more powerful 

sixteen-foot stops to reinforce higher pitches. 

 

Figure 2.7 - Max Reger, Symphonische Phantasie und Fuge, Op. 57, mm 7-8.36 

This trend toward higher writing for organs containing more eight- and sixteen-foot tone 

is observable in America as well. The section of Dudley Buck’s Grand Sonata (1868) in Figure 

2.8, written just five years after the arrival of the 1863 Walcker Organ built for the Boston Music 

Hall (now in the Methuen Memorial Music Hall) and thirty-three years before Reger’s Op. 57, is 

 
36 Max Reger, Symphonische Phantasie und Fuge, Op. 57 (J. Aibl Verlag, 1901), mm. 7-8. 



 75 

another example of high writing in octaves made more effective by an increase in manual eight- 

and sixteen-foot tone. 

 

Figure 2.8 – Dudley Buck, Grand Sonata in E-flat, mov. I (1868), mm. 55-60.37 

 In their descriptions of stop-based crescendos, English writers applied a similarly rigid 

pitch-based method for their application of sixteen-foot stops as they did for four-foot additions. 

Both Stainer and Best call for the Double Open Diapason or other doubled stops after all the four 

foots have been added. Whiting, with his English training, might have been expected to follow 

 
37 Buck, Grand Sonata, mov. 1, mm. 55-60. 



 76 

this practice, but he strays from the path is this regard: “the 16ft. manual stops (Bourdon, Double 

Diap., Double Trumpet &c.) are not to be used unless they are mentioned in the music, except in 

the ff or fff effects.”38 He is referring here to the application of his registration suggestion to his 

own pieces; the fact that he saw fit to mention this practice may indicate that his suggestions 

stray from the norm.  

Though the first substantial concert organ in the United States was the Boston Music Hall 

Walcker, and it was in Germany that many of America’s first prominent organists such as Dudley 

Buck, John Knowles Paine, and Everett Truette received their training, American organ building 

developed more closely in line with English models as the century progressed. In her seminal 

book The History of the Organ in the United States, Orpha Ochse has shown how English 

influence in organ building saw a resurgence in the second half of the nineteenth century.39 It is 

too simple, however, to simply refer to the “English voice” of the organ, as that too was in flux 

between 1850 and 1870.  

Nicolas Thistlethwaite has carefully examined these changes in his book The Making of 

the Victorian Organ.40 He notes that during this period the greatest influence on English organ 

building was the work of German builder Edmund Schulze whose organ for the 1851 exhibition 

was loved for its great power and generous voicing.41  It seems that what Ochse refers to as the 

“English voice” of the organ was, however, the inclusion of the French-style reeds and other 

over-blown stops such as the Flûte Harmonique. The opening program for the London Exhibition 

listed organs by English builders Willis, Gray and Davidson, Walker, and Hill, from German 

 
38 Whiting, Twenty Preludes, Postlude, Etc., preface. 
39 Orphe Ochse, The History of the Organ in the United States (Indiana University Press, 1975), 215-252.  
40 Nicholas Thistlethwaite, The Making of the Victorian Organ (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 375-294. 
41 Ibid, 383-388. 



 77 

builder Schulze, and by French builder Ducroquet.42 Several English reviewers as well as Hector 

Berlioz noted that both the power and variety afforded the Ducroquet organ by its reeds made it 

among the most interesting and satisfactory instruments at the show.43 Though it did not win any 

prizes – those being given exclusively to English builders for improvements in organ actions,44 

Thistlethwaite has pointed out that French stop types, especially the number and construction of 

reeds, became de rigueur in English organs from then on, particularly those built by Henry 

Willis.45 It is likely that the incorporation of French trends in American organs occurred via 

English exemplars. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, several notable builders arrived 

from England, including the Woodberrys’, John Austin, and Carlton Michell and, perhaps most 

famously, the 1889/90 arrival of Ernest M. Skinner to work for Hutchings.46  

Because of the English influence on American organ building, it was ultimately the 

English tendency toward the inclusion of the sixteen-foot manual stops once all the four-foot 

ranks had been added that took hold in America. Of this, Dudley Buck wrote,  

 When voices are sufficiently powerful to easily sustain four-foot tone, in fact to require it, 
the addition of sixteen-foot tone to the manuals becomes desirable. This addition is 
specially useful when dignity and solidity of tone are required… Used without the four-
foot stops, however, the sixteen-foot manual-tone would frequently have a tendency to 
obscure the harmony, through the too prominent assertion of the lower octave.47 

 
That this was a problem worth consideration and adjustment for on American and English organs 

can be explained through an examination of the sixteen-foot manual stops available in each style 

of organ. On English and American organs, the Double Open Diapason was the primary manual 

sixteen-foot stop – often the only one. When additional stops were present they were often the 

 
42 David Kopp, “The Organs of the 1851 London Exhibition: Music, Machines, and Progress,” The Tracker 66, no. 4 
(October 2022): 11. 
43 Ibid, 13. 
44 Ibid, 18. 
45 Ibid, 432-443. 
46 Ochse, The History of the Organ, 217 & 235. 
47 Buck, Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment, 7. 



 78 

dark but highly “present” Bourdon sixteen foot, or a Dulciana sixteen foot, the latter really only 

seen in English organs.48 German organs more frequently featured multiple manual sixteen foots 

at varying dynamic levels. Comparing the manual sixteen- and eight-foot flue stops present on 

the original 1888 specification of the Sauer organ at the Thomaskirche, Leipzig, the 1890 

Hutching’s organ built for New York Grand Avenue Methodist Church, Brooklyn, and the 1887 

Willis organ in Truro Cathedral (Figure 2.9) reveals the reason behind the differing methods of 

adding the sixteen-foot manual stops. First, German organs had a greater number of eight-foot 

stops than their English and American counterparts. This allowed for a more present fundamental 

sound that, because of the greater number of soft sixteen-foot manual stops on these organs, 

could accommodate the earlier addition of sixteen-foot tone in a crescendo. American and 

English organs, with their larger-scaled sixteen-foot manual stops and their fewer number of 

eight-foot ranks, many of which were gentler in quality than the German eight-foot line, required 

the four-foot stops to be added before the sixteens were drawn. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
48 This is readily seen in the numerous stoplists given in text in The History of the United States, pages 231-316, and 
in Appendix I: Specifications, in Thistlethwaite’s The Making of the Victorian Organ, 444-506.  



 79 

 
 

Figure 2.9 – A side-by-side comparison of English, German, and American eight and sixteen- 
          foot manual stops. 

 

The Final Stop in a Crescendo 

The changing trends in organ building also influenced the selection of the final stop in a 

crescendo. Knecht’s 1795 account explains that “for the actual forte and fortissimo, the reeds and 

Sauer Organ 
64 Stops 

Thomaskirche, 
Leipzig 

1888 
 
 

Manual I 
Prinzipal 16’ 
Bordun 16’ 
Prinzipal 8’ 

Flûte Harmonique 8’ 
Viola di Gamba 8’ 

Gedackt 8’ 
Doppelflöte 8’ 
Gemshorn 8’ 

 
Manual II 

Salizional 16’ 
Gedackt 16’ 
Prinzipal 8’ 

Flûte Harmonique 8’ 
Flöte 8’ 

Spitzflöte 8’ 
Rohrflöte 8’ 
Salizional 8’ 

 
Manual III 

Viola di Gamba 16’ 
Lieblich Gedackt 16’ 

Prinzipal 8’ 
Gedackt 8’ 

Konzertflöte 8’ 
Aeoline 8’ 

Voix Celeste 8’ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hutchings Organ 
60 Stops 

New York Grand Avenue 
Methodist Church, 

Brooklyn 
1890 

 
Great 

Double Open Diapason 16’ 
Open Diapason 8’ 
Open Diapason 8’ 
Viola di Gamba 8’ 
Viola d’Amour 8’ 

Clarabella 8’ 
Doppel Flöte 8’ 

 
Swell 

Bourdon (divided) 16’ 
Open Diapason 8’ 

Gemshorn 8’ 
Hohl Flöte 8’ 
Salicional 8’ 

Vox Celestis 8’ 
Æoline8’ 

Stopped Diapason 8’ 
Quintadena 8’ 

 
Choir 

Lieblich Gedackt 16’ 
Open Diapason 8’ 

Geigen Principal 8’ 
Spitz Flöte 8’ 

Concert Flute 8’ 
Dolcissimo 8’ 

Gedackt 8’ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Henry Willis Organ 
65 Stops 

Cathedral Church of the 
Blessed Virgin Mary, 

Salisbury 
1877 

 
Great 

Double Open Diapason 16’ 
Open Diapason 8’ 
Open Diapason 8’ 

Claribel 8’ 
Stopped Diapason 8’ 

 
Swell 

Contra Gamba 16’ 
Open Diapason 8’ 

Lieblich Gedackt 8’ 
Viola da Gamba 8’ 
Vox Angelica 8’ 

 
Choir 

Lieblich Gedackt 16’ 
Open Diapason 8’ 

Flûte Harmonique 8’ 
Lieblich Gedackt 8’ 

Salicional 8’ 
 

Solo 
Flûte Harmonique 8’ 

 



 80 

mixtures are added.”49 The addition of mixtures at the top of the crescendo is also called for by 

Rheinberger, whose sonata Prefaces note that fortissimo is “all of the stops” or “the full organ” 

and that forte is “the same without mixtures” or “the full organ without mixtures.” Somewhat 

retrospectively, the Walze of Ladegast’s 1871 organ at Schwerin draws a Scharf IV as its final 

stop. That having multiple mixtures was preserved as part of the German organ building heritage 

in romantic organs should not obscure the fact that the general trend was to move away from the 

prominence of mixtures in the full organ sound, their higher partials balanced out by the rapidly 

growing number of eight-foot stops. Though Wilhelm Sauer’s 1905 organ in the Berliner Dom 

features nine mixtures, this number pales in comparison to its forty-six eight-foot stops. 

 Indeed, as the increasing adoption of more powerful reeds would suggest, it was reed 

sounds that would become the crown of the romantic organ. Many of the reeds in the 1875 E. & 

G.G. Hook organ, Opus 801, for Boston’s Holy Cross Cathedral were supplied by Zimmerman of 

Paris. German organs likewise included the powerful French reeds. Straube’s additions to the 

Leipzig Thomaskirche organ included the addition of a Trompette Harmonique to the Swell, and 

the Berliner Dom organ included a full sixteen-through-four-foot compliment of French reeds in 

the Great. 

 In 1868, Volckmar was among the earliest writers to suggest that the final addition to the 

ensemble should be a reed, but this was the beginning of a new norm. Hamilton, Best, Stainer, 

Whiting, and the crescendo mechanism of the 1875 E. and G.G. Hook and Hastings organ in 

Holy Cross Cathedral, Boston, all call for the reeds last. Whether builders were responding to the 

desires of organists, as in the case of Straube and Sauer, or vice versa, in the case of Cavaillé-

Coll, the organist must ultimately be conscious of the style of the organ at hand when deciding 

 
49 Knecht, Volständige Orgelschule, quoted in Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, 153. 



 81 

the final stops in a crescendo.50 Organs of classical inspiration will crescendo to the mixtures, 

while those of symphonic disposition will be crowned by reeds. 

 
Pedal Registration 

 Pedal registrations are not generally discussed in treatises or tutors, but they are included 

in registration tables and, of necessity, are included in crescendo mechanisms. The pedal must 

balance the manual registration but, while both English and German organs of the late nineteenth 

century had substantial pedal divisions that could balance any given manual, or even more than 

one, American organs had comparatively small pedal divisions. E. and G.G. Hook and Hastings 

Opus 828 for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition was 48 ranks, only five of which belonged to the 

pedal, and none of those above eight foot. Though pedal divisions were expanding by the end of 

the century, they were still rarely close to being independent. The 1894 James E. Treat & Co. 

Organ for Grace Episcopal Church, San Francisco had just eight of its forty-seven stops in the 

pedal, and none of those above eight foot. The larger sixty stop Hutchings organ at New York 

Grand Avenue Methodist Church mentioned above similarly contained only eleven pedal stops, 

none of which were above eight-foot pitch. Pedal couplers, then, which on German and English 

organs were needed only towards the climax of the crescendo, were centrally important from the 

earliest stages of an American organ crescendo throughout the latter half of the nineteenth 

century.  

 
 

 

 
50 Widor wrote, “But where did the magnificent flowering of our art in France come from…? Let us admit that it 
does not come from a composer, rather from a genius builder, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.” Charles-Marie Widor, 
Mendelssohn: Œvres d’Orgue, Révision par Ch.M Widor, (Paris, 1918) translated and quoted from Laukvik, 
Historical Performance Practice, 143. 



 82 

Couplers 

Because sources from the 1860’s through the 1890’s suggest that the crescendo across the 

organ was an affair for the full instrument, it is likely that couplers (both manual and pedal) were 

used in the earliest stages of the process. The crescendo mechanism on the 1875 Hook and 

Hasting’s organ built for Holy Cross Cathedral, Boston (Figure 2.10) shows that while it would 

have been possible for the organist to begin playing on the Swell, move down to the Choir, and 

then down again to the Great, it is far more likely that the builder intended him or her to draw all 

the couplers and play exclusively on the Great. The crescendo mechanism here does not engage 

the couplers, and manually drawing them, either by oneself or with the help of an assistant, 

diminishes the usefulness of a mechanical aid like a crescendo pedal. Further, there is no need to 

change manuals or couplers with this registration scheme even when drawn from the earliest 

stage. Everett Truette notes in Organ Registration (1919) that  

the position of the couplers in the order of the stops is of no less importance than the 
position of the speaking stops. In some Grand Crescendos, all the unison couplers are 
brought on in a bunch at the first move of the Crescendo shoe. If one used the Crescendo 
only when playing on the Gt., this plan is unobjectionable; but the presence of the Gt. to  
Ped. Coupler at the outset proves to be an annoyance if one is playing on the Sw. or Ch.,  
while using the Grand Crescendo.51 
 

In this case, the proof is in the negative. That Truette must warn against this tendency of the 

Great-to-Pedal to dominate in the use of the Grand Crescendo is evidence that it would have 

normally been the case to play on the Great when using that device.  

The table is configured to 34 movements with one stop per box. All movements 

described on any one row occur simultaneously. The “mechanical” stops referenced at the 

bottom of the table are those that did not receive pneumatic assistance in their drawing and 

were thus unaffected by the crescendo mechanism. 

 
51 Truette, Organ Registration, 81. 



 83 

 

Figure 2.10 – Crescendo mechanism of E. and G.G. Hook Opus 801 (1875), Holy Cross 
Cathedral, Boston.52  
 

Most ensemble writing was indicated for performance on the Great, such as in Buck’s 

Grand Sonata. When he moves to the Swell, Buck specifically calls for the Great-to-Pedal to be 

withdrawn, preceding a change in texture from an ensemble section to a solo-accompaniment 

 
52 Recorded and provided by Matthew Bellocchio of Andover Organs 2020. 

 31 

 

 

 

E.& G.G. Hook Opus 801 (1875) 
Register Crescendo 
Order of Movement 

 
Order 

of 
Movement 

Name of Stops 

1  SW Salicional  8’  
2  SW St. Diapason 8’  
3  PD Bourdon 16’  
4   SW Flute Tr 4’ 
5  SW Quintadena 8’  
6  SW Open Diapason 8’ PD Dulciana 16’ 
7   SW Oboe 8’ 
8  SW Bourdon 16’ SW Dolce Cornet V 
9  CH Geig. Principal 8’  
10 PD Flöte 8’  SW Violina 4’ 
11 CH Melodia 8’ GT Gamba 8’  
12  CH Leib. Gedeckt 16’  
13  GR Dopple Flöte 8’  
14 GR Flute Harm 4’ CH Quintflöte 3’  
15  CH Rohr Flöte 8’ SW Cornopean 8’ 
16 CH Rohr Flöte 8’ GT Bell Open 8’ GT 15th 2’ 
17  PD Open  16’ SW Mixture IV 
18 CH Fugara 4’ GT Open Diapason 16’ GT Gambette 4’ 
19 CH Octave 4’ GT Open Diapason 8’ GT Cornet V 
20   SW C. Fagotto 16’ 
21 PD Contra Bourdon 32’ PD Super Octave 4’ SW Flautino 2’ 
22 CH Concert Flute 8’ GT Clarabella 8’  
23  GT Mixture IV PD Octave  8’ 
24 PD Gamba 8’  SW Nazard 22/3 

25 CH Flute Octaviante 4’ GT Quintatön 16’ GT Twelfth 3’ 
26 PD Quint Flöte 12’  SW Octave 4’ 
27 CH Clarinet 8’ GT Gemshorn 8’ GR Cymbal VII 
28 CH Cor Anglais 16’  GR Bombarde 16’ 
29 CH Cornet V GT Quint 6’ GR Trumpet 8’ 
30  CH Open Diapason GR Acuta VI 
31 CH Piccolo 2’ GR Octave 4’ GR Clarion 4’ 
32 PD Cornet V PD Posaune 8’ SW Clarion 4’ 
33  PD Trombone 16’  
34 Tuba 8’   

 
The Mechanical Stops; PD V’Cello, SW Eolina, SW Vox H, CH Dulciana, GR Viol d’Amour are not to be 
affected by the Crescendo Pedal 



 84 

section (Figure 2.11). It follows, then, that music in which the type of crescendo I have been 

describing here would have been called for would have been played on the Great with all 

manuals and pedal coupled. 

 
Figure 2.11 – Dudley Buck, Grand Sonata in E-flat, mov. 1, mm. 24-39.53  

 

This description of the use of couplers is specific to creating a general crescendo. When 

dynamic markings are used to describe registrations for entire sections, the couplers should be 

used or not according to the desired effect. This may not always parallel their use in creating a 

crescendo. In these cases, one only couples the pedals to the manuals being played upon. The 

 
53 Buck, Grand Sonata, mov. 1, mm. 24-39. 

On the Great 
as noted at the 
beginning. 



 85 

smaller Pedal divisions on these organs means that very few pedal stops are likely to be 

necessary relative to the number of manual stops drawn to achieve balance when playing on any 

given division, if the pedal is coupled to that division alone. 

 
The Role of the Swell Box in a Crescendo 

 An even crescendo would certainly have required the use of swell boxes, but of all the 

American sources herein examined, Everett Truette’s Organ Registration is the only one to 

describe this process:  

In most three-manual organs, it is possible to draw the stops one at a time (while holding 
a single chord), in such a progressive order that the crescendo is even and gradual, from 
the softest stop to the Full Organ. Naturally, the swell pedals must be operated judiciously 
in connection with such a crescendo, to avoid the sudden increase of power when some 
louder stops are first added. If the progressive order of the stops for the Grand Crescendo 
is planned in this manner, and the swell pedals, which cannot be controlled by the Grand 
Crescendo, are operated judiciously by the organist in the middle of the crescendo, an 
even and gradual crescendo will be produced by the Grand Crescendo.54 
 

Truette goes on to describe an ideal “grand crescendo,” with instruction on the timing and 

position of the swell shades (Fig. 7). While the swell box is used to even out the crescendo, it is 

not a staggered opening and closing throughout to help cover additions of new stops. Rather, 

Truette adds the flues of each enclosed division at eight and four foot then opens the box, 

staggering the opening with the addition of fluework on another division. Only after the box is 

fully open does Truette add the loudest stops of that division. It is clear here that “avoid[ing] the 

sudden increase of power [that occurs] when some louder stops are first added” is achieved not 

intra-divisionally, by adding the louder stops and then opening the box, but inter-divisionally, by 

building up the sound of the organ evenly using multiple divisions, gradually opening each box 

 
54 Truette, Organ Registration, 81. 



 86 

after the bulk of the fluework has been added and then drawing the louder stops in the midst of 

the already rich sound of multiple divisions at full foundations.  

 
Notation for registration-based versus swell-box-based dynamic alterations 

 The organ is unique in that there are two means of creating a crescendo: adding stops and 

opening the swell box. Dynamic markings used to denote registration levels raise the question of 

when a registration change is called for, and when, rather, what is intended is the opening or 

closing of a swell box. It was common in Germany and France to notate the use of the swell box 

with hairpins; stop changes were notated in France with specific indications, and in Germany 

with the verbal notes crescendo and diminuendo. As Jon Laukvik has noted, this practice is 

evident from the remarks of both Albert Schweitzer in reference to Franck and Widor, and of 

Max Reger in a footnote to his Phantasie über den Choral “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.”55  

 That hairpin signs indicated agogic inflection in Brahms and his circle has been 

suggested by David Hyun-Su Kim.56 While Kim’s is a convincing argument related to those 

indications at the piano and possibly the German romantic organ of the late nineteenth century, 

the argument does not apply to nineteenth-century organ practice generally. As Barbara Owens 

has pointed out, it is difficult to connect Brahms with any specific organs as a player.57 Of those 

organs with which he can be positively connected, either as a player or listener, only very few 

had swell boxes.58 The Swell divisions of these and other nineteenth-century German organs, 

generally labelled Echowerk, did not feature the larger reed choruses of their French, English, 

and American counterparts. The Echowerk of the 1872 Ladegast organ in the Gesellschaft der 

 
55 Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice, 184. 
56 David Hyun-Su Kim, “The Brahmsian Hairpin,” 19th-Century Music 36, No. 2 (Summer 2012): 46-57. 
57 Barbara Owen, The Organ Music of Johannes Brahms (Oxford University Press, 2007), 143. 
58 Ibid, 143-151 



 87 

Musikfreunde, Vienna, of which Brahms was director from 1872-1875, had an Oboe as its only 

reed, and no other stops of significant volume.59 This was common even in later instruments. The 

Schwellwerk of the Sauer organ of the Thomaskirche, Leipzig in 1908, after Straube’s substantial 

augmentations to the instrument, likewise features an Oboe as its only reed, again with no other 

stops of significant volume. These divisions served not to provide gradual dynamic control over 

the instrument as a whole but, as their earlier name suggests, to provide an echo effect and to 

host the softest stops of the organ. The first stop drawn by the Walze on the Ladegast organ in the 

cathedral at Schwerin, mentioned earlier in this chapter, is in the Echowerk. That the Swell of the 

German Romantic organ would have had little effect on the sound of other divisions, particularly 

when playing on other divisions coupled or with more stops drawn, lends credence to the notion 

that the hairpin may have had, at most, a dual meaning in compositions for these instruments. 

Though piano technique was important in all nineteenth-century organ playing, evidence of the 

translation of this particular Brahmsian practice to the organ requires further exploration and 

discussion before it can be accepted as normative. 

The Swell divisions of French organs serve a more prominent role than their northern 

counterparts. The 1862 organ by Cavaillé-Coll for St. Sulpice in Paris contains five reeds: 

Bombarde 16’, Trompette 8’, Cromorne 8’, Basson Hautbois 8’, Vox Humana 8’, and Clairon 4’. 

These stops have a much greater impact on the overall sound of the instrument when the box 

went from closed to open or vice versa than the single reed of the German examples. This 

explains the common practice in France, as more thoroughly affirmed by Franck, Widor, and 

Schweitzer regarding the use of the hairpin as an indicator of swell box movement.  

 
59 Ibid, 149 



 88 

In American instruments large enough to have substantial Swell divisions, it was normal 

to feature reeds at sixteen, four, and eight foot, with multiples of the latter. While the nature of 

these reeds varied, similar stops were included across the second half of the nineteenth century. A 

comparison of the Hook and Hastings op. 801 (1875) at Holy Cross Cathedral, Boston, and 

Hutchings’ op. 200 (1890) for New York Avenue Methodist Church, Brooklyn, shows inflections 

of French and English/German construction and voicing. These organs both contained similar 

stops that allowed the Swell division to form a means of dynamic control across the instrument 

(Figure 2.12). 

E. and G.G. Hook and Hastings Op. 801 Hutchings Op. 200 
 
Contra Fagotto 16’ 
Cornopean 8’ 
Oboe 8’ 
Vox Humana 8’ (built by Zimmerman, Paris) 
Clarion 4’ 

 
Contra Fagotto 16’ 
Cornopean 8’ 
Oboe 8’ 
Vox Humana 8’ 
Saxophone 4’ 

 
Figure 2.12 – Comparison of Swell reeds in E. and G.G. Hook and Hastings Op. 801, and  

           Hutchings Op. 200. 
 

The opening registration of Dudley Buck’s Grand Sonata (Figure 2.13) hints at this. The 

forte marking is explained with Buck’s clarification that the Great should be set at the full 

ensemble without reeds, with the reeds located in the Swell. In this way he is able to introduce 

the color and volume of the reeds as at measure 29-34 (Figure 2.14). That he begins this phrase, 

played solely on the Swell, with a piano followed by a crescendo symbol to a forte and a 

decrescendo symbol to a piano seems to clearly imply that the indications apply to the swell box 

and not, at least exclusively, to an agogic accent. Whether or not Buck intends for the verbal 

indications crescendo and diminuendo to indicate stop-based dynamic alterations is somewhat 

less clear.  The example in Figure 2.15, also from the first movement of Buck’s Grand Sonata, 

could easily be played with stop alterations. The musical material is episodic rather than fully 



 89 

motivic, as in the example showing mm. 29-34, and the adding or withdrawal of stops would be 

achievable without unduly interrupting any one line. The same is true in measures 61 and 62, 

where the martial character of the figure would allow for the addition of stops without 

interruption of the line. This is not to say that Buck was opposed to the strategic addition of stops 

within a melody, as was discussed in chapter 1. 

 

Figure 2.13 – Buck, Grand Sonata, mov. 1, mm. 29-34.60 

 
Figure 2.14 – Dudley Buck, Grand Sonata, mov. 1, mm. 14-18.61 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
60 Buck, Grand Sonata, mov. 1, mm. 29-34 
61 Dudley Buck, Sonata No. 2, Op. 77, mov. 1 (G. Schirmer, 1877), mm. 14-18. 



 90 

 
 
Figure 2.15 – Buck, Grand Sonata, mov. 1, mm. 59-64.62 
 
 Arthur Foote’s Suite in D (1904) clearly demonstrates that the dynamic marking indicates 

the registration in calling for a mezzo-forte with box closed (Figure 2.16). The inclusion of both 

directives would be either redundant or oxymoronic if they did not refer to different aspects of 

organ control. Though he does here describe the swell box position in prose, this is necessitated 

by the impossibility of indicating the position of a swell shoe in isolation with a decrescendo 

symbol, as it is inherently relative to the previous dynamic. Since he calls here for an immediate 

change in both swell position and registration, his only recourse is to indicate verbally a dynamic 

level for the registration and a description of the box position.  

 

Figure 2.16 – Arthur Foote, Suite in D, mov. 4, mm. 23-32.63 

 
62 Buck, Grand Sonata, mov. 1, mm. 59-64. 
63 Arthur Foote, Suite in D, Op. 54, mov. I (Arthur P. Schimdt, 1904), mm. 23-32.  



 91 

Though the use of parentheses and brackets in this way is unique to Foote, it is common 

to his organ works. Most of Foote’s music, including and perhaps especially his Suite in D, was 

immensely popular in his own lifetime. Foote’s primary biographer, Nicholas Tawa, has noted 

that Foote’s organ music was even featured on the programs of the famous French touring 

organists of the early twentieth century such as Joseph Bonnet.64 Though it is not clear from the 

evidence whether these markings are Foote’s or an editor’s, it is always the case in his published 

music that manual indications and specific registration notes – that is, any indication that is not 

part of musical symbology or terminology – are entered in brackets. This is not the case with the 

music of Buck and Whiting that was also published by Arthur P. Schmidt. Though I could not 

discover who the actual editors were for each of these pieces, if we are to assume that these 

markings are editorial, it would mean that Foote never indicated on which manual he intended 

the organist to play or that the editor translated that marking in every instance. Since this did not 

occur in any other composer’s music from the same publisher, it is reasonable to conclude that 

these markings were either Foote’s or met with his approval. 

Further, these examples are sometimes highly specific. Measure 74 of the first movement 

of the Suite in D (Figure 2.17) shows a shift from the Choir manual to the Swell at a very 

specific place. It makes far more sense from an editorial perspective to suggest the manual 

change during the rest on beat four of measure 75, which would be both simpler and would 

coincide with the change in musical texture.  

 

 
64 Nicholas Tawa, Arthur Foote: A Musician in the Frame of Time and Place (Scarecrow Press, 1997), 331. 



 92 

 

Figure 2.17 – Foote, Suite in D, mov. 1, mm. 74-7765 

Horatio Parker further clarifies this usage in his Sonata for the Organ (1908) by using 

both verbal and symbolic crescendo markings (Figure 2.18). He begins with the word “cresc.,” 

indicating the addition of stops, followed by the crescendo symbol, denoting an opening of the 

swell box. The “piu forte” that follows a few measures later is in line with Truette’s plan of 

adding stops then opening the box as a cushion for the subsequent addition of louder stops. 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
65 Foote, Suite in D, mov. 1, mm. 74-77. 



 93 

 
Figure 2.18 – Horatio Parker, Sonata for the Organ, Op. 65, mov. 1, mm. 20-27.66 
 
Conclusion 
 
 The use of dynamic markings as registration indications and the creation of a stop-based 

crescendo are practices that were all in flux during the late nineteenth century, according to organ 

construction, playing, and compositional techniques. Bearing in mind the German training of 

organists in playing and composition, and organ building styles more closely resembling those of 

England, American performance practice surrounding registration requires a careful 

consideration of the provenance of the organ and music at hand. An understanding of the 

concepts undergirding the stop-based crescendo, such as which is the first stop to be drawn, the 

order of subsequent additions, and the final stop to be drawn to achieve the full organ, allows us 

recreate the effect today, regardless of the organ. Beginning with a soft stop of middle scaling or 

a combination of a flute and a string, one then adds soft flues from darker to brighter, either 

 
66 Horatio Parker, Sonata for the Organ, Op. 65, mov. 1 (G. Schirmer, 1908), mm. 20-27. 



 94 

mixing in soft four and sixteen foots or introducing them in strict ascending pitch order, 

depending on the compositional style of the piece and the style of the instrument. The order in 

which the mixtures and reeds are added will also depend largely on whether the instrument is 

truly symphonic in character, in which case the reeds will crown the ensemble, or if it is based on 

classical principles, in which case the mixture will come last. Regardless of the way stops are 

added, the swell boxes are used throughout to smooth over the earliest additions of stops, 

allowing for a more even crescendo when the relative pool of sound into which new stops are 

being drawn is softer, making each addition more noticeable. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  



 95 

Chapter 3: 

Characteristic Registration 

 The alternate option to a dynamic-based registration model is to create registrations 

according to the specific qualities and effects of individual stops. Dudley Buck uses the term 

“characteristic effect[s]” to describe registration based on the combined effects of individual 

registers. His consideration in this instance is not primarily of dynamic level or 

increase/decrease, but of the actual timbre of the registration, each of the stops that are combined 

to create that registration, and its fitness for purpose. In so doing, he considers the individual 

qualities of, for example, a Melodia and a Dulciana, the effect that each has on the other, and 

their combined effect. 

 This process is inherent to organ playing and is usually undertaken instinctively by 

organists as a result of received tradition communicated through the teacher-student relationship. 

That the practice is necessarily ubiquitous does not mean, however, that it does not merit 

description. This is attested to by the fact that Buck, Truette, Whiting, and Eugene Thayer all saw 

fit to include discussion of this process in their treatises at length, with Truette giving the greater 

portion of an entire book to the process. The key in giving purpose to this sort of description is 

the understanding of registration as process.  

 This chapter looks at both the ways in which specific sounds were described in prose and 

the ways in which they were utilized in the music. Nineteenth-century writers include 

descriptions of what they were hearing or doing that can occasionally seem very basic. For 

instance, Buck’s description of “flute quality” and the “metal tone” of the Dulciana is not 

particularly revelatory on its face. Flutes have flute quality and the more narrowly scaled 

Dulciana has a more pronounced metal (or, perhaps, rosin) quality. What Buck reveals here is 



 96 

how he heard these sounds and his preference for the newer rather than older trends in organ 

voicing. In lamenting that older organs lack sufficient distinction between stops to be effective in 

this way, he reveals an aesthetic ideal that favors strong differences among the timbral qualities 

of individual stops.  

Taking the 1831 Appleton organ at Central Street Methodist on Nantucket as an example, 

one would hear the Swell Stopped Diapason as a flute and the Viol di Gamba as a sort of thin 

principal. Compared, however, to the similarly named Stopped Diapason and Salicional on the 

1875 E. and G.G. Hook and Hasting’s organ in Holy Cross Cathedral, Boston, the Appleton stops 

are relatively similar to one another in timbre. The practical effect of this realization is that one 

might choose, on the 1831 Appleton, to combine the Swell Stopped Diapason with the Great Viol 

d’Amour even when the other option is specifically called for, the latter being considerably 

brighter than the Stopped Diapason while still not being particularly loud. Either this or the Swell 

Stopped Diapason and Viol di Gamba combination would undoubtedly be effective, but the 

coupled registration would yield a more colorful result that is also more in line with Buck’s 

preferences. 

 What follows is an examination of organ sounds divided up by tonal family, following 

Buck, Truette, Whiting, and Thayer. Truette and Audsley also offer examinations of individual 

stops, but I will not repeat that exercise here. Rather than serve as artistic reflections on usability, 

the descriptive portions of those treatises serve as encyclopedias of sound that is useful for 

purposes of reference and definition. It is in their general reflection on families of tone that 

writers reveal their procedural understandings of these stops in a way that are particularly useful 

for the performer who wishes to adapt nineteenth-century procedures for organ registration to the 

organs of today. This chapter will also examine selected uses of each stop family and some of 



 97 

their constituents as found in published music. This serves both to reinforce and specify the uses 

described theoretically in the treatises.  

 
Diapasons 

 As the only tone family of the organ that is not overtly imitative of an orchestral 

instrument, the diapason group occupies a unique position in considerations of registration. 

While the use of stops with imitative names might be fairly obvious, the use of “organ tone,” as 

Thayer terms it, raises questions as to the role of a sound unique to the organ, in the context of an 

aesthetic dominated by the symphonic organ as discussed in Chapter 1. 

 That diapasons warranted some pride of place is certain. Dudley Buck dedicates a 

substantial paragraph to a discussion of diapason nomenclature. 

The term “Principal” has come into general use in England and America, as indicating 
this particular four-foot stop, in the following way: In tuning the organ, ‘the temperament 
is first set’ in this stop – that is, it is itself first tuned as perfectly as possible. To it, as a 
standard, are subsequently tuned all the remaining stops; those of the Pedal Organ 
included. The selection of this stop arises from its standing, as it were, midway in pitch 
between the extreme high and extreme low compass of the instrument, and possessing 
throughout its range the firm diapason quality. It is evident, then, that it is, in a sense, the 
principal stop to the organ-builder. The selection and use of this name are, however, to 
be regretted, for the names of stops should have a special significance to the player, to 
whom it is not the principal stop. Similarly, the word Diapason is derived from two 
Greek words signifying literally “through all” – that is, the scale. In organs where the 
compass of each stop “goes through” the scale, this name has manifestly no significance 
as applied to the stop in question. Neither does it give any idea of the relation of the stop 
to the instrument as a whole. The Germans have a far better system, as it is logical. Thus 
they name our Open Diapason the Principal of sixteen or eight feet, as the case may be. It 
is the principal stop.1 

 

In this quote Buck complains that the four-foot Principal is the principal stop to the organ 

builder, but not to the organist, and that stop names should relate to their use from the organist’s 

 
1 Dudley Buck, Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment: With Hints in Registration: A Hand-Book (Provided with 
Marginal Notes for Reference) for the Use of Organ Students, Organists, and Those Interested in Church Music (G. 
Schirmer, 1892), 9. 



 98 

perspective. He suggests that the Diapason (at either sixteen or eight foot), which the Germans 

labelled “Principal,” was the principal stop for the organist. This seems to suggest that Buck 

considers the lowest organ-tone stop the primary sound of the organ. However, this does not 

necessarily imply any special or primary usage. Truette refers to the Great eight-foot Diapason 

specifically as “the backbone of the organ,” which, given the manner of its use in the variously 

described crescendo schemes of the previous chapter, and contemporary interest in a 

predominating eight-foot tone, suggests that its primary use was to provide a strong fundamental 

tone to the louder uses of the organ, particularly those in which upperwork might overbalance 

softer eight-foot combinations. Truette’s “backbone” analogy is perfectly accurate; the Diapason 

provides strength and framework but is not of any inherently greater importance than other 

sounds nor meriting any more frequent use.  

 Diapasons were not commonly used in ensemble writing without being combined with 

other fundamental stops, but they were also used as solo registers. Dudley Buck’s “Choral 

Prelude on ‘St. Ann’s’” (Figure 3.1) shows an example of the eight-foot Diapason in a solo 

capacity.2 This melody is in keeping with the character of this stop as it was understood at the 

time. Heavy, rich, sonorous, resonant, full, and powerful are terms used consistently by Buck, 

Whiting, and Truette to describe all the members of this tone family. Thayer notes that “music 

for it is mostly of even notes and solid (generally four-part) harmony,” and that in dignified and 

noble music it should be the predominant tone. 3 

 

 

 
2 Buck calls for “Principal 8ft.” In this he maintains his position regarding nomenclature and is referring to the eight-
foot Diapason. It was not the American practice at this time to refer to any organ-tone stop at eight feet as a 
“principal.” 
3 Eugene Thayer, Eugene Thayer’s Complete Organ School, Book III (Eugene Thayer, 1880), 3. 



 99 

 

Figure 3.1 – Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘St. Ann’s,’” Op. 50, No. 5, mm. 1-7.4 

Ensemble examples of this “solid” usage are many, but one should be careful to 

discriminate between the Diapason in its use as the organ’s backbone, which is less a 

characteristic use than a dynamic-based one, and its use in sections where its unique character is 

more evident. This is the case in Arthur Foote’s Solemn March (Figure 3.2). The martial 

character of this piece would suggest the use of a reed, as will be discussed later, but Foote 

specifies the use of eight(s) and four(s) for the Great. His avoidance of the usual Roman numeral 

manual indications makes the beginning of this work difficult to understand. The note for “full 

Swell: closed” that appears at the beginning, is only revealed as an indication that the opening 

should be played on the Swell by both hands, when he indicates a move of the hands to the Great 

at measure 17.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
4 Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘St. Ann’s,’” Op. 49, No. 5 (White, Smith, and Perry, 1871), mm. 1-7. 



 100 

 



 101 

 

Figure 3.2 – Arthur Foote, “Solemn March,” Op. 71, No. 2, mm. 1-48.5 

 
5 Arthur Foote, “Solemn March,” Op. 71, No. 2 (A.P. Schmidt, 1910), mm. 1-23. 



 102 

While Foote does not call specifically for the Diapason, the use of only the eights and 

fours of the Great would render a strong organ-tone sound. Foote does not call for the Great to be 

coupled to the Swell when the performer switches to it at measure 17. Foote is specific about the 

use of couplers to the Pedal, so this does not seem to be an implied use or a forgotten mention. 

Further, in the section played on the Great, Foote includes none of the crescendo symbols that he 

uses in the section played upon the Swell. He does include a note to “cresc.” and has dynamic 

gradations that would require the use of a stop-based crescendo.  He then calls specifically for a 

move to the Swell at mm. 33.  

This use of the Diapason shows the more martial end of the “solid” spectrum in which 

this color was used. When Foote later increases the harmonic rhythm and felt tempo of the piece 

by shortening the note values, he also couples in the full Swell. The full Swell that Foote had in 

mind coupled to the foundations of the Great at eight and four would not have drastically 

changed the volume of the organ, but would have moved it from the dignified character of the 

first page to the martial and grand character of the end of the A-section. That his marking “Full 

Swell” should counter the initial registration marking is confusing. Possibly, this is meant to 

apply to the Trio that follows the A-section, which is marked pianissimo, as no registration is 

given at the section change. 

There are also examples of the use of the Diapason in more florid writing. Horatio Parker 

calls for this stop in the opening registration of his “Romanza” (Figure 3.3), and it is featured in 

the music from measure 27. (Figure 3.4). The writing here is decidedly more lyrical and 

expressive, with large leaps and a range that covers nearly two octaves in this short example. 

 



 103 

 

Figure 3.3 – Horatio Parker, “Romanza” Op. 15, No. 3, opening registration.6 

 

Figure 3.4 – Horatio Parker, “Romanza,” Op. 15, No. 3, mm. 26-35.7 

 

 
6 Horatio Parker, “Romanza,” Op. 15, No. 3 (G. Schirmer, 1890), mm. 26-35. 
7 Ibid. 



 104 

Thayer is the only one who mentions contrapuntal writing specifically, and in this context 

he very clearly calls for the full organ.8 Exclusively contrapuntal composition was not a common 

practice in mid nineteenth-century America, and most examples of it are found at the end of 

variation sets such as John Knowles Paine’s Concert Variations on the Star Spangled Banner 

(1861) or Buck’s 1868 variations on the same. Both examples call for full organ. But as new 

organs became increasingly symphonic, allowing for gradual and subtle timbral changes and 

crescendo, the timbral scheme of fugal writing followed suit. Samual Warren’s Prelude and 

Fugue in A-flat (1900) shows a Reger-like crescendo from a quite soft initial registration to the 

full organ.9 As mentioned above, there was no “characteristic” use of stops that extended beyond 

the inclusion of the four-foots; any stops above them in pitch are governed by the rules of 

dynamics-based registration. 

Finally, both Buck and Truette note that certain stops at four foot can be used an octave 

down as solo stops. Truette mentions specifically the four-foot Octave in this capacity, but this 

mention described its use as an ad hoc Second Diapason in organs too small to contain the actual 

stop.10 This use of diapasons at four foot for solos is neither commonly described nor 

demonstrated, but that it is mentioned at all suggests a flexible and imaginative use of stops. 

 
Flutes  

Dudley Buck writes that “the Flutes of an organ constitute one of the most valuable 

subdivisions of the instrument.”11  While this description specifically concerns the suitability of 

 
8 Thayer, Complete Organ School, Book III, 3. 
9 Samuel Warren, Prelude and Fugue in A-flat Major (G. Schirmer, 1900).  
10 Everett Truette, Organ Registration: a comprehensive treatise on the distinctive quality of tone of organ stops, the 
acoustical and musical effect of combining individual stops, and the selection of stops and combinations for the 
various phases of organ compositions (C.W. Thompson and Co., 1919), 38. 
11 Buck, Illustrations in Choral Accompaniment, 9. 



 105 

the flutes in choral accompaniment, it reveals a broader truth, which is that the flutes are the 

most called-for stop in the repertoire. Truette says that the Gedackt or Stopped Diapason is “one 

of the most useful stops in the whole list of organ stops…the tone quality of all of the Gedackt 

group is pure and limpid Flute-tone, which blends well with the tone of other stops.”12 It is this 

blending quality that is most frequently taken advantage of in organ music of the late nineteenth 

century. Even Whiting, who describes the flutes as being “of the least consequence of any of the 

various tone qualities of the organ,” acknowledges their use in combination with other stops.13 

He writes, “This class of stops is chiefly useful for mixing with others: reinforcing the tone of 

one, as Clarinett, Oboe, Cornopean, etc., and softening the quality of another, as Diapason, 

Gamba, and etc.”14  

 Descriptions of the tone qualities of this family are consistent across writers; limpid, soft, 

pervading, mellow, and hollow are all words favored by Buck, Truette, and Thayer, with 

Whiting’s apparent animus toward the family preventing him from giving any “character” 

descriptions. Thayer says that music for the flutes is of a “melodious or florid character” and it is 

he alone among the writers who suggests that flutes might be used as solo registrations. 15 

 Published music confirms a degree of lone flute use. Arthur Foote’s “Prelude” is a 

curious case. His introductory registration (Figure 3.5) calls for either the Great Open Diapason 

or Clarabella. These two registrations are not commensurate in power and could not both suitably 

balance the accompanimental registration that he suggests for the Swell, particularly with the box 

closed. In this case, the Open Diapason would overwhelm the soft celesting Swell registration. 

 
12 Truette, Organ Registration, 41. 
13 George Whiting, Organ Accompaniment and Extempore Playing Op. 50 (New England Conservatory of Music, 
1887), 41. 
14 Ibid. 
15 Thayer, Complete Organ School, Book III, 3. 



 106 

The Clarabella is the obvious choice in that instance for the solo registration on the Great in 

sections such as mm. 20-24 (Figure 3.6). Even with slight opening of the swell box, the 

Clarabella would balance with the Swell, serving as a soft solo without overwhelming the Swell 

registration. This solo use of a flute is rare in the repertoire. The use of a very soft 

accompaniment in the Swell necessitates the use of a similarly soft solo. This might have been 

located on the Swell, where the box would allow for something like the Oboe to sound alone in a 

soft capacity against an accompaniment of the Dulciana/Melodia duo. Since the desired 

accompanimental sound was the céleste, few other options for a balanced solo were possible. 

 

Figure 3.5 – Registration from Arthur Foote’s “Prelude,” Op. 50, No. 5.16 

 

Figure 3.6 – Arthur Foote, Prelude, Op. 50, No. 5, mm. 20b – 24.17 

The most common accompanimental registration, both for organ solos and those of other 

forces, is the Melodia and Dulciana of the Choir. Dudley Buck’s “Choral Prelude on ‘Mear’ ”  

(Figure 3.7) uses this combination. Though he does not forthrightly call for the flutes with the 

 
16 Arthur Foote, “Prelude,” Op. 50, No. 5 (A.P. Schmidt, 1902), initial registration. 
17 Ibid, mm. 20b – 24. 



 107 

Swell Oboe, his dynamic marking at mezzo-forte suggests that the solo Oboe was not the 

intended effect. As discussed in the previous chapter, it is likely that in choosing that dynamic 

marking Buck intended several eight-foot stops to be drawn, possibly even some of the four-foot 

stops. The marking “Swell with Oboe” is the clarifier rather than the basic registration. Mezzo-

forte denotes the base sound, to which Buck decides to add the Oboe color specifically. The use 

of the eight-foot Principal in the “Choral Prelude on ‘St. Ann’s’ ” – from Figure 3.1 – would 

imply that Buck could simply have used the Swell foundations against the suggested 

accompaniment. That would certainly have balanced but would have lacked the assertive quality 

that the Oboe would add. 

  

Figure 3.7 – Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘Mear,’” Op. 49, No. 1, mm. 1-8.18 

 The Oboe/Flute combination is as common a solo registration as is the Melodia/Dulciana 

combination an accompanimental one. In his Canon in E-flat (Figure 3.8), Thayer calls for an 

Oboe and Gedackt in a left-hand solo figure. Thayer’s use of a reed/flute combination is cleverly 

employed in this melody. As will be explored later, Thayer associates dotted rhythms or martial 

characters with reeds and florid melodies with flutes. As this melody contains both, he is well 

served by mixing the two colors. The prominent harmonics of reeds become more pronounced 

lower in their range and a reinforcement of the fundamental tone would have been a similar 

consideration in the mixing of the two sounds, especially in a time when the Oboe would have 

 
18 Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘Mear,’” Op. 49, No. 1 (White, Smith, and Perry, 1871), mm. 1-8. 



 108 

been voiced with sufficient lyric gentility for modern ears not to perceive any need for 

“smoothing” or “reinforcing” in its upper register.  

 

Figure 3.8 – Euguene Thayer, “Canon in E-flat,” Op. 53, No. 2, mm. 4-13. 19 

 There is one registration combination that is unusual for the time, given the 

predominance of eight-foot tone: the combination of the Choir Clarinet with a four-foot flute. 

Buck’s Rondo-Caprice (Figure 3.9) is an example of this use. The uniquely fundamental and rich 

character of the Clarinet stop, along with the spritely tempo suggested here, might provide the 

rationale for such a choice. The lack of bright harmonic content in the Clarinet relative to other 

possible reed solo options, particularly when the solo is set below an accompaniment which itself 

contains reeds, would have necessitated a degree of brightening that would allow the solo voice 

 
19 Thayer, Complete Organ School, Book III, 6. 



 109 

more prominence in the texture. It also has the benefit of countering the occasional tendency of 

these larger scale reeds to speak slowly in their lower ranges. 

 

Figure 3.9 – Dudley Buck, “Rondo-Caprice,” Op. 35, mm. 1-5.20 

 Flutes are ubiquitous in all manner of registrations in the late nineteenth century. Too 

many are the examples to claim that this sample is exhaustive, but these do represent the more 

common uses. Apart from these specific examples, it is unusual for any stop to be used alone 

without a flute being added to it. Strings and softer reeds like the Oboe and Clarinet are the most 

common stops used in these pairings. While diapasons are occasionally featured on their own, 

flutes are rarely used in that capacity. 

 
Strings 

Strings occupy an interesting place in the registration of late nineteenth-century American 

organ music as the design and ideal of string stops was changing substantially. This changing 

tone and the increasing prevalence of string stops in American organs is described by Truette, 

who writes, “The early Gambas had pipes of slenderer scale than those of the Diapason, with 

mouths cut low. The tone-quality, from a modern view-point, was only slightly stringy. The more 

 
20 Dudley Buck, “Rondo-Caprice,” Op. 35 (G. Schirmer, 1868), mm. 1-5. 



 110 

modern Gambas consist of open, cylindrical, metal pipes (frequently the pipes have less than half 

the diameter of the Diapason pipes) of very slender scale with mouths cut low and narrow.”21  

 In typical contrary fashion, Whiting refutes entirely the notion that strings constitute their 

own family of tone. Having just discussed the diapasons of the organ, he says, “The same 

remarks apply to the Gamba family, which are only modifications of the Diapason tone, and are 

to be treated in the same way.”22 Whiting is not speaking of the Gamba stops, specifically, but of 

the string stops in total. While Buck and Truette acknowledge the classification of strings as their 

own category of tone, there is disagreement about which stops belong to them. Truette includes 

the Dulciana in his Diapason section, whereas Buck, whose Illustrations in Choral 

Accompaniment predates Truette’s Organ Registration by over twenty years, lists the Dulciana as 

a string-tone stop. It seems likely that this disagreement occurs with the Dulciana specifically 

due to its rather soft character for a Diapason. Ultimately, we should place it in the diapason 

family, with only Buck grouping it otherwise. 

Similar classification disagreements exist over the Violin Diapason, Gamba, and 

Salicional. As in the case of Buck and Truette, these distinctions do not flow from changes in 

string voicing, as the differences are not consistent in chronology or relevant instruments. Strings 

must be considered on a case-by-case basis considering a general increase in difference between 

tone families and the various preferences of each writer.  

Lone strings, unlike flutes, are frequently called for in the repertoire. George Chadwick’s 

Prelude (Figure 3.10) demonstrates the use of a Dulciana in an accompanimental capacity. As 

discussed previously, the Dulciana was always a somewhat wider-scaled and softer stop of gentle 

character that placed it somewhere between strings and diapasons. 

 
21 Truette, Organ Registration, 45. 
22 Whiting, Organ Accompaniment, 41. 



 111 

 

 

Figure 3.10 – George Chadwick, “Prelude,” mm. 20-29.23 

 Gentleness in voicing was not a prerequisite for lone use, however. In his “Choral Prelude 

on ‘Federal Street’” (Figure 3.11), Buck uses the Great Gamba, which he specifically classified 

as a string, as the solo voice against the Choir Melodia. The Gamba would have been variously 

voiced as a thin Diapason or a larger string but would in either case have made an effective solo 

against the very hollow-sounding Melodia. In its essence, this registration is simply a softer 

version of the one used in St. Ann’s from the same collection (Figure 3.1). The more assertive 

accompaniment of that piece matches the choral melody which, with its greater number of leaps, 

is more martial in character than the linear Federal Street.  

 
23 George Chadwick, “Prelude,” (A.P. Schmidt, 1890), mm. 20-29. 



 112 

 

Figure 3.11 – Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘Federal Street,’” Op. 49, No. 4, mm. 1-6.24 

The middle ground between these two registrations can be seen in the “Choral Prelude on 

‘Dundee’” (Figure 3.12) from the same collection. Here, Buck adds the Dulciana to the Melodia, 

already described as a quintessential accompaniment registration, and the Rohr Flute to the 

Gamba. This moderate increase in power rounds out a set of common flue-based solo 

registrations. This middle ground is consistent with the character of the melody and the 

accompaniment to which Buck sets it. Dundee is largely a stepwise tune that is punctuated by 

substantial leaps. The occasionally assertive character is matched by Buck’s accompaniment, 

whose manual figure is a juxtaposition of leaps and slurred stepwise gestures. This middle 

ground between limpid and martial then receives a version of the registration that is similarly in 

the median. 

 

Figure 3.12 – Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘Dundee,’” Op. 49, No. 6a, mm. 1-10.25 

 

 
24 Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘Federal Street,’” Op. 49, No. 4 (White, Smith, and Perry, 1871), mm. 1-6. 
25 Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘Dundee,’” Op. 49, No. 6a (White, Smith, and Perry, 1871), mm. 1-10.  



 113 

 The string family is home to the Voix Céleste, which is one of the organ’s most singular 

and enchanting effects. Whereas this stop and its companion string are generally used today only 

with each other, infrequently, and often for accompaniment of softer sounds, or on its own for 

softer sections, this was not the case in the late nineteenth century. Truette writes: 

A whole chapter could be devoted to the numerous uses of a good Voix Céleste, but it 
would be repeating various statements which will be found in other parts of the book; 
therefore, it is only necessary to state here the general use of this stop. It is an excellent 
solo stop, is effective in harmony, and exerts much influence on the tone of combinations. 
It adds vitality to the tone of the reeds, when they are used as solo stops, and increases the 
firmness and assertiveness of several mixed combinations.26  

 
Truette had previously noted that in orchestral usage the ensemble is generally somewhat 

out of tune and the large number of strings playing at slight variance in pitch adds “nerve” and 

“vitality” to the orchestra, and that this is the same effect created by the Voix Céleste on the 

organ. Full organ registrations are generally notated with simply “ff” or “Full,” so it is not 

possible to see whether they include the undulating ranks. Arthur Foote’s previously examined 

Prelude (Figure 3.6) does show the use of the Voix Céleste as an ensemble stop, however. The 

decidedly stringy character of the céleste and its partner would have been mitigated to a large 

degree by the inclusion of the Spitz Flute and the Flute 4ft. This use of the céleste in a smaller 

ensemble appears to have been the limit to this usage. In larger registrations the presence of one 

céleste rank would not have been loud enough to noticeably affect the sound. Célestes are not 

included in any of the crescendo mechanisms or variously described orders for crescendos. 

Truette himself notes that the Voix Céleste, Vox Humana, and Clarinet should not be included in 

the full organ unless specifically named.27 Truette’s affection for the use of the Voix Céleste in 

 
26 Truette, Organ Registration, 48. 
27 Ibid, 113. 



 114 

ensemble use is confirmed by his inclusion of that stop in the registration he gives for the soft 

sections of the first movement of Guilmant’s first organ sonata.28 

Generally, the use of a string stop alone is for solo rather than accompanimental purposes 

and the stop in question would have been either the Gamba or Salicional, which were generally 

larger in scale and sound than other string stops. In combination with flutes, they constituted the 

most common accompanimental registrations and, depending on the strength of the two stops in 

question, also served as solo registrations. The ensemble use of strings focused on their ability to 

brighten the sound of a registration without too greatly increasing its volume and, at least in 

smaller ensemble registrations, this may have included the Voix Céleste. 

 
Reeds 

Organs of exceptional size notwithstanding, the cost of reed manufacture and 

maintenance caused these stops to be included sparingly in late nineteenth-century organs. As 

such, there came to be a consistent collection of reed stops in all but the largest or smallest 

organs. Sufficiently common was this list that Buck describes it completely in his section on 

reeds. He includes in his list the Swell Oboe and Trumpet or Cornopean, and the Great Trumpet 

and occasional Clarinet, the latter of which would be found on the Choir if the organ had three 

manuals.29  

Thayer describes the reeds as “bold and martial,” specifying that music for these stops 

has many dotted notes.30 He does not make a distinction between more assertive reed stops like 

the trumpets and the gentler stops like the Oboe and Clarinet. Buck’s “Choral Prelude on 

‘Mear’” (Figure 3.6) exemplifies not only the common use of a flute/reed combo, but the 

 
28 Ibid, 176. 
29 Buck, Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment, 10.  
30 Thayer, Complete Organ School, Book III, 3. 



 115 

characteristics that define that usage. Mear (Figure 3.13) is a melody characterized by many 

leaps and, importantly, a dotted-type figure. While not actually dotted, the long-short rhythm of 

the melody in triple meter gives an effect similar to a dotted figuration. As might be expected, 

this martial use is more readily seen in sections calling for larger registrations that would have 

been noted with a dynamic marking rather than a stop-specific one.  

 

 

Figure 3.13 – Hymn tune Mear, taken from Dudley Buck’s “Choral Prelude on ‘Mear.’” 

The Oboe was the reed most used in a solo capacity, though it was increasingly replaced 

by the Clarinet later in the century. There is no consistently observable difference in the pieces 

that call for one rather than the other. Truette describes the Oboe as being of “great utility…both 

as a solo stop and as a combinational stop.”31  Horatio Parker’s “Canzonetta” (Figure 3.14) 

contains a languid, chromatic tune of wide range and varying construction that is designated for 

the Oboe. In similar fashion, Arthur Foote requests a Clarinet for his “Pastorale” (Figure 3.15). 

Generally, there is no consistently observable difference in melodies that are meant to be played 

on Oboes versus Clarinets or vice versa. 

 

 

 

 

 
31 Truette, Organ Registration, 49. 

               
 8              

©

Score

               
 8              

©

Score



 116 

 

Figure 3.14 – Horatio Parker, “Canzonetta,” Op. 36, No. 1, mm. 1-9.32 

 

Figure 3.15 – Arthur Foote, Pastorale, Op. 29, No. 3, mm. 1-13.33 

 
32 Horatio Parker, “Canzonetta,” Op. 36, No. 1 (G. Schirmer 1893), mm. 1-9. 
33 Arthur Foote, “Pastorale,” Op. 29, No. 3 (A.P. Schmidt, 1893), mm. 1-13. 



 117 

 The larger reeds of the organ, namely the Swell Cornopean and the Great Trumpet, are 

rarely called upon for these smaller pieces or the solo sections of larger works. One interesting 

example of the solo use of the Great Trumpet specifically is in the variation on Buck’s “Choral 

Prelude on ‘Dundee’” (Figure 3.16), in which he sets the cantus firmus in the Pedal. Herein he 

calls for the Great Trumpet coupled to the Pedal with substantial eight- and four-foot 

registrations in the Swell and Choir, the former of which has a sort of countermelody while the 

latter constitutes the primary accompaniment to the other two parts. It might even be supposed 

that the suggested Swell registration would have included the Oboe, both for the soloistic quality 

of the right-hand part and because the flues at eight and four foot in the Swell and Choir would 

hardly balance the Trumpet, which was typically a potent stop used almost exclusively in full 

organ registrations. It is worth noting this practice, as melodies were frequently placed in the 

pedal part, but examples of coupling a loud reed to the pedal to bring out those melodies are rare. 

This piece shows that practice in use by one of the most prominent composers of the second half 

of the nineteenth century. 

  

Figure 3.16 – Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘Dundee,’” Op. 49, No. 6c, mm. 1-10.34 

 As the Voix Céleste is the peculiar member of the string family, so is the Vox Humana to 

the reeds. Impressions of it varied and are no better described than by Truette himself: 

It seems to me that the Vox Humana is a much-maligned stop, due largely to its 
unfortunate and inappropriate name. One English writer has written: “Instead of 

 
34 Dudley Buck, “Choral Prelude on ‘Dundee,’” Op. 49, No. 6c (White, Smith, and Perry, 1871), mm. 1-10. 



 118 

resembling the human voice, its tone is anything from Punch’s squeak to the bleating of a 
nanny-goat.” The stop has been variously dubbed “the gas pipe,” and “Nux Vomica with 
a gargle.” I suspect that the stop would escape much of the criticism, and would be 
judged on its merit as a distinctive tone-color, if it were called by some less inappropriate 
name.35 
 
Truette goes on to describe the Vox Humana as a “tone intensifier” that can be used with 

almost any other stop to give it more vitality. 36 Among the stops he suggests for combination 

with the Vox Humana are the Oboe, Voix Céleste, Cornopean, Salicional, and any of the flutes. 

In that last capacity, he seems to be suggesting its solo use, though he never says so explicitly. 

 On the topic of using the tremulant with the Vox Humana we turn to Whiting: 

Speaking of the Swell Tremulant, one naturally comes to think of that much abused stop, 
the Vox Humana! Why is it always used with the Tremulant? This register is usually 
supposed to represent a celestial choir singing in the distance. Now, why should a 
Celestial choir sing in a tremulous manner? The greatest conception of this kind in all 
music, is Wagner’s Vorspiel to Löhengrin, in which he has obtained the required effect by 
making the Violins sustain their very highest notes. Here is an effect that can really be 
called Celestial, but there is no tremble about it.37 

 
 Apart from the levity inspired in the modern reader by Whiting’s ire, it appears that, for 

better or worse, the Vox Humana was normally used with the tremulant in sections where it 

represented the “celestial” and that this celestial use was its most common role. The example 

given by Whiting in Organ Accompaniment (Figure 3.17) shows just such a use of the Vox 

Humana. This effect is also seen in French compositions such as the Pastoral from Guilmant’s 

first organ sonata, whose second section contrasts the chordal Vox Humana (with the tremulant) 

and the Flûte Harmonique of the Grande Orgue. 

 
 
 
 
 

 
35 Truette, Organ Registration, 54. 
36 Ibid. 
37 Whiting, Organ Accompaniment, 42. 



 119 

 

Figure 3.17 – George Whiting, illustration No. 52 in Organ Accompaniment and Extempore 
playing.38 
 
  The use of the Vox Humana as an echo or celestial effect was not limited to slow chordal 

sections like those above, however. Whiting’s “Communion” (Figure 3.18) shows the use of this 

stop as a soft contrast to the Great Gamba called for in the first part of the example. Here 

Whiting also uses the stop higher in its range for these chordal effects. The lower octaves of this 

stop are reserved in the literature for solo effects as in the initial introduction of the theme of 

Buck’s “transcription” of Old Folks at Home (Figure 3.19).  

 

Figure 3.18 – George Whiting, “Communion,” Op. 53, No. 1, mm. 21-27.39 

 

 

 

 
38 Ibid. 
39 George Whiting, “Communion,” Op 53, No. 1 (J.B. Millet, 1896), mm. 21-27. 

42

church organists are constantly at fault, having the erroneous idea, that the use of doubles gives a church-like character
to the performance. Nothing is more disagreeable than to hear—as one frequently does—the Swell Bourdon used from
the beginning to the end of the service. It sounds particularly bad in choir accompaniments, as it doubles the voices an
octave lower, thus taking away all clearness from the parts, and giving a muddy, heavy, disagreeable character to the
whole performance. These stops sound excellently in their proper place, if they are not used too long at any one time :

in the Full Swell or Great, Great to Mixture (Not "Gt. to ШЛ.") in chants — particularly for the Gloria Patri— the effect
is good. The illustration No. 53, (a sort of religious march movement,) is an instance where the Bourdon (or any other
16 ft. stop, except Hi ft. Trumpet,) would sound well. The peculiar effect is obtained by omitting the usual 8 feet tone.

In many of the smaller church organs in this country, the eight ft. registers, especially in the Swell Manual, are apt
to be very weak. The Manual being constructed without any real Diapason (this stop being somewhat expensive.) At
the same time, the builder — in order to make up for the weakness of the eight ft. registers — voices the 4 ft. stops
much too loud, thus giving a disagreeable, querulous, whistling character to the Manual. This should be remedied by
having a good round toned Diapason to take the place of one of the 8 ft. registers, when the proper balance of the
Manual will be adjusted. Pupils should remember that the 8 fi. tone should usually predominate over stops of any
other pitch.

The Swell Tremulant is an effect that is apt to be sadly abused, a little of it going a long way. This register should
be constructed to work very rapidly, and at the same time noiselessly. With the present style of contrivance used by
our builders for this effect, it is sometimes impossible for them to furnish the above conditions : either the noise of the
spring (used in producing the effect,) will be heard by the entire congregation, or the vibrations will "set back," so as to
affect the Great and ( 'hoir Manuals. If this can not be remedied, the use of this stop had better be dispensed with entirely.
The Tremulant shoidd certainly never be used during an entire piece. Witness the directions in many of Batiste's Organ
pieces, where the effect is exceedingly disagreeable. This stop should always be made to draw by a Pedal for the Right
Foot.

Speaking of the Swell Tremulant, one naturally comes to think of that much abused stop, the Vox humana ! Why
is it always used with the Tremulant? This register is usually supposed to represent a celestial choir* singing in
the distance. (The Vox celeste represents the same idea, though the effect is obtained in a different manner.) Now, why
should a Celestial choir sing in a tremulous manner ? The greatest conception of this kind in all music, is Wagner's Vors
piel to Lohengrin, in which he has obtained the required effect by making the Violins sustain their very highest notes.
Here is an effect that can really be called Celestial, but there is no trenJjle about it.

• Notwithstanding the name "Vox huinana,'' (Human voice.) v

ILLUSTRATIONS.
Andante.



 120 

 

Figure 3.19 – Dudley Buck, Home Sweet Home, Op. 30, mov. 1,mm. 15-19.40 

 Another use of the reeds was as substitutes for solo orchestral strings in transcription 

playing. George Whiting says as much, though his note raises some questions. “The reeds…are 

mostly, with the exception of the Vox Humana, imitations of orchestral instruments, and are to be 

treated accordingly: for instance, a melody that would be played by the Violoncellos in the 

orchestra, is usually given to the Cornopean in the Swell, in writing for the organ.”41 It is curious 

that Whiting both cites the imitative reality of reed voicing and construction but then chooses to 

offer an example that references a stop neither named in this convention nor used for that 

purpose.42 His later examination of a piano reduction of Rossini’s Stabat Mater clarifies this 

usage somewhat. The opening figure, originally scored for violoncellos and bassoons, is 

registered by Whiting for the Great Gamba, which shares substantially the character of the cellos, 

and the Swell Cornopean, which is decidedly more substantial than the bassoons of the orchestra. 

What that reed does contribute is the assertiveness of both the rosin quality of the cellos and the 

clear, somewhat percussive speech of the bassoons. The effectiveness of the registration is 

determined by the sum of all the parts of the sound, including the speech qualities of the 

orchestral instruments, and not just the sustained sound. As Thayer noted, the strings of the organ 

 
40 Dudley Buck, Home Sweet Home Op. 30, mov. 1 (S.T. Gordon, 1868), mm. 15-19. 
41 Whiting, Organ Accompaniment, 41. 
42 The term “Cornopean” refers to the modern Cornet. 



 121 

are slow to speak and, as Truette noted, they lack the rosin quality of their orchestral 

counterparts.43 The softer reeds offer similar harmonically rich timbre with more assertive speech 

that is imitative not only of the sound of the strings sustaining, but of their speech.  

 
Rules for combinations 

In addition to the descriptions and uses of individual stops, there are general factors given 

by these authors that ought to be considered when combining stops. On their face, these factors 

are obvious. Buck lists among them the character of the voices being accompanied, the character 

of the room, the character of the organ and its registers, the character of the piece and any other 

factors that could be considered.44 What is less obvious is the methodical way in which Buck and 

the other writers describe the registration process that results from these considerations. In his 

discussion of registrations for the accompaniment of soloists, Buck notes that four-foot stops can 

more readily be employed with male singers, whose vocal range prevents stops of higher range 

from obscuring the vocal line. He also notes that reeds can more frequently be used in the 

accompaniment of men than women because the lower range of male singers allows for a greater 

range of perceptible overtones that then balance the harmonically rich content of the reed voices.  

Truette’s description of these considerations is more ordered and not tied to 

accompanimental factors: 

1. The necessary power. 2. The character of the phrase; whether it consists principally of 
repeated chords, arpeggios, runs, or is polyphonic in character. 3. The rapidity of the 
consecutive tones. 4. The pitch of the major part of the phrase; i.e. whether the phrase is 
principally in the two middle octaves, in the two upper octaves, or in the two lower 
octaves of the manual.45 
 

 
43 Thayer, The Art of Organ Playing, Book III, 3-4. 
44 These considerations are found throughout the work rather than in any singular spot. See any practical example 
given by Buck for specific examples. 
45 Truette, Organ Registration, 41. 



 122 

This reinforces the need to consider these factors individually and in an orderly fashion, 

rather than relying simply on whether one likes or dislikes a given effect. He says, “in selecting 

combinations of stops for certain phrases of music, the student must always bear in mind… the 

tonal effect which is produced by a certain phrase of music, when played on a selected 

combination of stops.”46 In this, he refers to the total effect of all the considerations he lists, not 

simply to a sense of overall satisfaction with a result. 

   

Exceptional Registrations 

 Both Buck and Truette include sections dealing with exceptional registrations. By this, 

they mean essentially any combination of stops that they have not covered and that may break 

some of the rules they have set forward. Among these, Truette lists registrations made up of full 

complements of stops of a single family, for instance, flute stops from sixteen through two foot.47 

 For both writers, these sections are short and they make no attempt to present 

comprehensive lists of possible exceptional uses. Rather, these sections simply serve to let the 

reader know that, in particular situations with unusual conditions or requirements, virtually any 

combination of stops might be effective. Buck concludes this chapter of Choir Accompaniment 

as follows: 

If the general principles which govern the matter have been well mastered, the search for 
these same exceptional effects (of which comparatively few have been touched upon 
here) will bring him suddenly, as it were, to that which so many blindly seek, and therefor 
do no find – to wit: a competent knowledge of the Art of Registration.48 
 

 

 

 
46 Ibid, 102. 
47 Truette, Organ Registration, 102. 
48 Buck, Choral Accompaniment, 139. 



 123 

Conclusion 

 Diversity and personalization are crucial to understanding characteristic registration in 

late nineteenth-century America.  As all of the writers say, it is impossible to give comprehensive 

rules for this sort of process; too numerous are the circumstances and the considerations that 

influence them, but absolute rules are counter to the practice. The examples given by Whiting, 

Buck, Truette, and Thayer are meant to serve as seeds that germinate into fully developed 

mastery of registration. This should not be confused with arbitrary stop selection or a general 

license to deviate at will from suggested registrations.  

The core concepts of late nineteenth-century American characteristic registration are as 

follows. Stops are almost never used alone unless in a solo capacity, and that use is usually 

limited to the Open Diapason, the Gamba, and, infrequently, the Flute. The latter would likely 

have been a larger scaled and louder flute such as a Clarabella, rather than something less distinct 

like a Gedackt. Reeds are virtually always used with flutes, and the most common reeds used for 

solos were the Swell Oboe and the Choir Clarinet, with the Vox Humana featured somewhat less 

frequently. The Swell Cornopean was occasionally used independently, but the solo use of the 

Great reeds would have been truly exceptional. Strings were used to color other registrations, add 

vibrancy to their sound, or shore up the clarity of their pitch. Celestial effects are more often 

given to the Vox Humana and the Tremulant than to the célestes, which were used to provide 

color and richness to ensemble registrations. Four-foot flutes were used to add brightness to 

registrations but stops higher than four foot were not typically included in characteristic 

registrations, their use governed instead by the principles of dynamic-based registration. Finally, 

with sufficient reason and justification, any combination of stops might be used for sections of 

exceptional character.  



 124 

Chapter 4: 

Application as a Case Study 

Late nineteenth-century organists saw registration as a flexible art, one that took the 

composer’s suggestion as a jumping-off point and proceeded with the subtlety, nuance, shading, 

and color of both painting, in abstract terms, and orchestration, in more literal ones. How, then, is 

the twenty-first century organist to apply these principles in creating informed performances of 

this repertoire today? No recordings exist from the period studied in this dissertation, but 

instruments do survive, and experimentation based on a careful reading of the extant sources (as 

I have offered above) yields interesting results. I shall demonstrate my own efforts in this 

direction in this final chapter, taking a single work from the later nineteenth-century American 

organ repertoire, the first movement of Dudley Buck’s Sonata No. 2, Op. 77 (1877), and 

registering it for both an organ from the period in which it was composed and for a twenty-first 

century instrument. I aim here to illustrate the fundamental notion, put forward by Buck, 

Whiting, and Truette, that the art of registration is one that involves not only knowledge and 

experience, but also flexibility, adaptability, and a sense of process.  

 Buck’s Sonata No. 2, Op. 77 (1877) forms the ideal candidate for this case study for 

several reasons. First, it exhibits a decidedly orchestral character, similar to that of Paine’s first 

symphony, which I cited in Chapter 1 to describe orchestral coloring. In this movement, large 

ensemble sections alternate with sections of solo/accompaniment, or duet/trio construction. 

Second, this movement comes from around the middle of the period covered by my study, and 

from one of the most widely celebrated organ virtuosos of the time. Because of its place as one 

of the two early “milestones in American organ music,” as N. Lee Orr describes them, it forms a 



 125 

basis for many of the works that follow it.1 Orr goes on to describe the demonstration of matured 

mastery and increased virtuosity shown in this work as emblematic of the finest concert music of 

the second half of the nineteenth century.2 Christopher Marks has suggested that this work, along 

with Buck’s Grand Sonata No. 1, Op. 22 (1868), represents the pinnacle of nineteenth-century 

American organ composition.3 The second sonata’s dedication to Buck’s former pupil, Clarence 

Eddy, who would himself become one of the most celebrated concert organists of the later part of 

the century, further increases the work’s prominence in the canon of American organ music. 

 The organs I work with here are William A. Johnson’s Op. 334, designed by Buck and 

built in 1870 for St. James Episcopal Church in Chicago, where Buck was music director. 

Unfortunately, this instrument is no longer extant, but other Johnson organs exist to attest to the 

sound design of these instruments, and the fact that Buck specified the stoplist makes it the ideal 

instrument on which to undertake this case study. The modern organ used in this study is the 

2004 Bigelow & Co. organ installed at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Seattle. This is 

the organ with which I work weekly and it is for this familiarity that I have chosen it as the 

second organ applied to the study in this chapter. 

Johnson organs were notable in that they were among the earliest American organs to 

include pneumatic levers, which were similar mechanisms to the Barker machine in use in 

Europe, though the specifics of the design varied by builder.4 But they were otherwise built 

largely in keeping with trends established in American organ building by Hook and Hastings, and 

included large-scale Diapasons, powerful reeds, and an abundance of eight-foot stops meant to 

 
1 N. Lee Orr, Dudley Buck (University of Illinois Press, 2008), 48-49. 
2 Ibid.  
3 Christopher Marks, “Organ Sonatas and the Development of an American Musical Style,” Keyboard Perspectives 
11 (2018): 37. 
4 Orphe Ochse, The History of the Organ in the United States (Indiana University Press, 1975), 133-134. 



 126 

be used together as a foundation for the full organ. The other notable feature is the tendency of 

the third manual division to be labelled “Solo” rather than “Choir,” although there was no other 

significant difference between the Johnson “Solo” division and the “Choir” of Hook and 

Hastings, George Hutchings, and other New England builders. The stoplist of Johnson’s Op. 334 

(Figure 4.1) shows an organ of moderate size with a generous disposition typical of organs of 

this size in the second half of the nineteenth century. 

 

 

Figure 4.1 – Specification of the 1870 William A. Johnson organ at St. James Episcopal Church, 
Chicago.5 
 

 
5 N. Lee Orr, “Dudley Buck: Leader of a Forgotten Tradition,” The Tracker 38, no. 3 (1994): 15. 



 127 

Bigelow Op. 31/45 was built in 2004 (Figure 4.2) for the Lutheran School of Theology at 

Chicago and was moved to the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Seattle in 2024. The 

instrument’s eighteenth-century central German-inspired core features some decidedly 

nineteenth-century-inspired alterations and voicing styles that make it an interesting study in 

adjustment of nineteenth-century registrations to a modern organ. Although this is an organ of 

the twenty-first century, one that is essentially neo-classical in concept, it includes sounds and 

voicing concepts that would likely have been familiar to Buck in the 1870 such as the Harmonic 

Flute, the design of the eight foots to all be used together, along with its two low-pitch mixtures 

which make it well-suited to late nineteenth-century American organ music. Though they share 

some characteristics, they are decidedly different organs and a detailed awareness of nineteenth-

century registration practice is crucial for making effective registration decisions on the modern 

organ.  



 128 

 
 
Figure 4.2 – Specification of M.L. Bigelow & Co. Op. 31/45 (2004) at the Church of the Blessed 
Sacrament, Seattle.6 
 
  The following study will take Buck’s piece page by page, describing registration 

decisions based on the given notation as applied to each organ described above. I will suggest a 

registration plan for only the exposition of the work and will simultaneously show the 

registration changes in the score. This case study recognizes the fact that the process of selecting 

 
6 Stoplist taken from the church’s website. Accessed March 4, 2025. 
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5763701bf5e231826f0ccd9c/t/651c73e8f2cc5f218cef1077/1696363496477/M
anz+Stoplist.pdf  

The Ruth and Paul Manz Organ 
The Church of the Blessed Sacrament 

Seattle, WA 
- formerly - 

The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago 
Two manuals and Pedal (58/30) 

 
 

GREAT 
 

Bourdon (1-24 = Ped.) 16’ 
Præstant 8’ 
Chimney Flute 8’ 
Harmonic Flute 8’ 
Octave 4’ 
Dolce Flute 4’ 
Octave  2’ 
Sesquialtera II 
Mixture IV 
Trumpet 8’ 
Trumpet en Chamade (Sw)* 8’ 
 
 

PEDAL 
 

Resultant (from Bourdon) 32’ 
Præstant 16’ 
Bourdon 16’ 
Octave 8’ 
Bourdon (ext.) 8’ 
Octave (ext.) 4’ 
Posaune 16’ 
Posaune (ext.) 8’ 
Trumpet en Chamade* 8’  
 
 
 
 
Combination action with 60 memory 
levels, eight generals (all duplicated on 
toe studs), six divisionals per manual 
and pedal, and piston sequencer. 

 

SWELL 
 

Oak Gedackt 8’ 
Viola da Gamba 8’ 
Voix Celeste 8’ 
Viol-Principal 4’ 
Open Flute 4’ 
Nasard 22/3’ 
Conical Flute 2’ 
Tierce 13/5’ 
Plein Jeu III 
Bass Clarinet 16’ 
Oboe 8’ 
Trumpet en Chamade* 8’ 
 
 
Bell Star 
 
Great-to-Pedal 
Swell-to-Pedal 
Swell-to-Great 
 
Tremulant 
 
Flexible Wind 
 
 
 
 
* The Trumpet en Chamade is on an 
offset chest on the gallery rail. It does 
couple between divisions. 
 



 129 

a registration quickly becomes repetitive. Similar questions are raised and then similar factors are 

considered to answer them. In examining only the exposition of the work, we will have the 

opportunity to use both a dynamic-based registration plan as well as a characteristic one. We will 

also treat all the motivic material in the piece. A prose-only description of considerations for the 

remainder of the piece will follow the more detailed description of the exposition. I will indicate 

the registration changes on the score in an italicized lowercase letter to denote a change on the 

Johnson organ and an Arabic numeral to indicate a change on the Bigelow organ. These symbols 

will be duplicated at the moment of the alteration in the score, which will follow the description.  

 An overview of the structure of a large work like the first movement of Buck’s second 

sonata is important to bear in mind for registration purposes (Figure 4.3), since understanding the 

way motivic material recurs will inform the registration choices. The first theme of this sonata-

allegro movement is split into two parts, characterized by homophonic chordal and arpeggiated 

textures respectively. The piece calls to mind orchestral pieces like those of Paine and Chadwick, 

examined in chapter one, both of whom used the sonata-allegro form in the first movements of 

their symphonies. Recurring themes merit a registration scheme that makes apparent their place 

in the construction of the piece.  

 I will not examine Pedal registrations in this chapter, as the pedal registration is largely 

controlled by addition and subtraction of the manual-to-pedal couplers. We will assume that 

when the Great Trumpet 8’ is drawn in the Great on the Johnson or the Sesquialtera II on the 

Bigelow, in the context of an essentially full organ registration, the Pedal Posaune 

16’/Bombardon 16’ would also be drawn. When the Clarion 4’ on the Johnson and the Mixture 

IV on the Bigelow are drawn, the Trombe 8’ and Posaune 8’ would also be drawn on their 



 130 

respective organs. The flues should be altered as need for balance, but the options are limited and 

even when unbalanced would not substantially affect the overall color of the registration. 

  

 

 

 

Figure 4.3 – Structure of Dudley Buck’s Sonata No. 2, Op. 77 (1877) with themes. 
 

Buck’s preparatory registration for this work (Figure 4.4) is essentially full organ with the 

Choir division prepared for the softer role it will play in rendering the second theme. Despite the 

fortississimo marking at the beginning of the piece, Buck leaves room for a crescendo in the 

Swell, where he calls for flues and reeds at eight and four foot only. The first two phrases of the 

i.  

ii.  

 

iii.  

 



 131 

piece, measures 1-4 and 5-8, peak at the beginning of measure 5 both in pitch and in harmonic 

tension and then seem to fade away with a downward chromatic pedal line to a reiteration of 

theme 1a at measure 9 (Figure 4.5). The room that Buck leaves for crescendo allows the organist 

to bring out this trajectory in the registration.  

 

Figure 4.4 – Registration indication to Dudley Buck’s Sonata No. 2, Op. 77 (1877).7 
 

 
 

Figure 4.5 – Dudley Buck, Sonata No. 2, Op. 77 (1877), mm. 1-10.8 
 

Observing Buck’s initial suggestion on the Johnson organ, with the swell box open fully, 

the organist has the Bourdon 16’, Mixture IV, and Tenoroon Trumpet 16’ available to add. Given 

the inclusion of all eight- and four-foot stops and the two eight-foot reeds, the subtlest order of 

 
7 Dudley Buck, Grand Sonata in E-flat, Op. 22 (G. Schirmer, 1868), initial registration. 
8 Ibid, mm. 1-10. 



 132 

addition would be: Bourdon 16’, Mixture IV, Tenoroon Trumpet 16’. The Bourdon and the 

already drawn eight- and four-foot stops would cover the entrance of the mixture, and the 

combination of the jump in range of the melody, and the Bourdon sixteen foot would cover the 

entrance of the more powerful sixteen-foot reed. Additionally, the addition of the sixteen-foot 

reed on the highest note would strengthen that pitch and reinforce the musical high-point of the 

section. 

On the Bigelow, observing Buck’s initial registration leaves the organist with the 

decomposed Cornet, the Plein Jeu, and the Clarinet 16’. The upperwork of the Bigelow is 

decidedly stronger than the rather mild Clarinet, so the order of addition here should be: Clarinet 

16’, Cornet (all three stops drawn together given the effect of a gentle reed, rather than a gradual 

build-up of partials), Plein Jeu III. The early addition of the Clarinet helps to cover the brighter 

upperwork, and the Tierce in the Cornet helps to fill out the sound before the addition of the 

Plein Jeu, which, though low pitch, has a bright, hollow sound that benefits from the inclusion of 

the other upperwork. The inclusion of the Tierce in ensemble playing was common in both 

German and American organs in the nineteenth century, so its inclusion here should not be 

viewed as problematic. 

Conveniently, Buck’s phrase markings clearly suggest three places to add stops leading 

up to measure 5 and three spots to remove stops before arriving at measure 9 for the second two-

phrase grouping of the piece. Figure 4.6 shows the first two pages of the piece with markings 

showing additions and subtractions for both the Johnson and Bigelow organs. The offbeat 

entrances that Buck suggests in Illustrations in Choral Accompaniment are redeemed by the fact 

that they come at phrase breakings preceded by staccatos, effectively emphasizing the following 

beat on which the addition or subtraction takes place. The build-up in measures 9-12 does not 



 133 

reach the same pitch level or harmonic tension as in measure 5 as the high point is on a 

secondary dominant rather than the dominant 7th chord. This does not warrant the same level of 

crescendo. Instead, there is a smaller crescendo leading to the secondary dominant at measure 

13. Fewer changes are needed to the Swell registration on the Johnson organ, as the greater 

number of eight-foot and four-foot stops, along with the Cornopean 8’, are inherently louder than 

the eight- and four-foot flues of the Bigelow. 

Buck marks a change to mezzo-forte on the Great for theme 1b. It would be difficult, even 

with an assistant, to sufficiently reduce the organ to that dynamic without an abrupt and 

bothersome pause in the music. To that end, I begin a decrescendo at measure 13 on the Great, 

leaving the Swell at forte. This allows for one stop movement – the removal of the Swell-to-

Great coupler - at measure 18 to instantly reduce the Great organ to the suggested dynamic, as 

well as leaving two measures to reduce the Swell and Pedal before both hands become occupied 

at mm. 20. It also has the effect of a smaller crescendo for the second iteration of theme 1a. 

For this purpose, the mezzo-forte of the Great on the Johnson will be created with all the 

eight-and four-foot flues. While the Trumpet might better serve the following solo texture, its 

slow speech in the arpeggiated figure and substantially different degree of power depending on 

range make a flue-based mezzo-forte the better option. With that as the goal, the order of 

reductions in the Great will be: Clarion 4’, Open Diapason 16’, Mixture V, Trumpet 8’. The order 

of withdrawing the Trumpet 8’ and Mixture V could be reversed, but this order preferences the 

removal of bright colors before loud ones, since the removal of volume would be less noticeable 

than pitch with the full Swell still playing. 

On the Bigelow the options for reducing the Great are more limited. We will assume a 

similar mezzo-forte to that of the Johnson organ, with the Octave 2’ taking the place of the 



 134 

Mixture II. The order of removal will be: Mixture IV, Sesquialtera II, Bourdon 16’, Trumpet 8’. 

On the Bigelow the Mixture is the most potent stop in the organ, so it is removed first, both 

pitch, volume, and reed color are reduced by the reduction of the Sesquialtera II. The removal of 

the Bourdon 16’ balances the ensemble, which no longer contains any upperwork, and the final 

removal of the dark, somewhat gentle Trumpet 8’ brings the registration to the desired arrival 

point of only eight- and four-foot flues. 

Though Buck does not specify manual changes in measures 18-29, the extreme change in 

texture from large chords to arpeggiated solo figures with accompaniment allows for the 

performer to begin theme 1b on one manual at measure 18 with the left hand, playing its second 

iteration at measure 20 on another manual with the right hand and a different color. This has the 

effect of different sections of the orchestra answering each other. This melody/accompaniment 

figure alternates between manuals and pedal until the transitional material at measure 28 that 

ultimately leads to theme 2 at measure 34, which is the first entrance of the Choir organ, set from 

the beginning of the piece to eight- and four-foot flues. 

The clear delineation between the melodic figure and the accompanimental material 

allows for the use of differing colors in this section. To accomplish this, we must keep in mind 

the registration of the Great, which is left playing on all eight- and four-foot flues. The inclusion 

of the Open Diapason 8’ on the Johnson and the Præstant 8’ on the Bigelow make both 

registrations solidly mezzo forte. The dynamic of the Swell must then balance this. As the flues 

of the Swell would not have sufficient power to accomplish this, we will include the Oboe 8 on 

both organs in the Swell registration. This has the added benefit of representing a different color 

than the sound of eight- and four-foot flues combined. The organist plays the section on the 

manuals indicated in Figure 4.7, which creates an alternation between Great and Swell of both 



 135 

melodic and arpeggiated material, as well as leaving the Swell as the next move at measure 30, 

where Buck indicates a move to the Swell for the transitional material into theme 2. Because the 

Bigelow has only two manuals, an additional change is necessary at measure 30 to create the 

effect of moving to the Choir in 31. The “Solo” of the Johnson would have been quite a gentle 

division. The nowadays little known “Keraulophon” was described by Eugene Thayer in his 

Complete Organ School (1880) as a piano string stop.9 While Audsley’s description in the Organ 

Stops (1921) does not describe the tone family to which this register belongs, he does note that it 

is a soft stop with somewhat horn-like qualities, uniquely suited to blending with other stops and 

filling out the tone of a registration.10 In realizing this registration on the Bigelow, the organist 

must be attentive to the decidedly stringy character of the Solo on the Johnson. As such, the 

Great is reduced to eight- and four-foot flutes at measure 30 to accompany the Swell in measure 

31, but is then coupled to the Swell at measure 32, with the powerful Harmonic Flute removed, 

leaving that division with only Chimney Flute 8’ and Dolce Flute 4’ – the latter of which is a 

rather thin, highly colorful stop. At the down beat of measure 33 the Swell Open Flute and Oak 

Gedackt are removed leaving the Viola da Gamba and Viol Principal in the Swell coupled to the 

Great Flutes. The thinner four-foot stops play with the String and give the bright sound of the 

Johnson, while the Chimney Flute strengthens the fundamental tone. In this way, the organist 

also retains the use of the swell box for expressive purposes in the next section of the piece. The 

net effect of this registration is also quieter than the full eights, fours, and Oboe of the Swell in 

the previous section, thus preserving the overall decrease in dynamics implied by Buck’s given 

registrations. 

 
9 Eugene Thayer, Complete Organ School, Book III (Eugene Thayer, 1880), 5. 
10 George Ashdown Audsley, Organ Stops and Their Artistic Registration (The H.W. Gray Co., 1921), 174-76. 



 136 

To nuance the introduction of the transitional material at measure 31, the swell box could 

be closed somewhat in that measure concurrently with the strong/weak gesture of the left hand 

from beats one to three. The removal of the Oboe in the latter half of the measure and the 

opening of the swell box into and halfway through measure 32, coupled with the poco 

rallentando then create a satisfying antecedent for the consequential second theme, which enters 

on a haunting lone “f,” still in the grasp of the rallentando before a triplet figure returns us to the 

starting tempo. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
  

b. |  II. 



 137 

 

 
Johnson Organ Bigelow Organ 

a. – add Swell Bourdon 16’ 1. – add Swell Clarinet 16’ 
b. – add Swell Mixture IV 2. – add Swell Nasard 22/3’, Conical Flute 2’, 

Tierce 13/5’ 
c. – add Swell Tenoroon Trumpet 16’ 3. – add Swell Plein Jeu III 
d. – remove Swell Tenoroon Trumpet 16’ 4. – remove Swell Plein Jeu III 
e. – remove Swell Mixture IV 5. - remove Swell Nasard 22/3’, Conical Flute 2’, 

Tierce 13/5’ 
f. – remove Swell Bourdon 16’ 6. – remove Swell Clarinet 16  
- no change -  7. – add Swell Conical Flute 2’’ 
g. – add Swell Bourdon 16’ 8. – add Swell Nasard 22/3” 
h. – add Swell Mixture IV 9. – Add Swell Clarinet 16’ 
i. – remove Great Clarion 4’ 10. – remove Great Mixture IV 
j. – remove Great Open Diapason 16 ‘ 11. – remove Great Sesquialtera II 
k. – remove Great Mixture V 12. – remove Great Bourdon 16’ 

 

a  |  1 
b  |  2 c |  3 

d  |  4 e  |  5 f  |  6 

h  |  9 i  |  10 j  |  11 k  |  12  7 g  |  8 



 138 

 
l. – remove Great Trumpet 8’ 13. – remove Great Trumpet 8’ 
m. – remove Great Mixture II 14. – remove Great Octave 2’ 
n. – remove Swell-to-Great coupler 
       (continue playing on Great)  

15. – remove Swell-to-Great coupler      
         (continue playing on Great) 

o. – reduce Swell to eight- and four-foot flues    
       and Oboe 8. Remove Swell-to-Pedal coupler. 

16. – reduce Swell to eight- and four-foot  
         flues and Oboe 8’. Remove Swell-to-Pedal. 

-   no change   - 17. – reduce Great to Chimney Flute 8’ and Dolce Flute 
4’ 

p. – remove Swell Oboe 8’ 18. – remove Swell Oboe 8’ 
-   no change   - 19. – add Swell-to-Great coupler 
-   no change   - 20. – remove Swell Oak Gedackt 8’ and Open Flute 4’ 

Figure 4.6 – Dudley Buck, Sonata No. 2, Op. 77 (1877) mm. 1-15, with registration changes.11  

 
11 Ibid, mm. 1-15. 

l  |  13 

m  |  14  

o  |  16 

n  |  15 

Gt. 

Gt. 

Gt. 

Sw. 

Sw. 
Sw. 

Ped.  
(coupled to Gt.) 

p  |  18  

17  

19 

20 

Bigelow = Gt.  



 139 

After the introduction of theme 2 on the Choir, Buck then goes back to a two-manual 

texture, once again giving the opportunity for clever coloring. Figure 4.7 shows the second half 

of the exposition, with Buck’s manual indications calling for the Swell and Choir at measure 38. 

On the Johnson, no adjustment is required. The eight- and four-foot registration left on the Swell 

is sufficiently powerful to play the solo line against the Solo division, notated as Choir in the 

score. This is not the case on the Bigelow, however, where a timbral imitation of the Johnson 

Solo was achieved using both manuals. The adjustment here will be to strengthen the Swell by 

returning it to all its eight and four-foot flues, removing the Swell-to-Great coupler, and adding 

slightly to the Great so that there is not a dramatic change in power. It is also important to look 

ahead to measures 40-42, where Buck gradually moves both hands to the Swell, effectively 

creating a crescendo by moving to the louder manual. To keep this crescendo even and relatively 

seamless, the Swell and Choir registrations should be of similar color. So, a reed at measure 38, 

which the solo/accompaniment texture might suggest, would be too substantial a change for the 

upcoming musical material. 

 In preparation for the Pedal entrance with theme 1b at measure 42, the Great Præstant 8’ 

and Octave 4’ of the Bigelow are added, since the Pedal-to-Great coupler was never removed. In 

measure 47, the observance of Buck’s preference for the Choir manual for the right hand seems 

to allow for the Great to be increased to fortissimo, but this is not the case. The Great-to-Pedal 

coupler remains on, and an increase in the Great would be too noticeable. This section shows 

Buck’s mastery of registration, however. If the Oboe is added to the Swell at measure 46, then 

the Swell and Pedal registrations balance in the same fashion as at measure 22. The difference in 

power between those two manuals and the Choir (or Solo, as on the Johnson) is made up for by 



 140 

the high range of theme 1b in this section. The tendency of fluework to increase in volume in 

higher ranges make this registration balance while retaining three distinct colors. 

On the Bigelow the organist must remain on the Great and Swell. To observe the intended 

change in color at measure 46, the right hand is played on the Great with the previous 

registration, while the Oboe 8’ is added in the Swell, the box having been opened completely. A 

quick change must then be made to fortissimo – all stops of the Great – at measure 49 for the 

trionfo. The Swell Oboe 8’ is also added to the Johnson at measure 46 both to give a sense of 

building energy as well as to change the solo color, which in this section has been essentially the 

sound of eight and four-foot flues. 

 The homophonic transitional material leading to the repetition of the exposition in 

measures 49-59 suggests a crescendo to beat three of measure 55 and a slight decrescendo from 

that point to the repeat of measure 1. This mirrors the crescendo and decrescendo that happen in 

measures 1-8 at the beginning of the piece. Following a similar plan, as shown in the following 

score and table, enhances the building tension of the dotted gestures while settling back at the 

slightly subdued fortissimo that starts the piece. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 141 

 

      21   22        

23   

      r   |  25   

q  |  24   

      s   |  26   

      t   |  27         u   |  28         v   |  29   



 142 

 
 

Johnson Organ Bigelow Organ 

-   no change   - 21. – remove Swell-to-Great coupler and add  
         Harmonic Flute 8’. 

-   no change   - 22. – add Swell Oak Gedackt 8’ and Open Flute 4’ 
-   no change   - 23. – add Great Præstant 8’ and Octave 4’ 

q. – add Swell Oboe 8’ 24. – add Swell Oboe 8’ 
r.  – Great to Full 25. – Great to Full 
s. – add Swell-to-Pedal coupler 26. – add Swell-to-Pedal coupler 
t. – add Swell Bourdon 16’ 27. – add Swell Clarinet 16’ 
u. – add Swell Mixture IV 28. – add Swell Nasard 22/3’, Conical Flute 2’,  

         Tierce 13/5’ 
v. – add Swell Tenoroon Trumpet 16’ 29. – add Swell Plein Jeu III 
w. – remove Swell Tenoroon Trumpet 16’ 30. – remove Swell Plein Jeu III 
x. – remove Swell Mixture IV 31. – remove Swell Nasard 22/3’, Conical Flute 2’,  

         Tierce 13/5’ 
y. – remove Swell Bourdon 16’ 32. – remove Swell Clarinet 16’ 

 
Figure 4.7 – Dudley Buck, Organ Sonata No. 2, Op. 77, mm. 37-62.12 

 This will suffice as a demonstration of applied principles. The process continues in much 

the same way throughout the remainder of this piece, though the result and questions change to 

various degrees. Larger questions for the rest of the Buck movement center around the treatment 

of thematic material in the development. Generally, Buck is specific about manual indications in 

that movement, giving a framework for any registrations that might happen. An interesting 

alteration would be the substitution of an Oboe-based Swell and Flute-based Choir registration 

with a Clarinet-based Choir and Flute or String-based Swell. This would have a similar effect, 

 
12 Ibid, mm. 37-62. 

      x   |  31   

      w   |  30   

      

On the downbeat of mm. 1 
y   |  32   



 143 

but give different color to the development. Ultimately, while the development could be played 

with the same colors as the exposition, the overall dynamic could be lessened by the removal of 

the four-foot stops. This makes the overall structure of the piece more apparent and also gives 

more room to crescendo back into the recapitulation, where the registrations of the exposition 

should be preserved, as the requisite power of the Swell in that registration is not available in the 

Solo of the Johnson and the synthetic Choir of the Bigelow cannot be employed in that instance, 

as the section is played on the Great. 

 
Conclusion 

 Taking Buck’s note at the beginning of the piece and the concept of nuance, crescendo, 

and characteristic registrations as discussed in the first three chapters into account, this chapter 

has explored the ways in which those concepts could be applied. The process of adaptation from 

one organ to another inevitably requires individual taste and exploration. It is not the actual 

registrations chosen that are important to this chapter, but rather the process by which they were 

decided. That process is a confluence of the experience of the performer, an understanding of the 

piece, the organ for which it was written or one like it, and the actual organ at hand. It also 

involves an understanding of the meaning of the given markings as defined by the writings of the 

composer and his circle. Because of the connecting line drawn by late nineteenth-century 

composers between the organ and the orchestra, we have also considered the way in which this 

music might have been set for an instrumental ensemble as we developed this registration plan. 

  



 144 

Conclusion 

The underlying argument of this dissertation is that registrations given by American 

composers in the mid to late nineteenth-century were descriptive rather than prescriptive. They 

describe structural points for the registering of a piece and convey the composer’s general ideas 

for the sounds to be used. Composers both assume and rely on the organist having a broad 

understanding of principles of other musical disciplines, specifically orchestration, as well as an 

awareness of other artistic mediums such as painting, to create a sonic landscape at the organ.  

The legacy of French performance in America, particularly that of Marcel Dupré, coupled 

with the loss of a continuing lineage of American tutelage from the late nineteenth century, has 

led to a reliance on the part of modern performers on the given registration indications, even 

when these are scant, and a reluctance to go beyond them. The necessity for interpretation 

required by the vagueness of given indications, coupled with a lack of scholarship on this topic, 

has tended to yield registration schemes for American organ music from 1863-1912 that do not 

convey the sound ideals of the time. 

Understanding trends in organ building in America and Germany where American 

organists were frequently educated and, secondarily, France, allows for a nuanced reading of 

instructions given for stop-based crescendos. My study shows how these can be constructed both 

when explicitly called for and when merely implied; it also suggests how dynamic markings may 

be interpreted as specific registration indications.  

While it is impossible to account for all the particular or, “characteristic” registrations, as 

Truette and Buck refer to them, an understanding of the underlying concepts of combination and 

the more common combinations of the time allows for registration choices on later organs that 

remain sensitive to the sounds of organs contemporaneous with the compositions.  



 145 

In Illustrations in Choral Accompaniment Buck writes, “If the general principles which 

govern [registration] have been well mastered, [they] will bring [the student] suddenly, as it 

were, to that which so many blindly seek, and therefore do not find—to wit : a competent 

knowledge of the Art of Registration.”1 This competent knowledge is not directed toward any 

specific result, but the registrations it produces gain their legitimacy from the process that 

produced them. For the performer of late nineteenth-century organ music this requires an 

understanding of both American sources as well as the European practices that inspired them. As 

Joris Verdin eloquently and succinctly concludes his article on French symphonic organ music, 

“The performer must, [then] continually make decisions. The listener can either follow him, or 

not.”2  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
1 Dudley Buck, Illustrations in Choir Accompaniment: With Hints in Registration: A Hand-Book (Provided with 
Marginal Notes for Reference) for the Use of Organ Students, Organists, and Those Interested in Church Music (G. 
Schirmer, 1892), 139. 
2 Joris Verdin, “Aspects of French Symphonic Organ Music: L’Organiste Liturgique, L’Organiste Moderne, 
L’Organiste Practique” The Diapason (June 2008), 29. 



 146 

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