HAMMOND ORGAN

Southland Times, Issue 23380, 11 December 1937, Page 5

HAMMOND ORGAN

REMARKABLE INSTRUMENT DEMONSTRATED

After few cnanges for very many years, the instruments of music have macle remarkable progress during the last decade, chiefly as a result of the utilization for acoustic purposes of the developments of electricity in the radio field. A very recent and remarkable invention is the electric organ which relies not on the passage of air through pipes of various dimensions but on the amplication of impulses through electrical valves. A demonstration recital of the Hammond electric organ was given at First Presbyterian Church last night by Mr Charles Martin who presented a programme of a high musical interest displaying the remarkable possibilities of the new instrument. The console of the organ follows the conventional design, but there the similarity ends, the music issuing from a separate tone cabinet similar in appearance to a radio cabinet. The console is equipped with a large number of stops each capable of adjustment in several positions, giving an almost infinite variety of effects. The recital last evening was calculated to demonstrate that the Hammond organ has remarkable possibilities as a purely musical instrument and that it should not be regarded in any way as a “stunt” invention. Although the modern organ offers the finest opportunities to a soloist to obtain varied effects, it is as a church instrument that it is chiefly used. The Hammond organ was demonstrated in several numbers of a sacred character and in the beauty of its tonal effects it proved itself an admirable medium for such music. In more secular items, however, it revealed its remarkable possibilities

for obtaining orchestral and instrumental effects of widely varied character. So great was the range of effects obtainable that an entirely new field for the enterprise of the composer of organ music appeared to be opened. In the range of tonal effects, the organ gave the impression of having a distinct advantage over the wind organ, passages of remarkable softness being presented with great .clarity, while full tone gave no sense of an overloading of the speaker. The range of tone qualities was apparently almost unlimited and effects, such as could be expected only from a very elaborate wind instrument with a tremendous number of stops, was secured. The demonstration was highly successful and the musical standard considerably above the expectations of those who believed that the conventional form of organ could not be superseded. The programme was as follows:— Canzona in D Minor (Bach): chorale, “Jesu, Son of Man’s Desiring” (Bach); “The Pilgrims’ Chorus” from “Tannhauser” (Wagner); Intermezzo by Alfred Hotlines; Melody in E by Rachmaninoff; “The Kief Processional” (Moussorasky); hvmns, “Rest” and “Silent Nieht”; Canzonetta (d’Ambrosio): March from Handel’s “Lift Up Your Heads” (Guilmant); and “The Swan” (Saint-Saens).