Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SWELL-ORGAN SWIETEN 761
be as gradual as the performer pleases. Shudi
bequeathed this patent to John Broadwood, who
inherited it on the death of Shudi in 1773.
AVhen the patent expired, Kirkman and others
adopted it, and it was fitted to many old harpsichords,
and even to pianos, but was soon proved
unnecessary in an instrument where power of
nuance was the very first principle.
The English organ-builders perceived thegreat
advantage of Shudi's Venetian swell over the
rude contrivance they had been using [see
Organ, vol. iii. p. 5366], and it became generally
adopted for organs, and has since been constantly
retained in them as an important means
of effect. A. J. H.
SWELL-ORGAN.
an organ which acts
The clavier or manual of
upon pipes enclosed in a
box, such box having shutters, by the opening of
which, by means of a pedal, a crescendo is produced.
The shutters are made to fold over each
other like the woodwork of a Venetian blind,
hence the expressions Venetian ' Swell ' and
'
Venetian Shutters ' sometimes found in specifications.
To the swell-organ a larger number of
reed-stops is assigned than to other manuals.
The first attempt at a ' swelling-organ was
'
made by Jordan in 1712. The crescendo was
obtained by raising one large sliding shutter
which formed the front of the box. The early
swell-organs were of very limited compass, sometimes
only from middle C upwards, but more
generally taken a fourth lower, namely, to fiddle
G. For many years the compass did not extend
below tenor C, and even now attempts are
sometimes made to reduce the cost of an organ
by limiting the downward compass of some of
the stops of the Swell ; but in all instruments
with any pretension to completeness the stops
run throughout the compass to 00, with the
possible exceptions of the Vox Angelica or the
Voix Oeleste. [See Oeoajst, vol. iii. p. 536, etc.,
and section, p. 545.] J. s.
SWELL-PEDAL. The pedal in the organ
and harpsichord by which the shutters of the
swell are opened and closed. T. E.
SWERT, Jtjles de, a representative violoncellist
of the Belgian school, was born at
Louvain, August 16, 1843. His disposition for
music was shown very early. When only eight
years of age he began playing in public, though
his studies were not completed until 1858, in.
which year he took first prize in the class of
Servais at the Brussels Conservatoire. His subsequent
career was that of a travelling virtuoso
until 1865, when he became Ooncertmeister at
Diisseldorf. Between 1869 and 1873 he resided
at Berlin, where his functions were those of royal
Ooncertmeister and professor at the Hoohschule.
He also held appointments at Weimar, Wiesbailen,
Leipzig, and finally at Ostend. At the
latter town he was appointed in 1888 director
of the local music school, acting also as professor
at the neighbouring Conservatoires of Bruguo
and Ghent, until his death, which took place at
Ostend, Feb. 24, 1891. As a soloist he visited
London first in 1875, and was esteemed as a
warm, temperamental player, producing a tone
of exceptional volume. As a composer he is less
favourably known here. He signed his name
to many trashy pieces, probably written to order,
;
and two
for violoncello with pianoforte and with orchestra,
but occupied himself also with serious work.
Three concertos, one of which was produced
with great success at the Berlin Philharmonic in
1886 ; a Symphony, Nordseefahrt ' '
operas, 'Die Albigenser ' (Wiesbaden, 1878) and
'Graf Hammerstein,' testify to this ; but it is
as soloist that he is best remembered, "w. w. c.
SWIETEN, GoTirKiED, Baron VAN. A
musicalamateurof great importance, who resided
at Vienna at the end of the 18th century and
beginning of the 19th century. The family
was Flemish, and Gottfried's father, Gerhard,^
returned from Leyden to Vienna in 1745, and
became Maria Theresa's favourite physician.
Gottfried was born in 1734, and was brought
up to diplomacy, but his studies were much
disturbed by his love of music, and in 1769 he
committed himself so far as to compose several
of the songs in Favart's Rosiere ' de Salency
for its public production at Paris. In 1771 he
was made ambassador to the Court of Prussia,
where the music was entirely under the influence
of Frederick the Great, conservative and classical.
This suited Van Swieten. Handel, the
Bachs, and Haydn were his favourite masters ;
in 1774 he commissioned 0. P. E. Bach to
write six symphonies for orchestra. He returned
to Vienna in 1778 ; succeeded his father as
Prefect of the Public Library, and in 1781 was
appointed President of the Education Commission.
He became a kind of musical autocrat in
Vienna, and in some respects his influence was
very good. He encouraged the music which
he approved ;
had regular Sunday -morning
meetings for classical music, as well as performances
of the great choral works of Bach,
Handel, and Hasse, etc.; employed Mozart
to add accompaniments to Handel's ' Acis,'
Messiah,' 'St. Cecilia,' and 'Alexander's Feast,'
'
and Starzer to do the same for Judas ' '
; translated
the words of the ' Creation ' and the
' Seasons ' into German for Haydn ; and himself
arranged Handel's Athaliah ' ' and ' Choice of
Hercules.' He supplied Haydn now and then
with a few ducats, and gave him a travellingcarriage
for his second journey to England. ^
In his relation to these great artists he seems
never to have forgotten the superiority of his
rank to theirs ; but this was the manner of the
time. Van Swieten patronised Beethoven also
[see vol. i. p. 232a] ; but such condescension
would not be at all to Beethoven's taste, and it
is not surprising that we hear very little of it.
1 Evidently not a very wise perai
ixi. ch. 5.
2 Griesinger, Biog. Not. p. 66.
See Carlyle'a FreSertck, Bk.
3c