Rank.

In modern organ terminology, a complete set or row of pipes, usually of the same type, controlled by one stop-knob. Many kinds of stop have more than one rank, notably the compound or Mixture stop; but so have some non-compound stops, such as the several undulating Piffaro stops of the 18th and 19th centuries, or the Principal/Diapason stops frequently doubled in the treble during the 15th–17th centuries. In English sources, ‘ranks’ was a term usually applied to the rows of pipes in a compound stop such as Sesquialtera or Cornet (e.g. the Talbot MS, GB-Och Music 1187, c1695; the Henry Leffler MS, c1810 (private collection); E.J. Hopkins, The Organ, 1855); ‘stoppes or setts of pipes’ (York Minster, 1632) and similar phrases were more usual for ‘ranks’ in a general sense.

See also Organ stop.

PETER WILLIAMS