Mafra Palace

HISTORY OF THE ORGAN 

The organ is one of the oldest musical instruments in the Western musical tradition. It was the first key instrument.

The ancestor of the organ is the hydride, or hydraulic organ, invented in the 3rd century a.C. by the Greek engineer Ctesibio of Alexandria, responsible for the crossing of the typical Greek flute, the aulo, with the hydraulic system of injection of compressed air into the pipes.

Organ of the Monastery of S. Miguel de Refojos 

and organ of  Santarém.

The mechanics consisted of opening the passage of air to the pipes through a wrench-like valve. For this to happen, the air was kept under pressure by hydraulic processes (water pressure). The organ had only one line with 7 tubes of different lengths, corresponding each tube to a note.

This instrument was very much in vogue in the Roman Empire. Reaching a strong sound amplitude (volume), it was able to be used outdoors: in games, in the circus, in the amphitheaters. At that time, hydraulics was already called a hydraulic organ (hydraulic organum in Latin or organon hydraulikon in Greek).

Symposium and organ of the Porto Cathedral.

The row of pipes doubled and tripled, until a mechanism was incorporated to select these lines of pipes, which later become called registers. The in-line tube set has the same shape and characteristics, emitting a timbre of its own. Therefore, in an organ there are as many different timbres as the number of records (queues) existing.

The hydraulic system was used until the 5th century, and the pneumatic bellows system emerged in the 4th century. Since there was no longer the hydraulic component, the instrument was simply called Organus.

Organs of the Paço-de-Arcos Parish 

and São Vicente de Fora Church.