New Neo-classical Organ Spec Thoughts

[AJJ]

Thanks for that Pierre - perhaps more a case of 'not using it right' than 'the stop was wrong' - maybe Ralph Downes should have left an instruction book!! They still modified it though and it was not much use to 'us youngsters' then.

On the same lines an interesting house organ built by Peter Collins has an unusual stoplist including a high Cimbel. See link:

 

http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=E00810

 

I have a recording of Roger Fisher playing Bach on it and using this stop as part of a solo combination - having just listened to this (and some Messiaen at Beauvais!) what you say makes perfect sonic sense.

 

AJJ

[MusingMuso]

Another point was cited here in another thread: the fact we live

in a noisy environment renders us less receptive to soft tones,

we need sharper, louder sounds.

Pierre

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I'm not sure if I didn't suggest this, but I can't remember. Anyway, it is something I often point out to people when talking about the baroque, where the loudest noise other the organ would have been the rattle of a cart, the clip-clop of horses hooves and the ring of the blacksmith's hammer.

 

The organ I play, at least on paper, has all the ingredients of being rather nasty and screechy, but the reality is very different; in part due to the fantastic acoustic, but as much to do with the incredibly subtle voicing of the upperwork.

 

In plain-metal, (where the rest of the chorus pipes are pure tin almost), the flueways are incredibly fine, and the sonic output (without nicking) not much more than that of a Dulciana....certainly for the top-most ranks.

 

Similarly, a trip to St.Lauren's, Alkmaar, demonstrates the same sort of subtlety to be heard on the F C Schnitger instrument, where almost all the Mixtures (and there are many of them) just produce a tiny glitter of sound.

 

THIS was the true baroque, by and large, even though Silbermann doesn't quite fit-in with this idea.

 

However, like "Vox Humana" I also tend to wonder what all the fuss is about when I hear a Silbermann, but I say this very, very quietly, with my lips almost fully closed-up!

 

MM

[ajt]

The Mixture as a chorus binder, intended not to be heard, but to emphazise the foundation, is a quite new idea.

 

From Henry Willis III, Donald Harrison, and even E-M Skinner himself, the Mixtures were there for brillance, sparkle.

 

It was a colour among others, even when considered the most important one.

They were not really a part of the chorus, but the "spices upon it".

 

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I tend to try to avoid mixtures in my choir accompaniment or solo playing ; I like the rich sound of chorus + reeds (usually without a 4' reed), and think mixtures are like 32' reeds - most effective when used less frequently. In hymn playing, though, I find a mixture invaluable - congregations seem to sing better with a nice bright registration.

 

I also completely avoid the hideous Cimbel Mixture on my current instrument. I'm considering supergluing the stop in, or just cutting the wires Life was made considerably better the day our organ maintainer informed me that I *could* set divisional pistons without the building blowing up, just not generals, and was able to get that blasted cimbel thing off swell 5 & 6. God knows what HWIII was thinking. It's appalling.

[Goldsmith]

Another point was cited here in another thread: the fact we live

in a noisy environment renders us less receptive to soft tones,

we need sharper, louder sounds.

Pierre

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Hmm.. I don't really buy this argument. For city dwellers, the Victorian street (cobbles, horses, carts etc.) would have been pretty noisy. Travelling by steam train would have been pretty noisy too. And how about working in a 'dark, satanic mill'?...

[Goldsmith]

Thanks for that Pierre - perhaps more a case of 'not using it right' than 'the stop was wrong' - maybe Ralph Downes should have left an instruction book!! They still modified it though and it was not much use to 'us youngsters' then.

On the same lines an interesting house organ built by Peter Collins has an unusual stoplist including a high Cimbel. See link:

 

http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=E00810

 

I have a recording of Roger Fisher playing Bach on it and using this stop as part of a solo combination - having just listened to this (and some Messiaen at Beauvais!) what you say makes perfect sonic sense.

 

AJJ

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A good point about Ralphh Downes; his book 'Baroque Tricks' should be compulsory reading. In another thread, it was suggested that flutes/principals, as a general rule, are better not mixed. At the RFH and elsewhere, the organ was designed so that classes of pipe should be used together (I generalize here, for the sake of brevity). RD's horror on hearing Peter Hurford using a 'skeletonized' registration for a Bach fugue (?) is very instructive.

[Colin Harvey]

Fair enough then - what about this? - plus a Tierce on the Great perhaps - not Liverpool but well known to at least one on this discussion board!!

 

http://www.harrison-organs.co.uk/twyfordspec.html

 

I'd quite happily have something like this rather than 'neo' anything.

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Well, yes, the thought of substituting the Dulciana for a Tierce has crossed my mind once or twice...

[innate]

Hmm.. I don't really buy this argument. For city dwellers, the Victorian street (cobbles, horses, carts etc.) would have been pretty noisy. Travelling by steam train would have been pretty noisy too. And how about working in a 'dark, satanic mill'?...

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I might well be wrong but aren't Blake's "dark satanic mills" the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge?

 

But to get back to the main point (!) I remember attending a clavichord recital in the Holywell Music Room in Oxford where the recitalist asked us to be completely quiet for a few minutes before he started playing in order for our ears to be prepared for the quiet sounds of his instrument. I wondered at the time how long Bach gave his ears before playing his domestic clavichord after a few minutes of Organo Pleno in the church. And didn't Silbermann build especially full-toned clavichords during Bach's time?

[MusingMuso]

I might well be wrong but aren't Blake's "dark satanic mills" the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge?

 

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There is the perception that these are they to which Blake refers, but the underlying reaction which Blake expressed was against the "logic" of Newton, which Blake (and many others) considered contrary to accepted Christian religious values.

 

The fact that "Jerusalem" is almost an unofficial national anthem is quite strange, because Blake uses a type of verse which (memory is a bit vague on this) I believe has Greek origins, and always has a negative implication.

 

So when Blake writes, "...and was Jerusalem builded here?"

 

Everyone is expected to think the reply, "No".

 

Hence, he shall not cease from mental strife UNTIL it is etc.

 

To Blake and others, the idea of humanistic logic marked the death of the soul.

 

Here endeth the lesson.

 

MM

[Paul Morley]

...which Blake (and many others) considered contrary to accepted Christian religious values.

 

I wouldn't have thought that Blake's idiosyncratic gnosticism was very close to the Christian orthodoxy of his time.

[MusingMuso]

...which Blake (and many others) considered contrary to accepted Christian religious values.

 

I wouldn't have thought that Blake's idiosyncratic gnosticism was very close to the Christian orthodoxy of his time.

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Any more than Newton's Rosicrucian beliefs were close to Russian Orthodoxy!

 

I don't think I mentioned the word orthodoxy: merely "religious values".

 

Please don't lead us down the path of discussions about Blake. The man was probably schizophrenic, and I had an ex-partner who had studied Blake in fine detail. I eventually discovered that said partner was similarly afflicted, which made perfect sense ie:- no sense at all!

 

Give me Newtonian logic every time.

 

You may not know what you stand for, but at least you know why you don't fall over when you do!

 

It's all in the spheres......which are mono-syllabic....and they bounce!

 

 

MM