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What's In A Name?


Malcolm Farr

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It certainly does seem strange, when you consider the number of Baroque "trumpet voluntaries", that more composers have not written Tuba Tunes. Lang and Cocker are the only two I can think of. Perhaps it suggests that organists have always known that the stop is more effective the less it is used.

 

 

VH - this is music to my ears!

 

:blink:

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Guest paul@trinitymusic.karoo.co.uk
It certainly does seem strange, when you consider the number of Baroque "trumpet voluntaries", that more composers have not written Tuba Tunes. Lang and Cocker are the only two I can think of. Perhaps it suggests that organists have always known that the stop is more effective the less it is used.

 

 

There are others.

There's an excellent one by Reginald Porter Brown - a crowd pleaser!

one by Frederick Candlyn (Tuba Theme) very noble and interesting

and one by Eric Thiman, fair but not particuarly striking.

 

What would the Whitlock Sonata be like without a Tuba? - actually, I know: The Organ Club got treated to a performance at Gloucester Cathedral about five years ago and when we got to the bit that ought to have been a Tuba, we got Great Reeds and Cornet transferred to manual IV - it was quite ghastly!

 

Several Bairstow works (uniformly excellent) all require Tuba.

Stanford, especially Marcia Eroica - very fine

Parry, of course

'The' Healey Willan

 

etc. etc.

 

The Tuba is part of our heritage. Bad enough losing our Swell Oboes and 16' Bourdons, now they're trying to take away our lovely Tubas... for shame!! :unsure:

 

 

Actually, there's one use for a Tuba that has been missed so far.... they are wonderful for OTT last verse accompaniments at Civic Services. Pity pcnd doesn't like the idea of a single stop shining out over the rest of the organ, even his beloved Chamade might be useful for such a purpose.

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Yes, there are some threatened Species; next to the Tuba, there are some others

stops that are "bad, wrong..."

In continental Europe this mind is nearly gone. At Temple du Salin, Toulouse,

the builder Daldosso even made a Voix angélique.

Free reeds are already next door, Harmonia aethereas are built again, a Tuba

was attempted ar Dudelange.

 

Don't melt them, at least store them properly!

 

Thanks!

Pierre

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What would the Whitlock Sonata be like without a Tuba? - actually, I know: The Organ Club got treated to a performance at Gloucester Cathedral about five years ago and when we got to the bit that ought to have been a Tuba, we got Great Reeds and Cornet transferred to manual IV - it was quite ghastly!

 

OK - but if you had never heard the Whitlock before that day (and were not expecting a Tuba at any point), would the music still have been effective?

 

 

The Tuba is part of our heritage. Bad enough losing our Swell Oboes and 16' Bourdons, now they're trying to take away our lovely Tubas... for shame!! :unsure:

 

I agree - I would not wish to remove them, as I mentioned previously; I just would not wish to use them. I certainly think that the loss of Swell Oboes and Pedal Bourdons is lamentable.

 

Actually, there's one use for a Tuba that has been  missed so far.... they are wonderful for OTT last verse accompaniments at Civic Services. Pity pcnd doesn't like the idea of a single stop shining out over the rest of the organ, even his beloved Chamade might be useful for such a purpose.

 

I do use my chamade for this - but with two choruses and the Swell reeds coupled (not because it cannot cope, but because I prefer the sound this way).

 

In fact, whilst I cannot see a great deal of use for a stop which can obliterate the rest of the instrument put together, I do like a good chamade. It is the timbre of the stop (tuba) which I dislike, as opposed to what it is used for.

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There are no spanish organs with a chamade Trumpet that has not, on the same Manual, a Trompeta real, which is on the chest, so "interior".

They are always drawn togheter, that is, either the Trompeta real alone, or both.

The chamade is then always the "second" Trumpet.

"Néo-classiques" builders often forgot the first, building chamade stops even in small rooms. A typical néo-classique idea; the stop then becomes something else than its model.

 

Chamades are now as numerous as Fish & Chips, while Tubas are very seldom.

(on a worldwide basis).

 

I give here again a link to a file of Mr Gerhard Grenzing about the extraordinary spanish organ-builder Jordi Bosch. It is interesting to see how he specified and built

his chamade stops, and -above all- how special were the chests on which he placed them:

 

http://www.grenzing.com/pdf/Jordi_Bosch_ISO.pdf

 

Pierre

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Chamades are now as numerous as Fish & Chips, while Tubas are very seldom.

(on a worldwide basis).

 

 

Shurely shome mishtake? I know of only five chamades in the UK, and I'm not sure that this figure shouldn't actually be 3; there are at least four tubas within 10 miles of my home and 16 within 25 miles.

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Shurely shome mishtake?  I know of only five chamades in the UK, and I'm not sure that this figure shouldn't actually be 3; there are at least four tubas within 10 miles of my home and 16 within 25 miles.

 

Well, there are a few more than that:

 

St. John's, Cambridge

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

Wimborne Minster

Cirencester Parish Church

Ulster Hall, Belfast

Bute Hall, University of Glasgow

Dunster Parish Church

Romsey Abbey (the Tuba is technically a chamade,

even if not actually on display)

Ellesmere College

Radley School Chapel

Lancing College Chapel

The Old Independent Church, Haverhill

Brecon Cathedral

Abergavenny Parish Church (or somewhere near there; this

church is shortly to have a new instrument, built by William

Drake, of Buckfastleigh).

Arundel Cathedral (re-instated at the time of the

recent restoration)

Royal Naval Chapel, Greenwich (retained in the

David Wells rebuild, but placed behind the

front pipes)

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Well, there are a few more than that:

 

St. John's, Cambridge

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

Wimborne Minster

Cirencester Parish Church

Ulster Hall, Belfast

Bute Hall, University of Glasgow

Dunster Parish Church

Romsey Abbey (the Tuba is technically a chamade,

  even if not actually on display)

Ellesmere College

Radley School Chapel

Lancing College Chapel

The Old Independent Church, Haverhill

Brecon Cathedral

Abergavenny Parish Church (or somewhere near there; this

  church is shortly to have a new instrument, built by William

  Drake, of Buckfastleigh).

Arundel Cathedral (re-instated at the time of the

  recent restoration)

Royal Naval Chapel, Greenwich (retained in the

  David Wells rebuild, but placed behind the

  front pipes)

 

All Saints Friern Barnet.

 

AJJ

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All Saints Friern Barnet.

 

AJJ

 

Oh yes - that , too.

 

HN&B were always adding chamade stops to their rebuilt instruments. The example at Dunster is a fine stop, as is the similar rank at St. John's, Cambridge.

 

Actually, Gloucester Cathedral almost got a chamade in 1999-2000. In the end, it was rejected because they could not find anywhere to place the chest. I had suggested above the impost, either side of the central tower and facing west. However, at this point David Briggs' eyes narrowed and he said "What, on the front of the historic case, you mean?"

 

His next comment was: "Let's go to the pub."

 

So we did.

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Well, there are a few more than that:

 

 

Romsey Abbey (the Tuba is technically a chamade,

  even if not actually on display)

 

 

Ooh! Does that make it a Trompette Miribalis?

 

Sure, there are more. I only mentioned the four I knew of. Actually, 5, because I knew about the Percy Daniel one in Wales.

 

I was driving at a notion that Tubas probably outnumber chamades by about a thousand to one.

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Actually the Kingsteignton organ is scheduled to be a three-manul job. When I saw it a couple of months back the Great Trumpet and the chamade were playable from the Positive manual. The other stops on this manual are prepared for at the console and the pipework present, waiting for a faulty to be installed. That may well have happened by now.

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Actually the Kingsteignton organ is scheduled to be a three-manul job. When I saw it a couple of months back the Great Trumpet and the chamade were playable from the Positive manual. The other stops on this manual are prepared for at the console and the pipework present, waiting for a faulty to be installed. That may well have happened by now.

 

 

A faulty what?

 

:unsure:

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