THE ORGAN.

Manawatu Herald, 9 June 1898, Page 4

THE ORGAN.

Its Peculiar Fitness For the Form of Composition Known as the Fugue. The organ as it existed in Bach's day, and as in most essentials it exists now, is an instrument peculiarly suggestive in regard to the realization of the finest and most complete effects of harmony, of modulation and of that simultaneous progression of melodies in polyphonic combination which is most completely illustrated in the form of composition known as the fugue. It is so for two or three reasons. In the first place it is the only instrument in which the sounds are sustained with the same intensity for any required length of time after they are first emitted. However long a note may have to be sustained, its full value is there till the moment the finger quits the key, a quality which is invaluable when we are dealing with long suspensions and chains of sound. Secondly, the opportunity of playing the bass with the feet on the pedals, leaving the left hand free for the inner parts, puts within the grasp of a single player a full and extended harmony and a freedom in manipulation such as no other instrument affords. Thirdly, and in the case especially of fugue compositions, the immense volume and power of the pedal notes impart a grandeur to the entry of the bass part in the composition such as no other medium for producing music can give us. In the time of Bach this splendid source of musical effect was confined to the great organs of Germany. The English organs of the day had in general no pedal board, and it is probably owing to this fact more than to anything else that Handel's published organ musio is so light, and even ephemeral in style as compared with Bach's ; that he treated the organ, as Spitta truly observes, merely like a larger and more powerful harpsichord. Without the aid of the pedal it would be rather difficult to do otherwise, and the English organ of the day was in every respect a much lighter and thinner affair than the "huge house of the sounds," the thunder of which was stored in the organ gallery of many a Lutheran church.— Fortnightly Review. A Substitute For Gold. A French technical paper, The Journal de l'Horlogerie, declares that a new amalgam has been discovered which is a wonderful substitute for gold. It consists of 94 parts of copper to six parts of antimony. The copper is melted and the iuirimony is then added. Once the two metals five sufficiently fused together a little magnesium and carbonate of lime are added to increase the density of the material. The product can be drawn, wrought and soldered just like gold, which it almost exactly resembles on being polished. Even when exposed to the action of ammoniacal salts of nitrous vapors it preserves its color. The cost of making it is about a shilling a pound avoirdupois.