Organ

WATER ORGAN

The earliest organ, the hydraulis, was developed by the Greek engineer Ctesibius, who lived in the 3rd century BC in Alexandria.

The small organ worked by means of a chamber partly filled with water. The wide mouth of a funnel-like extension from the wind chest was set in the top of the water; as air pressure in the wind chest fell, water rose in the funnel and compressed the air, thus keeping the air pressure constant.

The water organ (or hydraulis). CC BY-SA 2.0 Wikipedia Commons

The Romans used the water organ for such public entertainments as circuses and gladiator combats because they were loud.

During the Renaissance many Italian gardens had water organs. The most famous water organ of the 16th century was at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli. It was about six metres high and was powered by a beautiful waterfall.

CHURCH ORGAN

The Spaniards first introduced the use of the organ in churches in the fifth century. The more wide spread use of church organ music is traditionally believed to date from the time of Vitalian's papacy between July 30, 657 and January 27, 672.

Aldhelm built the first pipe organ in England around 700. It was described as a "mighty instrument with innumerable tones, blown with bellows, and enclosed in a gilded case."

A pipe organ with "great leaden pipes" was sent from Constantinople to the West by the Byzantine emperor Constantine V as a gift to Pepin the Short King of the Franks in 757.

Pepin's son Charlemagne requested a similar organ for his chapel in Aachen in 812, which sealed its establishment in Western church music.

The pipe organ in Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, Paris

The pipe organ that Bishop Aelfeg installed at Winchester Cathedral around 950 AD was possibly the most elaborate machine in the world at the time. It had 400 pipes and 26 bellows operated by 70 men.

Instruments such as the large 10th-century organ at Winchester appear to have produced a general roar, with all the pipes for any one key sounding all the time.

Even though people say "pull out all the stops" to mean doing it extravagantly, it originates from the church organ. Stops (think of plugs) were put in the pipes to adjust volume. To really let her rip and be as loud as possible, one would pull out all the stops.

REED ORGAN

The reed organ was developed in Germany in about 1810. The reed organ is more properly called a harmonium, and its American counterpart a melodeon.

The harmonium's reeds consist of metal tongues screwed over slots in metal frames. They are sounded by an inward air current produced by exhaust bellows.

A harmonium. Operation of the two large pedals at the bottom of the case supplies wind to the reeds.

Harmoniums reached the height of their popularity in the West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were especially popular in small churches and chapels where a pipe organ would be too large or too expensive until the electronic organ started to replace it after the 1930s.

THE CALLIOPE

The calliope is a steam organ patented by J C Stoddard of Worcester, Massachusetts, on October 9, 1855.

Most calliopes had about 15-30 whistles, operated by a keyboard, but some had many more.

The noisy musical instrument was quickly added to the circus world. At the end of a circus procession marching down the main street would be a screaming steam calliope, telling everyone the circus had come to town.

"Calliope, the wonderful operonicon or steam car of the muses" – advertising poster, 1874

Callopes were fitted to the top decks of river showboats, and could be heard for miles around playing popular tunes. They were also heard as part of some merry-go-rounds in amusement parks.

ELECTRONIC ORGAN

The Hammond organ was invented in 1934 by American inventor and entrepreneur Laurens Hammond. He utilized electrical circuits and amplifiers to produce and enlarge the organ's sound.

Laurens Hammond also came up with an early incarnation of 3D films using glasses, through a system he called Teleview.

The Hammond organ's mournful sound made it the instrument of choice for military chapels, but then in the 1960s the rockers got wind of it and the device became a standard keyboard instrument for jazz, blues, rock and gospel music.

Jazzman Jimmy Smith playing the Hammond organ in the 1950s. By Hammondite - Wikipedia

FUN FACTS

An organ was played at a baseball stadium for the first time in Chicago in 1941.

The phrase "Pull out all the stops" refers to using all the pipes of a pipe organ by pulling all the knobs (stops) that control which pipes are used, thereby creating the fullest possible sound.

The world’s largest pipe organ is in the Main Auditorium of the Boardwalk Hall (formerly known as the Atlantic City Convention Hall) in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It has seven keyboards and over 33,000 pipes. The organ holds several other Guinness World Records, including  "Largest musical instrument ever constructed" and "Loudest musical instrument ever constructed."

The largest church organ is at First Congregational Church, Los Angeles.

The world's oldest organ is generally agreed to be the one built at Sion, Switzerland in the late 14th century.

The Grand Organ of Sydney Opera House has 10,154 pipes. It took one year longer to build than the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

There is a 230 foot long sea organ on the coast of Croatia. The organ, designed by architect Nikola Basic has 35 tubes that make music whenever the waves crash into them.

Here is a list of popular songs with an organ.

Sources Comptons Encyclopedia, Europress Encyclopedia

Oreo

HISTORY

The Oreo sandwich cookie was first developed and produced by the National Biscuit Company (today known as Nabisco) in 1912.

Oreo was launched as an imitation of the original cream-filled chocolate cookie, Hydrox, which was introduced by the Sunshine Company four years earlier.

Oreo cookies were first made in a New York bakery. They sold for 30 cents per pound in what is now Chelsea Market.

The first Oreo was sold on March 6, 1912 to a grocer in Hoboken, New Jersey.

The name Oreo was first trademarked on March 14, 1912. Although the origin of the name "Oreo" is unknown, there are many theories. According to one Oreo executive, the name mimics the two O-shaped cookies that make the sandwich. Others claim the "re" comes from the "cream."

The filling used in Oreo cookies was originally made from pork fat.

In 1997, Oreos became kosher when the lard was removed.

A giant Oreo cookie weighing 73.4 kg (161 lb 13 oz) was produced on April 16, 2018. Baked in Manama, Bahrain, the supersize snack was made with the real dough and cream used in regular-sized Oreos. With a normal Oreo weighing 11.3 g, this it was 6,495 times bigger than what you find in a standard packet and blitzed the previous world record of 28.24 kg (62 lb 4 oz) set by Hoppe Food Group & Midden Brabant College for the largest cream-filled cookie set in The Netherlands back in 2011.

THE COOKIE

Oreos have a 71 percent to 29 percent cookie-to-cream-ratio.

Oreos are vegan-friendly since the cream doesn’t contain any dairy products.

Because the Oreo filling contains no dairy, the FDA didn't allow it to be called 'cream'. Therefore, it was named 'creme' instead.

The two-bar cross on an Oreo cookie is a medieval European symbol for quality. Monks used it on manuscripts they copied to say they did the best they could.

There are seven flavors of Oreos: original, berry, chocolate, chocolate golden, lemon golden, mint and peanut butter.

When the Oreo was made it 1912, there was also a lemon meringue flavor. It was discontinued in 1920.

Oreo's first unusual flavor was Birthday Cake, released in 2012 for its centennial celebration.

“Double Stuf” Oreos are actually only stuffed 1.86 times more than regular Oreos.

It takes 59 minutes to make an Oreo.

SALES

Oreos are the best-selling cookie in the world.

More than 450 billion Oreo cookies have been sold since they were created.

They can be found in 100 countries.

Oreo O's is a breakfast cereal only available in South Korea.

The United States, China, Venezuela, Canada, and Indonesia are the top five countries in terms of sales.

Sources Ibtimes.com, Popsugar.com/

Oregon

HISTORY

On October 29, 1792, Lt. William Broughton, a member of Captain George Vancouver's discovery expedition, observed a peak in what is now Oregon, and named it Mount Hood after British admiral Samuel Hood.

Mount Hood reflected in Mirror Lake, Oregon, USA.

The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest set out on the Oregon Trail with a thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri in 1843. The Oregon Trail, which stretched 2200 miles, was the longest of the land routes used in the Western expansion of the United States.

Journalist John L. O'Sullivan, writing in his newspaper The New York Morning News on December 27, 1845, argued that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country "by the right of our manifest destiny." In doing so O'Sullivan is credited with coining the term manifest destiny, which describes the then-belief in that Unites States settlers were destined to expand across North America.

Oregon was the 33rd state to join the United States on February 14, 1859. It was the only state in the Union admitted with a constitution that forbade black people from living, working, or owning property there. It was illegal for black people even to move to the state until 1926.

A map of Oregon

Rutherford B. Hayes was the first United States president to visit Oregon in 1880, 21 years after the state was officially incorporated.

The name of Portland, Oregon was decided by a coin flip—had it gone the other way, the city would be called "Boston."

Oregon passed the first compulsory minimum wage law in U.S. on February 17, 1913.

Oregon placed a one cent per U.S. gallon tax on gasoline on February 25, 1919, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.

The current flag of Oregon became official on February 26, 1925.

Oregon is the only state to have a different design on each side of its flag. The front features the escutcheon from the state seal in blue and gold and the reverse pictures a golden beaver.

Among the 135,000 birthday presents Shirley Temple received for her ninth birthday on April 23, 1937 was a prize Jersey calf from schoolchildren in Oregon.

In 1984 followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh deliberately contaminated salad bars in The Dalles, Oregon with salmonella. It was the first and single largest bio-terrorist attack in United States history.

Penny Harrington became the first woman police chief of a major city when she assumed the duties as head of the Portland, Oregon force of 940 officers and staff in 1985.

FUN OREGON FACTS

Oregon has a rail network of over 2,400 miles.

Crater Lake in south-central Oregon is the deepest lake in the United States and the tenth deepest in the world). The lake is 1,949 feet (594 m) deep, and is home to two islands: Wizard Island and Phantom Ship.

Hells Canyon in eastern Oregon is the deepest river-cut canyon in the US. It’s 7993 feet deep, and stretches through Oregon and Idaho.

The Honey mushroom in the Blue Mountains of Oregon is believed to be the largest organism in the world and has an area of almost four square miles.

Mushroom hunting is such a popular activity in Oregon, the state even has its own mushroom festival.

The State of Oregon offers an annual $50 tax credit for the permanent and complete loss of the use of two limbs.

Source Mentalfloss.com/

Orchid

The Orchidaceae or orchid have about 28,000 currently accepted species, distributed in about 763 genera.

Ecuador has 3459 species, the greatest number recorded.

The Victorians had a name for orchid mania-Orchidelirium-and they sailed uncharted seas to bring home new species.

Although generally thought of as a tropical plant, orchids grow worldwide. The only places on earth orchids don't grow are Antarctica and the Gobi Desert.

High resolution image of orchid

Britain's rarest flower is the lady's slipper orchid: a single specimen grows on a Lancashire golf course under police surveillance.

Orchids have the tiniest seeds in the world.  There can be up to three million seeds in a single orchid seedpod. You'll never see them though; they are the size of a speck of dust and are only visible under a microscope.

The plant's first flowers won't appear until roughly five to seven years after germination. This makes them a challenge to grow and cultivate as it takes a lot of patience as you wait for them to sprout and actually turn into a plant.

Orchids have developed highly specialized pollination systems. For example, the Lady's Slipper can trap insects and make them pollinate the flower.

Another instance is an underground orchid in Australia, Rhizanthella slateri, which is never exposed to light, and depends on ants and other terrestrial insects to pollinate it.

The scent of the blunt-leaved orchid is chemically similar to human body odor, a trick the plant uses to attract mosquitoes for pollination.

The complex cross-pollination mechanisms were described by Charles Darwin in his 1862 book The Fertilisation of Orchids.

Between 1,000 to 4,000 orchid plants are used to make a single kilogram of salep, a popular drink in Turkey that is like a cross between hot chocolate and rice pudding.

Vanilla is produced from a species of orchid, it's the only fruit bearing orchid in the world.

Source JamaicaObserver

Orchestra

ETYMOLOGY

The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα (orchestra), a Greek phrase meaning ‘dancing place’, which was the name for the area in front of a stage in ancient Greek theater reserved for the Greek chorus.

The Dohnanyi Orchestra performing

When the word 'orchestra' first appeared in English it meant 'the art of dancing'.

The word 'karaoke' comes from a Japanese phrase meaning 'empty orchestra'.

HISTORY

Ancient China had a highly developed and sophisticated music culture. Music was an important element in traditional ritualistic ceremonies during the Shang Dynasty (c. 1550-1111 BC), and it reached one of its peaks during the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1111-222 BC). The ancient form of the orchestra was used to play a form of ceremonial music known as yayue.

Ancient Chinese orchestras featured a great abundance of percussion instruments. There were also several wind instruments, but only a few zither-type string instruments were used.

The modern orchestra first developed in the early 17th century starting with the first major opera, Orfeo (1607).

Claudio Monteverdi used an orchestra having a central string section augmented by other instruments and bound together harmonically by bass melody instruments, such as cello or bassoon, plus harmonic support from harpsichord or organ.

During the 1600s, orchestras became common not only in opera performances but as ensembles maintained by aristocratic families for private concerts. In Paris in 1626 King Louis XIII had an orchestra of 24 violins (called "24 Violons du Roi").

The modern orchestra actually began to grow in the mid-17th century. Such composers as Jean-Baptiste Lully and Henry Purcell wrote many scores for strings, but there was no agreement among musicians of the time whether the standard orchestra should have three, four, or five string parts.

This early orchestra included first and second violins, violas, and cellos. Double basses, the lowest-voiced members of this instrument group, often were used to reinforce the cello an octave lower.

Clarinets came into the orchestra at the end of the 18th century, and trombones at the beginning of the 19th century.

The standard complement of doubled winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the instruments called for by Beethoven. The composer's instrumentation almost always included paired flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets.

The typical orchestra grew in size throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching a peak with the large orchestras (of as many as 120 players) called for in the works of Richard Wagner. The German composer's works for the stage were scored with unprecedented scope and complexity. He asked for a bass clarinet in his opera Lohengrin, and for his cycle of four operas called The Ring of the Nibelung he requested eight horns with four of them playing a specially designed tuba and six harps.

Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra at 1916 American premiere of Mahler's 8th Symphony.

It wasn't until 1913 that women first began to play with men in a symphony orchestra. In that year the Queen’s Hall Orchestra in London, led by Sir Henry Wood, received 137 applications to fill six vacancies. he hired six females: violinists Jessie Grimson, Dora Garland, M. Dudding and Jean Stewart, and viola players S. Maturin and Rebecca Clarke. It was hailed as "mixed bathing in the sea of music" by suffragette and composer Ethel Smyth.

FOUNDING OF ORCHESTRAS

The Royal Danish Orchestra claims to be the world's oldest still in existence. It has its roots in a Royal Chapel Orchestra founded in 1448.

The first college orchestra was founded in 1808 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Philharmonic Society of New York, the nation's oldest symphony orchestra was founded in 1842.

The first Hallé concert was given in Manchester, England on January 30 1858, marking the official founding of The Hallé orchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra.

The Hallé's first programme (1858)

In 1898, the first women’s orchestra was founded in Berlin by the conductor Mary Wurm, a former student of Schumann’s.

ORCHESTRA FUN FACTS

The London Symphony Orchestra was booked to travel on the Titanic's maiden voyage, but they changed boats at the last minute.

As a violist, Arthur Fiedler took part in the first recording sessions by an American symphony orchestra. This took place when the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under Karl Muck (whom Fiedler idolized), made their first recordings for Victor, at Camden, New Jersey, in September 1917.

Vienna Philharmonic did not accept women into the orchestra until 1997 when they granted full member status to a harpist who had been playing with the orchestra for 27 years

The American Symphony Orchestra League changed its name in 2007 after deciding its acronym was 'unfortunate'.

The largest orchestra ever comprised 8,573 musicians who gathered at the Venezuelan Military Academy in Caracas, Venezuela on November 13, 2021 to perform Tchaikovsky’s 12-minute long  March Slave. The performers, all connected to the country's network of youth orchestras, broke the world record for ‘World’s Largest Orchestra,’ as part of a larger one-hour concert.

No symphony orchestra can ever make a profit on its own, even if it sold out tickets at every show. This is mainly because the show consists of 40-100 fully salaried members who only perform the same piece 2 or 3 times. Most orchestras rely heavily on donators to be profitable.

In order to eliminate gender bias, many orchestras use blind auditions in which the candidates play their instrument behind a screen.

Modern orchestras tune to an oboe because its penetrating sound stands out from the orchestra, so it's easy for all the musicians to hear.

Comptons Encyclopedia, Classicfm.com

Oratorio

An Oratorio is a sacred story or drama scored for orchestra and solo voices.

The history of the oratorio began in the mid-16th century, when the Italian priest St Philip Neri (July 21, 1515 – May 25, 1595) organised a congregation consisting of secular priests and lay brothers, who took no vows but lived communally. He introduced devotional services in his Oratory (or prayer hall) at Rome and it is from this that the term comes. The services included acting, sermons, prayers, hymn singing, and devotional music and were intended for the reform of the youth of the city.

Philip Romolo Neri 

The earliest surviving oratorio is Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo (The Representation of Soul and Body) by Emilio del Cavaliere. Produced in Rome in 1600, it featured dramatic action, including ballet.

The definitive form of oratorio emerged in the mid 17th century as two types developed:
Oratorio volgare (in Italian), an example being Marco Marazzoli's S Tomaso
Oratorio latino (in Latin) – which was first developed at the Oratorio del Santissimo Crocifisso, related to the church of San Marcello al Corso in Rome. The most significant composer was Giacomo Carissimi, whose Latin oratorios were as significant as the operatic works of Monteverdi.

German oratorio began with Heinrich Schutz, who combined German with Italian elements in his Easter Oratorio, published in 1623, and Christmas Oratorio (1664).

The emotional expression and vigorous choruses of Schutz's oratorios anticipated Johann Sebastian Bach's larger-scale Passion oratorios-- Passion According to St. John (1724) and Passion According to St. Matthew (1729).

The Georgian era saw George Frideric Handel define the English oratorio. He is credited with writing the first English language oratorio, Esther, which began in 1718 as a masque, or chamber drama, before being heavily revised into a full oratorio in 1732.

Handel is most famous today for his Messiah (1741), but his other oratorios were based on themes from Greek and Roman mythology as well as Biblical topics.

Messiah staged at the English National Opera, 2009

With the death of Bach and Handel in the 1750s, the oratorio ceased to be a vital, creative tradition. A notable exception, Franz Joseph Haydn's The Creation was completed in 1798.

Not until Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah (1846) did another oratorio of long-lasting endurance appear.
In Britain, John Stainer's The Crucifixion (1887) became the stereotypical work of massed amateur choral societies.

Edward Elgar tried to revive the oratorio in the first years of the next century and his Dream of Gerontius (1900) made a significant contribution to the form in the next 60 years. Elgar wrote two other oratorios: The Apostles and The Kingdom.

Oratorio returned haltingly to public attention with works such as Stravinsky's opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex (1927) William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast at Leeds (1931) and, Arthur Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher in Basel (1938).

Popular musicians began to compose works in the form later in the century, most notably Paul McCartney with his Liverpool Oratorio (1991).

Source Compton's Encyclopedia

Orangutan

The name 'orangutan' means 'man of the forest' in Malay, though until recently Malayans did not use that term for the animal.

Orangutans are now found in the wild only in the rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo.

Orangutans come in two species: the Borneo orangutan (or Pongo pygmaeus) and Sumatra orangutan (Pongo abelii).

Sumatran orangutans have a narrower face and longer beard than their Bornean cousins.

HISTORY 

The earliest reference to an 'orang-outang' in English dates back to 1699.

When Charles Darwin visited London Zoo in March 1838, he entered the cage of an orangutan named Jenny who, he said, "was particularly fond of watching boys bathe".

Ken Allen (1971–2000) was a Bornean orangutan at the San Diego Zoo.  He became famous for escaping from his enclosure on three occasions in 1985. During his escapes, first on June 13, then on  July 29 and finally on August 13, 1985, Ken Allen would peacefully stroll around the zoo looking at other animals and never acted aggressively.

Ken Allen Wikipedia

Suryia, an orangutan from a sanctuary in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina met and befriended a thin stray Blue Tick dog, Roscoe, during a walk to a lake in 2006. Roscoe stuck around and was immediately taken in by Suryia and the other orangutans almost like a beloved pet. They fed, groomed, petted, and played with him for years.

In Argentina, orangutans are granted human-like rights

HABITAT

Unlike it's other great ape cousins, orangutans spend most of their lives in trees, where Orangutans live about 30-50 years, both in captivity and in the wild.

Deforestation of their natural habitat has cut the number of orangutans in the wild to about 6,000.

ANATOMY 

Orangutans are the largest tree-dwelling creatures on Earth.

Their bodies are especially adapted to living in the forest canopy; that unique swinging motion is called quadrumanous scrambling.

Orangutans not only have opposable thumbs like humans but also have opposable big toes.

Around a third of all orangutans do not have nails on their big toes.

In 2011, the orangutan became the third non-human primate to have its genome sequenced, after the chimp and rhesus macaque. This showed that orangutans and humans share 97 per cent of their DNA sequence.

Orangutans are still 2 per cent less like humans than chimps — who have 99 per cent of our DNA

BEHAVIOR

More than half of their diet consists of fruits, which they find in the trees of Sumatra and Borneo and they also consume leaves, shoots and bird eggs,

Orang Utan eating a mature Coconut. By Eleifert - Wikipedia

Orangutans drink water they find collected in tree leaves.

Orangutans make spoons out of twigs and use them to open fruit and scoop out the seeds.

Wild orangutans use medicinal plants to sooth joint and muscle inflammation. The apes chew leaves of the Dracaena cantleyi plant to create a white lather, which they then rub onto their bodies. Local indigenous people also use the plant for the same purpose.

They are the least social of all primates. Females spend up to 25 per cent of their time with other orangutans. Males less than 9 per cent.

After mating, a female abandons her mate. The male has no role in caring for the young.

Orangutans have the longest interbirth interval of any land mammal (reproducing singletons once every 7.6 years).

The Orangutan birth rate hinders their survival but also creates one the strongest mother-child bonds in nature as young orangutans stay close to their mother during that whole period and nurse for most of it.

The orangutan has the longest childhood dependence on the mother of any animal in the world.

Young orangutans learn everything from where to find food and how to acquire and eat it to building a safe and secure nest from their mothers.

The orangutan female offspring survival rate is so high that modern human populations reached the same level of survival only in the 20th century.

Orangutans build elaborate day and night nests. They may add additional features such as "pillows", "blankets", "roofs" and "bunk-beds" to their nest.

Orangutan nest. By Rob and Stephanie Levy - Flickr: Wikipedia

Orangutans warn off predators by making kissing noises.

Sources Daily Express, Care2.com