BIOS Reporter – Volume 26, No.1 – January 2002

The organ as a machine has fascinated its students and builders sometimes to the extent of blinding them to its function as a musical instrument. For example, the latter half of the nineteenth century saw a general concern over the tierce rank in mixtures and which was expressed by Hopkins and Rimbault; while not proscribing the rank, the examples of mixtures they suggested are founded entirely on octaves and fifths. The beating of the pure-tuned tierce rank in equal temperament was the quoted reason, one which has been repeated many times since. Hopkins and Rimbault seemed unconcerned with the beating caused by the pure fifths in their suggested mixtures in equal temperament; the effect can be heard magnified in some ill-designed twentiethcentury mixtures which dominate the chorus…