A Reed Organ at the House of German Clergy in Jerusalem:
Meditating on a Photograph from the late 1920s
First published at FoMRHI Quarterly Communications 114 (2009), 10-15
Restorer’s work is a kind of occupation that supposes full-time concentration and leaves little time for diffuse speculations. Sometimes, however, you are granted by this privilege. When restoring early keyboards, you often meet instruments from the reed organ family that are considered neither challenge nor charge. But suddenly you are interested in understanding why these beautiful and reliable instruments have completely disappeared from use… As a doctoral student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, over the last year I have studied European missionary activity in 19th century Palestine. Among the archive materials was an historic interior photograph from the house of German clergy in Jerusalem. In the left corner of the black-white copy I recognized something similar to a small organ with open pipes. A search for the ‘readable’ source took time. But finally it was found (see Pict. 1 below).1
Pict. 1. The Luther room at the house of German clergy in Jerusalem
After a short time, it was clear to me that the instrument was nothing but a foot-pump harmonium – one of the reed organs. The open pipes on its front were only for decoration, just an accessory of the luxury performance. No other function. My first impulse (as a restorer) was to find the reed organ from the photograph and restore it, if possible. This search, however, was accompanied by another search (that of a musicologist), i.e., a general look at reed organs as a disappearing type of keyboard instruments. The results of that study were so interesting that they formed the subject of the following pages. I would like to acknowledge Prof. Ruth Kark and Mr. Lavi Shay, historic geographers, as well as Mr. Gideon Shamir, organ builder, for their contribution to the work on this material.
Introduction
Jerusalem of the early 20th century: shadowed lanes, buildings with arches, the elements of different ages and cultures outside and inside… The city was a desired point for missionary activity, pilgrimage or just traveling for many Europeans. They sent letters; part of them wrote books. But there were people who photographed this city at that time. Who might nowadays—in age of digital photography—be amazed if somebody would bring from a journey some 15.000 photos? That’s almost normal. But in the early 20th century it was an extremely rare phenomenon. German traveler and photographer Paul Hommel (see Pict. 2 below)2 made this number of photos in Palestine in the late 1920s. All these photos are now carefully stored at the Landkirchliches Archive in Stuttgart.
The house of German clergy (Deutsche Propstei) in Jerusalem was one of Hommel's focal points. Three interior photos from that building included two musical instruments: a Grand piano and a harmonium mentioned above. Within a few years, the latter changed its location. It can be recognized on two photos: in the Luther room and in the nearby dining room. The building functioned as a clergy house until World War II. Then it was particularly destroyed and later rebuilt. A technical school is presently located there. Since the 1920s, the interior of the building has been substantially changed. Of the musical instruments seen in photos, not one is left…
Reed organs: their origin, types and periods of producing
All reed organs originate from the ancient Chinese sheng – a mouth organ with bamboo pipes and freely vibrating reeds. Direct predecessor: regal – a reed organ with pipes (15th – 17th centuries). The modern reed organ originated in France (1810) and was called orgue expressif. Originally, reed organs worked on the principle of air compression, which gave a possibility of changing their dynamics by the speed—and, thence, the power—of pumping. However, the suction method, developed in France about 1835, was refined in the United States some 20 years later, and the ‘American organ’, or melodeon, became the dominant type, at least in North America. The upright foot-pump reed organs were presented after 1860. This type normally had a swell knee lever for changing the volume level. In North America and the United Kingdom, a reed organ with pressure bellows was referred to as a harmonium, whereas in Europe, any reed organ was called a harmonium regardless of whether it had pressure or suction bellows.3
Besides these differences, reed organs also differ by the types and sizes associated with their destination. The following groups of instruments can be distinguished by this point of view:
- church organ (with transposing keyboard);
- domestic organ (upright – big or small);
- street/military organ (transportable).
All these instruments were produced between 1810 and 1950. Hand-held instruments (accordion, concertina, Russian bayan, etc.) live their own life, separate from the mentioned above groups of foot-pump reed organs; they will not receive consideration in this essay as candidates to the Red Book of disappearing keyboard instruments.
To understand the reason for the relatively brief though intensely popular existence of harmoniums, one might consider the changes in musical esthetics in 19th century Europe, the development of musical instruments—first of all, of the piano—and some other aspects.
Musical esthetics and keyboard instruments of the period
Whereas bow and wind instruments might gradually change their dynamics since early times, keyboards have retained two different principles for changing volume: regarding of touch (touch-response type) and regardless of touch: either (a) fixed dynamic levels – registering or (b) gradual volume changes adjusted by a lever or knob.
The main keyboards of the Baroque age—organ and harpsichord—were both of the fixed dynamic principle. The dynamic possibilities of wind and string instruments in the corresponding period were limited, and ‘imperfect’ keyboards might still supply a sufficient accompaniment. Esthetics of the period has still supposed terraced dynamics such as: tutti – solo, f – p, Grand clavier – Petite clavier. The micro-dynamics inside each level might be neglected by this point of view (although contemporary Baroque performers would hardly agree with this statement). The later development of the instruments themselves and appropriate musical esthetics already required the principle of touch response dynamics from keyboard instruments. The first one of that kind was a clavichord but its absolute dynamic level was so small that even ‘dramatic’ dynamic changes inside of its range (say, ppppp – pp by the contemporary scale) could be heard by only players themselves… The pianoforte—even in its earliest step—already had the touch-response principle as a built-in feature. The first reed organs, which worked on the pressure principle, can to a certain degree be comparable to the early square-piano but touch response of the latter was much more delicate and exact than the pedal-touch adjusted principle of orgue expressif. The later—suction—type of foot-pump harmonium, although having a swell knee lever for quick and gradual changing of the dynamic level, was not comparable even to the first upright pianos whose shape was designed as a unified form for both household keyboards. Whereas Venice fortepianos had a left knee lever for ‘piano’ stop (felt strips between hammers and strings), the use of the later pattern of the left pedal (una corda) was far from widespread. However, both Grand and upright pianos still have this ‘rudimentary’ stop. A right pedal—a sustain pedal—was, in opposition, revolutionary in a sound palette: no other keyboard instrument had this feature. First—divided—sustain handles in British square pianos were exotic stops but in a short time there were no pianos without knee levers or foot pedals for this exclusively important feature of the new generation of keyboard instruments.
Target with no destination
Upright keyboards of that period—both reed organs and pianos—were often produced by the same manufacturers and even looked alike. Cheaper, lighter and requiring less maintenance than pianos, reed organs were shipped overseas to support missionary efforts. Reed organs were preferable to pianos in tropical climates and regions of the world with poor transport infrastructure because they kept their tune regardless of temperature or humidity. Nevertheless, reed organs of the period 1870–1910 had less individuality of sound than pianos or pipe organs, and, thus, were not favored by professional musicians.
In general, reed organs served three branches of musical life: domestic, public (including new forms of entertainment such as cinema) and sacred (missionary work in remote regions4). Jewish cantorate5 used harmoniums for early studio recordings.6
One might notice a junction of the two tendencies in Western music of the 19th century: esthetics of the musical Romanticism—stormy expression, delicate nuances and gradually changed dynamics—against a new stream of musical entertainment where one could neglect the individuality and quality of sound. Neither of those tendencies, however, gave a regarded place to harmoniums. Despite their popularity, there was no interest from composers to write for such an ‘unattractive’ instrument. A Small Mass by Rossini written for soloists, choir and three keyboards—two pianos and a harmonium—is a rare exception.
Missionary activity had been substantially reduced by the 1940s. The advent of new forms of music-making and entertainment such as the player piano (1901) and later the gramophone and radio led to a decline in the reed organ's popularity. By the 1930s the larger builders switched to dealing exclusively in pianos or gramophones. Finally, reed organs became virtually obsolete by the mid-20th century when electronic substitutes became commercially available. The last reed organs were built in the 1950s…
Really last?
Epilogue
During the 19th century, the British army and missionaries took reed organs—both ‘military’ and ‘missionary’—to India. Hindus accepted this instrument and quickly adapted it to local music and even a form of sitting: the Hindu harmonium is the melodic instrument for playing with one hand while sitting on the floor. The player's other hand pumps air with a handle-pump. The bourdon stop (for supplying the sustained bass) is an obligatory accessory of this instrument. Instruments of this kind are still in production. Another country that recently started building a ‘regular’ type of foot-pump harmonium is China, a country whose ancient instrument sheng—as we already told—was a predecessor of all reed organs, and whose contemporary generation of musicians-performers are of the most successful successors of classic European style. India and China. Countries of ancient cultures that know to adopt useful innovations.
I did not succeed in finding the reed organ from the photograph. The search for and around it, however, contributed to my knowledge about the instrument, five different members of whose family I have restored over recent years…
1. In: Jakob Eisler, Norbert Naag, Sabine Holtz, Kultureller Wandel in Palästina im früher 20. Jahrhundert, Epfendorf, 2003, p. 150.↩
2. In: Jakob Eisler, Norbert Naag, Sabine Holtz, Kultureller Wandel in Palästina im früher 20. Jahrhundert, Epfendorf, 2003, p. 5.↩
3. Information in this paragraph is mostly based on encyclopedia Web-sources such as Britannica online and Canadian encyclopedia.↩
4. Organs were an important component of missionary activity in regions with non-European tune systems. Dalia Cohen’s PhD thesis (The Hymns Singing of the Christian Orthodox Arabs and the Greek Catholics in Israel, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1967) as well as my recent research (Alexander Rosenblatt, Music of the Eucharist Mass at three Episcopal (Anglican) Churches in Israel, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2009) show that the harmonic support of the organ helped to save European tunes with no changes, whereas unaccompanied singing supervised by local clergy led to substantial changes in hymn tunes towards the maqamat, a local tune system.↩
5. German Jews used church organs in Reform synagogues from the early 19th century until the 1930s. See, for example: Tina Frühauf, The Organ and its Music in German-Jewish Culture, Oxford, 2009.↩
6. The sound of harmonium as an accompanying instrument can be recognized on certain gramophone disks with voices of the great cantors, e.g., Gershon Sirota, Zabel Kwartin and Yossele Rosenblatt. As a descendant from cantor’s family, where disks of cantorial music were subject of collection, I remember that sound from my early childhood.↩
