(Their function is not in any way related to that of piano pedals.) In fact the keys and pedals are really just one end of a system of valves that open and close the pipes at the bottom, allowing forced air in or shutting it out.īut what about the "tremendous variety of sounds" an organ can produce? On a piano, the way the player depresses the keys (the "touch") determines the quality of the sound. The pedals are like an extra set of keys, but played with the feet. To play the instrument, the organist uses keyboards and pedals. The pipes of an organ sit on a "wind chest." There are various types of organs, but they all have some mechanism to force air at steady pressure into the wind chest and from the chest into the bottoms of the pipes.
The shorter the pipe, the higher the pitch. And it produces different notes (that is, notes of different pitch) by setting the air vibrating in pipes of different lengths: the longer the pipe, the longer the vibrating air column and the lower the pitch. It's a wind instrument because it produces sound by means of air vibrating in pipes. The organ is a hybrid, a combination wind instrument and keyboard instrument.
Mozart was also certainly aware of the organ's long history, and of its leading role in the development of such important musical forms as the fantasy, the prelude, the toccata, and the fugue.
It was none other than Mozart who first declared the organ the "king of instruments." He was most likely swayed, as so many others have been, by the immensity and nobility of the organ's sound, and by the tremendous variety of sounds the instrument can produce.
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