Pig organ

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Cover illustration for the print edition of La Piganino, 1867

The pig organ ( French l'orgue à cochons ) was a musical instrument in which the sounds were produced by squeaking pigs . According to legend , the instrument was commissioned by Louis XI. developed, which Wolfgang Caspar Printz reported in 1690 in Historical Description of the Noble Singing and Kling Art . The organist and organ builder Jacob Adelung wrote in 1758 that the cat and pig organs were used for nothing other than to generate laughter. The animals would be put into narrow containers, their tails would be clamped in incised openings and when a spiky button was struck, the animals would be made to cry.

history

Louis XI. (1423–1483) is said to have commissioned an Abbé de Baigne with the construction of such an instrument, on the assumption that this would be an impossibility. The Abbé de Baigne, who was known for inventing new musical instruments, is said to have accepted the order against payment. The so-called harmonye de pourceaux is said to have consisted of a row of pigs under a velvet cover, which were sorted by age. A wooden keyboard operated metal tips that struck the pigs and made them squeak. According to the legend, printed 60 years after Ludwig's death in 1545, the king and his company enjoyed the instrument.

reception

The pig organ may have served as the inspiration for the American song La Piganino, published in 1867 , which satirically processed Italian influences in amateur music and popular culture . The instrument shown on the cover sheet of the sheet music was also known as the Hog Harmonium, Swineway or Porko Forte . In a scene from the French film Le Libertin (2000), a baron presents a similar pig organ in which the sounds are produced by tugging the animals' tails.

Related fictional musical instruments

Another example of the alleged use of animals to produce musical sounds is Athanasius Kircher's cat piano . In the sketch musical Mice ('Musical Mice') by the British comedian troupe Monty Python , mice struck with a mallet and arranged according to their pitch served as the “mouse organ”. This sketch was seen in the television series Monty Python's Flying Circus as well as in the movie Monty Python's And Now for Something Completely Different (' Monty Python's Wonderful World of Gravity '). In the television series The Muppet Show , the doll Marvin Suggs appeared regularly with his muppaphone, creatures lined up to play stick games , which responded to every beat with "au" in their own pitch.

Other uses of the term

The term “pig organ ” is also used as a derogatory term for the accordion , the harmonium or the Hammond organ .

In jazz and rock music, the term for the organ is also used in a positive sense. It is also often used for a simpler sounding organ, for example by Vox or Farfisa .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ MDZ reader | Band | Historical description of the noble Sing- and Kling-Kunst / Printz, Wolfgang Caspar | Historical description of the noble Sing and Kling art / Printz, Wolfgang Caspar. P. 196 , accessed December 6, 2018 .
  2. Jump up ↑ Jacob Adelung: Instructions on musical literacy partly before all scholars, ... partly before lovers of the noble art of music . JD Jungnicol Sen., 1758, p. 574 ( google.de [accessed December 6, 2018]).
  3. ^ Jean Bouchet: Les annales d'Aquitaine. Enguilbert de Marnef, Poitiers 1557, sheet 164. (scan) . Quoted in Pierre Bayle : Dictionnaire historique et critique . (Scan)
  4. ^ David Tatham, The Lure of the Striped Pig: The Illustration of Popular Music in America, 1820-1870. Imprint Society, Barre (MS) 1973, ISBN 978-0876360514 , p. 20.
  5. ^ Mary Babson Fuhrer: A Crisis of Community: The Trials and Transformation of a New England Town, 1815-1848. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 2014, ISBN 978-1469612867 , p. 167.
  6. ↑ Rainer Schmitz, Benno Ure: How Mozart got into the ball: Curiosities and surprises from the world of classical music, Pantheon Verlag, 2018, pp. 745/746 [1]
  7. ↑ Vanessa Agnew: Enlightenment Orpheus: the power of music in other worlds , Oxford 2008, pp. 157f.
  8. ↑ Monty Python - mouse organ sketch, Monty Pythons Mäuseorgel ( YouTube video, English)
  9. ↑ Jennifer C. Garlen, Anissa M. Graham: Kermit Culture: Critical Perspectives on Jim Henson's Muppets, McFarland, 2014, p. 151 [2]
  10. ↑ Rainer Siebert: What is a pig organ? at horniger.de, accessed on October 26, 2014
  11. ↑ archive.is: funkhauseuropa.de: Mr. Hammond only meant well ... ( Memento from October 25, 2014 in the web archive archive.today )
  12. ↑ a b The real Elvis Momofuku. In: derStandard.at. Der Standard, May 30, 2008, accessed on July 18, 2020 (Austrian German).
  13. ↑ user: Term "pig organ": What does it mean? Musikerboard, September 13, 2013, accessed July 18, 2020 .