Echo English, German

According to Locher and Wedgwood, the name Echo was used in old European organs for a quiet flute stop, sometimes enclosed in a swell box, separate from the rest of the organ. Audsley quotes Locher, and also Seidel, who says: “a single flute-toned register of soft intonation which stands behind the Organ, and received its wind through long conveyances”. Irwin considers it to be a synonym for Echo Flute. Grove and Williams, on the other hand, describe it as an Echo Cornet of III or IV ranks found in many German organs of the 18th century.

Notwithstanding the above descriptions, the term Echo is nearly always used as a modifier for some other stop name, indicating a softer and/or smaller scaled stop than normal. The following echo stops are known listed in this encyclopedia:

Echo Aeoline Echo Bourdon Echo Celeste Echo 'Cello Echo Clarabella Echo Clarion Echo Cornet Echo Cymbal Echo Diapason Echo Dolcan Echo Dolce Echo Dulciana Echo Dulciana Céleste Echo Dulciana Mixture

Echo Erzahler Echo Fagotto Echo Fifteenth Echo Flute Echo Gamba Echo Gedeckt Echo Geigen Echo Gemshorn Echo Harmonics Echo Horn Echo Melodia Echo Mixture Echo Nachthorn Echo Oboe

Echo Octave Echo Open Flute Echo Salicional Echo Stopped Flute Echo Tibia Clausa Echo Tromba Echo Trumpet Echo Twelfth Echo Viol Echo Viol Mixture Echo Viola Echo Viole Celeste Echo Violin Echo Vox Humana

Examples

Only one example is known of a stop labelled simply Echo:

Echo V, Oberwerk; Cathedral, Freiberg, Germany; Silbermann 1710-14. (in box with removeable cover behind the windchest)

Bibliography