Water organ
Unlike the instrument of the Renaissance period, which is the main subject of the article on the pipe organ, the ancient hydraulis was played by hand, not automatically by the water-flow; the keys were balanced and could be played with a light touch, as is clear from the reference in a Latin poem by Claudian (late 4th century), who uses this very phrase (magna levi detrudens murmura tactu... intonet, “let him thunder forth as he presses out mighty roarings with a light touch”) (Paneg.
His book of 1615 includes a short treatise on making water organs, advice on tuning and registration, and many fine engravings showing the instruments, their mechanisms and scenes in which they were used.
It also includes an example of suitable music for water organ, the madrigal Chi farà fed' al cielo by Alessandro Striggio, arranged by Peter Philips.
Like the water clocks (clepsydra) of Plato's time, they were not regarded as playthings but might have had a particular significance in Greek philosophy, which made use of models and simulacra of this type.
The leather and wood of the instrument had decomposed, but the surviving metal parts made it possible to reconstruct a working replica now in the Aquincum Museum in Budapest.
In the Middle Ages, Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, Medieval Europe and Muslim world further developed these instruments.
[10] A well-known instance of an early positive or portable organ of the 4th century occurs on the obelisk erected to the memory of Theodosius I on his death in 395 CE.
[11][12][13] Among the illuminated manuscripts of the British Museum there are many miniatures representing interesting varieties of the portable organ of the Middle Ages used in European churches.
Built about 1569–1572 by Lucha Clericho (Luc de Clerc; completed by Claude Venard), it stood about six metres high under an arch, and was fed by a magnificent waterfall; it was described by Mario Cartaro in 1575 as playing 'madrigals and many other things'.
Kircher's illustration in Musurgia universalis (1650), long thought to be a fanciful representation of a hypothetical possibility, has been found to be accurate in every detail when compared to the organ grotto at the Quirinale, except that it was reversed left to right.
There are still traces of the instrument at the Villa d'Este but the mineral-rich water of the river which cascades through the organ grotto has caused accretions which have hidden most of the evidence from view.
After the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Palatine Prince Friedrich V, de Caus laid out for them the gardens at Heidelberg Castle which became famous for their beautiful and intricate waterworks.
The brothers Francini constructed waterworks and organs at Saint Germain-en-Laye and Versailles, which reached new heights of splendour and extravagance.
Their mechanism was subsequently misunderstood until the Dutch engineer Van Dijk pointed out in 1954 that air was supplied to the water organ by aspiration, which was the same method used in forges and smelting works in the 16th and 17th centuries.
In 1992, the remains of a 1st-century BCE pipe organ were found at Dion, an ancient Macedonian city near Mount Olympus, Greece, during excavations under Dimitrios Pandermalis.
These 19 pipes correspond to the "perfect system" of the ancient Greek music which consisted of one chromatic and one diatonic scale[citation needed].
