ithin."
This was a double organ, requiring two organists to play it. It
contained 400 pipes and had thirteen pairs of bellows. It was intended
to be heard all over Winchester in honor of St. Peter, to whom the
Cathedral was dedicated.

The year was now A. D. 951, and this is an important date to remember,
as modern harmony took its rise about this time. Before this, as far
as we know, there had been no harmony beyond a drone bass, and the vast
companies of musicians described in Holy Writ and elsewhere must have
played and sung in octaves and unison. I quote Stainer again:

"The large pipes of every key of the oldest organs stood in front; the
whole instrument sounded and shrieked in a harsh and loud manner. The
keyboard had eleven, twelve, even thirteen keys in diatonic succession
without semitones. It was impossible to get anything else than a
choral melody for one voice only on such an organ * * * the breadth of
a keyboard containing nine keys extended to three-quarters the length
of a yard, that of the single key amounted to three inches * * * even
from five to six inches * * * The valves of the keys and the whole
mechanism being clumsy, playing with the finger was not to be thought
of, but the keys were obliged to be struck with the clenched fist, and
the organist was often called '_pulsator organum_' (organ beater)."

Gradually the keys were reduced in size and the semitones were added.
By 1499 they had almost reached the present normal proportions. In
1470 pedals were invented by Bernard, the German, a skilful musician of
Venice, the pipe work was improved and so we come to the Sixteenth
Century[1] after which the organ remained almost _in statu quo_ for
hundreds of years.

Since then there have been four great landmarks in organ construction,
viz:

1. The invention of the swell box by Jordan in 1713;

2. The invention of the horizontal bellows, by Samuel Green, in 1789;

3. The invention of the pneumatic lever by Barker in 1832; and the
electro-pneumatic action, by Peschard in 1866; and,

4. The marvelous improvements in mechanism and tone production and
control in 1886 to 1913 by Robt. Hope-Jones.

[1] The organ compositions of Frescobaldi, a celebrated Italian
organist who flourished 1591-1640, show that the organ must in his time
have been playable by the fingers.

CHAPTER II.

THE ORGAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

Before proceeding further we propose to give a brief descriptio