A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Vox Humana

by Walter Parratt

VOX HUMANA, VOIX HUMAINE. An organ stop of 8-feet tone and of the reed family, but with very short capped pipes, which therefore reinforce only the overtones of the fundamental. The pipe for the CC note, which would in the case of an ordinary reed-stop be nearly 8 feet in length, is here often only 13 inches. The pipes vary little in length, and there are perceptible breaks in the timbre. As its name implies, the stop is supposed to resemble the human voice. Burney (Tour through Germany, vol. ii. p. 303), speaking of the specimen in the Haarlem organ, says, 'It does not at all resemble a human voice, though a very good stop of the kind: but the world is very apt to be imposed upon by names; the instant a common hearer is told that an organist is playing upon a stop which resembles the human voice, he supposes it to be very fine, and never enquires into the propriety of the name or the exactness of the imitation. However, I must confess, that of all the stops I have yet heard which have been honoured by the appellation of Vox humana, no one, in the treble part, has ever yet reminded me of anything human, so much as of the cracked voice of an old woman of ninety, or, in the lower parts, of Punch singing through a comb.' This more than century-old description is by no means out of date. In acoustically favourable buildings, and when only just audible, the stop has sometimes a weird effect which is not unimpressive, but distinctness is quite fatal. The Vox humana should be placed in a box of its own inside the swell box. It is nearly always used with the tremulant. Opinions differ as to its capacity for combining pleasantly with other registers, and this depends upon the kind of stop. There are instances where it gives a piquant quality to other light stops. Its voicing is very delicate and soon gets out of order.

[ W. Pa. ]