Guarding ourselves thus, we trust, against all possibility of misconception, we shall endeavour in the following pages to offer some suggestions on the subject of village organs, which may tend to smooth away perplexities from the path of those who, without any previous acquaintance with such matters, find themselves called upon to exercise discretion, and pronounce decisive judgment on estimates and specifications submitted to them by builders and by musicians.
In using the term "Village," we refer less to locality than to condition. We desire to be of service to the promoters of the erection of an organ in those very numerous cases in which no skilled player is resident in the place, and in which the new instrument will inevitably be left to the modest efforts of a schoolmistress or of a young beginner, on whose ability, moreover, no greater demand will be made than that which is involved in the accompaniment of simple chanting and psalmody. It is to the dwellers in such quiet corners of the country that we would offer a few rules or maxims, based, we hope, on principles, the soundness of which will commend itself to their good sense.
Let us bring together, in a compressed form, a few of these maxims, afterwards examining them in detail.
A village organ should be of simple construction, containing no mechanism liable to sudden derangement. It should stand well in tune, without attention, even though placed in a building exposed to alternations of temperature and perhaps not free from dampness. Its musical effects should be readily and obviously producible by any person sitting down to it for the first time, and guided only by experience gained at the harmonium or pianoforte. It should present no facilities for ambitious attempts at executive display by thoughtless aspirants. Its power, or volume, should be sufficient to assert itself unmistakably in a full congregational chorus; and its tone, or quality, should be that which long experience has shown to be impressive and pleasing to the vast majority of listeners. Hence, it will be capable of emitting no sounds which might be described by any uneducated hearer as odd or curious. Lastly, let us add that its case should be shapely, even if destitute of ornamentation.