Overview

The early history of European music is well entwined with the history of Christianity. At the very center of their mutual development stands the pipe organ. The organ and the music written for it reached a pinnacle of importance during the seventeenth century, but one must look to developments during the Middle Ages to understand how the organ came to be a part of the structure—literally—of the major Christian churches, and to appreciate its extraordinary mechanical complexity. The pipe organ was both the most important musical instrument and, along with the clock, the most complicated machine of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Background

The very name "organ" reveals the dual place of that instrument in the history of music and the history of technology. The term "organon" was...