This classic method for beginners provides a brief history of the instrument, an explanation of organ construction, a discussion of the various stops and their management, a section devoted to practical study, and several pieces.

The Encyclopedia of Organ includes articles on the organ family of instruments, including famous players, composers, instrument builders, the construction of the instruments, and related terminology. It is the first complete A-Z reference on this important family of keyboard instruments. The contributors include major scholars of music and musical instrument history from around the world.

Influenced by Robert and Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim, Johannes Brahms not only learned to play the organ at the beginning of his career, but also wrote significant compositions for the instrument as a result of his early counterpoint study. He composed for the organ only sporadically or as part of larger choral and instrumental works in his subsequent career. During the final year of his life, however, he returned to pure organ composition with a set of chorale preludes--though many of these are thought to have been revisions of earlier works. Today, the organ works of Johannes Brahms are recognized as beautifully-crafted compositions by church and concert organists across the world and have become a much-cherished component of the repertoire. Until now, however, most scholarly accounts of Brahms's life and work treat his works for the organ as a minor footnote in his development as a composer. Precisely because the collection of organ works is not extensive, the pieces--composed at different times during Brahms's lifetime--help to map his path as a composer, pinpointing various stages in his artistic development. In this volume, Barbara Owen offers the first in-depth study of this corpus, considering Brahms's organ works in relation to his background, methods, and overall artistic development, his contacts with organs and organists, the influence of his predecessors and contemporaries, and analyses of each specific work and its place in Brahms's career. Her expert history and analysis of Brahms's individual organ works and their interpretation also investigates contemporary practices relative to the performance of these pieces. The book's three valuable appendices present a guide to editions of Brahms's organ works, a discussion of the organ in Brahms's world that highlights some organs the composer would have heard, and a listing of the organ transcriptions of Brahms's work. Blending unique insights into composition and performance practice, this book will be read eagerly by performers, students, and scholars of the organ, Brahms, and the music of the Nineteenth Century.

The first edition of The English Chamber Organ was published in 1968. This new, revised edition takes into account the considerable research into chamber organs that has taken place over the last thirty years. Much of the book has been completely rewritten and expanded, and it includes a number of organs not detailed in the first edition. As its revised title suggests, this new edition covers foreign-make imports as well as British-made organs that were sent overseas. Part one comprises a series of chapters that cover the history of the chamber organ, its origins and development. Part two provides a general introduction to the construction of organs, while part three gives detailed descriptions of 196 British chamber organs, with information on their location, specifications, design, and suggestions for further reading. As a domestic instrument the chamber organ was often perceived to be as much a piece of furniture as an item of musical equipment. The Chamber Organ in Britain offers an assessment of the organ as both a musical instrument and as a decorative icon.