Instruments in Church
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    This is NOT what you think - I don't want any flame wars; just simple historical information.

    Just a chance to make use of this forum's marvelous brains and find out more than what is available on wikipedia.

    When did organs start being built in churches? and - did other instruments precede or follow that date/time period?
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    There is a scholarly article at:

    http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11297a.htm
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    The articles on New Advent tend be about 100 years old and frequently full of errors.
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    The evidence for instruments in the medieval church outside the organ is unclear. There are churches from the 13th c with murals of angels playing a wide variety of instruments, but no documents that clearly tell us if these were played in church or simply a reflection of Psalm 150.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    I agree that they can be full of errors but at least not cobbled together like a wiki page!
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    The articles on New Advent should indeed be about 100 years old, as they are an on-line copy of the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    Nothing wrong with 100-year-old work. I've just found a lot of errors in various articles, which causes me to use this source only as a comparison tool.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    MO

    That is interesting about errors. Which things are erroneous?
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    I seem to recall that our dear Prof. Mahrt has written on this subject. Very loose details pop around in my brain, about an organ being given to Charlemagne as a present from a Byzantine empower. What I don't remember is whether this gift was used in the sacred liturgy... but I think it may have been.
    I realize my minimal recollection is pretty useless here, but hope that Prof. Mahrt will comment. It is a question of mine, too, Greg.
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    It might be useful to know that audio files are available ...

    1316
    oldest score
    http://www.ohscatalog.org/worolorplayb.html

    1361
    oldest organ (Halberstadt)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halberstadt

    1390
    oldest surviving playable organ (Sion, Switzerland)
    http://www.ohscatalog.org/worsolor.html

    1430
    Protestant church of St. Andreas in Ostönnen (Westphalia)
    http://www.ohscatalog.org/woolor.html
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    Francis, will send you some when I run across them again. I found many when doing research a couple of years ago.
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    The Catholic Encyclopedia article (above) has a "Sources" section which mentions the 1877 version of ...

    The organ: its history and construction (1870)
    by Edward John Hopkins, Edward Francis Rimbault
    http://books.google.com/books?id=7I0IAQAAMAAJ

    See page 17 and following.
    There are several datapoints which you can try to verify elsewhere.
    The 1960s version of the book might help.
  • lmassery
    Posts: 405
    There's a very detailed article "The Organ in the Medieval Liturgical Service"
    Author: Edmund A Bowles
    Revue belge de Musicologie Vol 16 No 1/4 (1962) pp. 13-29
    http://www.jstor.org/pss/3686069 Not sure how to gain access to it if you are not a student like myself

    Anyway, here is an excerpt from pg 15:
    "The organ gained admission gradually church by church, its use restricted to high feast-days and to certain mass texts. Around 1100 Abbot Gerbert of Bobbio gave an organ to the cloister of Aurillac for its liturgical observances. In 1018 the Cathedral of Halberstadt had an organ, according to Praetorius...In 1092 the monastery of La Cava at Salerno resounded to a new organ "in summa festivale." Already Presbyter Theophilus had written that practice had established the use of organ in the liturgy. Honorious of Autun was quite specific in mentioning the organ alone as the instrument used to prase God."
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