Charles Burney

The Present State of Music in France and Italy (2nd, corrected edition)

London: T. Becket and Co., 1773

Rome

organ, which our builders have so much
improved, still remains in its heavy, noisy
state; and now I am on this subject, I
must observe, that most of the organs
which I have met with on the Continent,
seem to be inferior to ours built by father
Smith, Byfield, or Snetzler, in every
thing but size. As the churches there are
often immense, so are the organs; the tone
is indeed somewhat softened and refined
by space and distance; but when heard
near, it is intolerably coarse and noisy;
and though the number of stops in these
large instruments is very great, they af-
ford but little variety, being, for the most
part, duplicates in unisons and octaves to
each other, such as the great and small
12ths, flutes, and 15ths: hence in our or-
gans not only the touch and tone, but the
imitative stops are greatly superior to