Pipe organ
As well as the obvious use of the organ for accompanying church choirs and congregational singing the organ has often been used to accompany instruments. In the Baroque period small organs were used to accompany solo instruments or small groups of instruments or orchestras. This kind of accompaniment was called continuo. Occasionally composers have written organ concertos in which the organ is the solo instrument and the orchestra accompanies. Handel wrote several of these. In modern times Francis Poulenc wrote an organ concerto. There is an important organ solo in Symphony no 3 by Saint-Saëns. Other orchestral works sometimes have organ parts. Organists have often made organ “transcriptions”, i.e. arranged music written for other instruments so that it can be played on the organ.