I think this is the "Swell Box"... err... I really can't remember.
The Auckland Town Hall Organ has a lot of stops – 84, in fact. Despite having been on a tour of the instrument and consulted the fantastically comprehensive resource that is the Organ Trust’s website, I can make neither head nor tail of the stop list.
It has designations like:
- Posaune 16 ext #14
- Double Open Diapason 16
- Salicional 8
- Hohl Flute 8
- Wald Flute 4
- Nazard 2 2/3
- Superoctave 2
- Sharp Mixture IV 19.22.26.29
The numbers I mostly understand. 16 = the length in feet of the longest pipe (which is generally a C). So Wald Flute sounds an octave above Hohl Flute because the pipes are half as long, I get that. But what the hell is the difference between those two colours anyway? ‘Wald’ means ‘forest’, I know, but ‘Hohl’? The only German words like that I know are ‘Hohle’ (pit or cave) and ‘Hölle’ (hell). I didn’t know they played flutes in hellish caves.