Vox Humana

It certainly was fine when I accompanied an evensong for a visiting choir there 30 years ago. As for the assertiveness of the bigger stop, it depends where you are. The choirmaster had put down Stanford in A, especially in order to savour its effect in the Nunc dimittis. We were all rather alarmed to discover that you could hardly hear it in the choirstalls. Since the smaller Tuba wasn't over-loud either, the only solution was to use both Tubas together! No doubt anyone standing west of the screen would have been flattened against the west door, but it only just passed muster in the choir. From what MM says, they've now rectified the situation with an east-facing reed. I'm not surprised.

That's really what I meant. I was wondering what the point of the Larigot was in my scheme, not the purpose of the stop per se. OK, so out it goes, to be replaced with an Orch Oboe. I'm going through a bit of an anti-mutation phase at the moment. It's a reaction to my bad habits acquired when learning the organ when the neo-Baroque was all the rage: one day I realised that I was automatically reaching for the bloody things every time I needed a solo combination (either that or a reed). It's fair enough some of the time, but there are other alternatives!

I think that link should be: http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.d.../602070316/1004 I liked the quote by Allen Harrah that he funded the organ because he "wanted to give something back to the community"! http://www.putnamlive.com/FORRESTBURDETTEORGAN.html How many English churches have such munificent benefactors? Er... um...

I hope you interrogated the printer long and hard about his/her musical credentials, Paul!

Thanks, Pierre. I agree entirely. But for the purpose of my unashamedly (and unapologetically!) eclectic design I'm envisaging a compromise that will do duty for either. I don't want to have to sacrifice other stops so I can have room for both!

Thanks, Friedrich. In that case it would have to be a Nazard since, in my view, a principal-toned Quint, while quite nice to have as a luxury, is in no way essential to a chorus. What makes me slightly uncomfortable about it is that many British organists will insist on drawing Nazards with diapason choruses without ever stopping to worry about whether it blends or not. The idea was to have the Cornet on the Great, but separated into individual ranks. To my mind it sits there best for both French and English Baroque music. I've never seen much point in putting flute-toned Nazards and Tierces on a Choir Organ unless they are the quiet, English Romantic type. On the other hand, for the sake of variety I quite like not having all the mutations crowded onto one manual, which is why I placed the Larigot on the Positive. But I'm now beginning to wonder what use that Larigot serves. Perhaps I should ditch it in favour of a proper Orchestral Oboe.

Here's mine. Quite a bit of borrowing, so maybe I'm bending the rules a bit too far. I've assumed money is no object... (Ha! As if!) Great 1. Bourdon 16 2. Open Diapason 8 3. Stopped Diapason 8 4. Principal 4 5. Spindle Flute 4 6. Wide Quint 2 2/3 7. Fifteenth 2 8. Quart 2 9. Tierce 1 3/5 10. Mixture (19.22.26.29) IV 11. Trumpet 8 Swell to Great Positive to Great Swell 12. Geigen Diapason 8 13. Bourdon 8 14. Salicional 8 15. Voix Céleste 8 16. Octave Geigen 4 17. Suabe Flute 4 18. Fifteenth 2 19. Mixture (19.22.26.29) IV 20. Basson 16 21. Trompette 8 22. Hautbois 8 23. Voix Humaine 8 24. Clairon 4 Tremulant Positive (Clarinet enclosed) 25. Rohr Gedeckt 8 26. Gamba 8 27. Nason Flute 4 28. Koppel Flute 2 29. Larigot 1 1/3 30. Cymbel (29.33.36) III 31. Clarinet 8 Tremulant 23a. Voix Humaine (Sw.) 8 32. Imperial Trumpet 8 Swell to Positive Imperial Trumpet on Gt. Pedal 33. Sub Bourdon 32 34. Open Metal 16 35. Sub Bass 16 1a. Bourdon (Gt.) 16 36. Principal 8 37. Flute 8 38. Mixture (15.19.22.26.29) V 39. Bombarde 32 40. Trombone 16 20a. Basson (Sw.) 16 11a. Trumpet (Gt.) 8 20b. Basson (Sw.) 8 20c. Basson (sw.) 4 Great to Pedal Swell to Pedal Positive to Pedal Accessories Great & Ped Combs Coupled Pedal to Sw. Pistons Generals on Sw. toe pistons 8 General thumb pistons 6 thumb pistons for Gt. 8 thumb pistons for Sw. 6 thumb pistons for Pos. 6 toe pistons for Ped. 8 toe pistons for Sw. (or Gen.) Reversible thumb pistons for every coupler Reversible toe piston for Sub Bourdon 32 Reversible toe piston for Bombarde 32 I'm not sure whether all of this would work. * The Great Quint would need to blend with the diapason chorus and contribute effectively to the Cornet décomposé. Is this practical? * The Sw. Salicional to be mildly stringy so as to add character to the Bourdon and the Voix Céleste to be a bit keener. Any reason why the céleste shouldn't go down to CC? * The treble of the Sw. Voix Humaine (from c'') to be voiced in such a way as to be usable as an Orchestral Oboe substitute in the treble register. I'm not sure about borrowing it on the Positive. It would have to be voiced to blend with the Sw. Bourdon, so the latter might not accompany it well, but I suppose it would still be usable against the Salicional. The Pedal could be criticised for being a bit lacking in 16ft flue support, but personally I'm quite happy to go for clarity over woofiness!

Does Christ Church have a flat pedalboard by any chance? I do hope so!

Oh it's definitely a different bloke. The chap I knew wasn't nearly so "original" as our American maestro (or should that be maelstrom?)

Hmm. Does this explain why he never ever wrote a difficult pedal part? I've always wondered why on earth not. A full-organ tirade on the pedals... doesn't it seem a missed opportunity? Or are/were the pedals at La Trinité naff?

Funnily enough, when I was a sixth-former (that dates me!) a student joined our year who quite fancied himself as an organist and whose standard of performance was not so very dissimilar to Mr Nobile's. He had very facile fingers and wrist movements, but very little sense of aim. And he only ever seemed to play flashy pieces; I don't recall ever hearing him play a gentle one. In short, his playing was all thud and blunder. You couldn't get this through to him, of course. I genuinely think he had no concept of how bad his playing really was. He admitted to having had some mental problems a few years earlier, which may go some way towards explaining things. It was all very sad; he could have made a really good organist if he'd kept within his capabilities. I do hope he learned better as he matured.

Ah yes. I've noticed too that boys relate more readily to the tessitura of the choirtrainer's voice than the actual sounding pitch.

Yes, Campbell left Ely for Canterbury and of course went from there to Windsor. I can promise you that he didn't promote traditional tone at all. Not that he aimed for a particularly continental tone either. He just got his boys to sing naturally. I know this because I watched him taking choir practices for three years!

Especially for Richard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBXf9rdyJKM OK, perhaps the piece was a bit over-ambitious, but it's not a bad effort. I'd agree that some notes sound a bit strained, but I'd like to hear him do the Mendelssohn.

I've never heard Arthur Wills's choir at Ely, so can't speak with any authority, but are you absolutely sure he cultivated the "English" tone? I wonder where he would have learnt it. As far as I am aware, his only significant appointment before getting the organist's job at Ely was as Sidney Campbell's assistant there. And Campbell most definitely did not train his boys that way. Somehow it just doesn't sound like my image of Dr Wills (but of course my image may be completely out of focus!) As for diction, surely that's an entirely separate issue to tone production? Any voice, however produced, is capable of good diction or bad. I could just as easily accuse traditional head tone production of reducing all the vowels to various variants of "oo". But there's no reason why it has to be like that, of course. And there's no reason why chest voice vowels have to sound wrong either. How you get them to sound right will be different for the two methods, naturally.

Thanks!

Well, now, there's a thing. I guess it depends on what we understand by "passion" and what turns us on, but personally I'd say that "passion" is the notable thing that the traditional English head voice entirely lacks. And that's what I like about it - in the right place. The only time I've ever done Mendelssohn's Hear my prayer was when I had a boy who had a sufficiently dramatic voice and sense of musicianship to deliver "The enemy shouteth" with some real iniquity and hatred. I'd never dream of doing it with an Ernest Lough type voice. Refined purity is quite out of order here. In my view, of course. Mind you, Mendelssohn himself got it totally wrong with that unbearably smug final section. For heaven's sake, didn't he read the words? It's a cry of anguish from a tortured soul desperate for escape! His focusing on the gentle image of the dove missed the point entirely. If I ever do the piece again I'll make sure it's with a thoroughly operatic soprano soloist. And in German.

Alas, I haven't. I'd really, really love to do that piece, but I've always had to shy away from it because I've never had sufficiently hooty altos. A sugary bun does need a good dollop of sticky icing on the top, I think.

Reminds me of the completely opposite reaction I once got. I rather like the piece myself, but the boys complained, "Oh Sir, not that one: it's so slushy!" Cue organist's jaw thudding onto the practice room floor!

Er, yes... but, as a guide, what's wrong with Widor's own marking of crotchet = 100? I've never heard it myself, but a number of people have said to me, "Have you ever heard Widor's own recording? He takes it really slowly". What speed was that, I wonder, and does it bear any relationship to the marking in the score? I seem to remember reading somewhere that Bernard Rose had a maxim: if you're performing a piece of bad music, take it slowly. Very wise words.

In his case Wild Turkey, I guess. Yep, there's certainly a lot of pioneering improvisation and harmonic design in this performance. Yep, can't argue with that either.

If I've understood accurately what singers have told me, you don't teach/learn vibrato. It's something that comes naturally once you are producing your voice in the right way (which, I suspect, begs some questions about whether there is only one "right way" - some early music singers would probably have something to say about that) and, once it's there, the singer needs to develop the technique to control it at will so that it can be minimised where necessary. Hi Richard. Whilst I agree that any form of forcing a voice is going to do it damage - if by "forcing" we mean "straining" - are you suggesting that the head voice is more natural than the chest voice? Both are perfectly natural and there is nothing unnatural about training a boy to develop his chest register fully any more than it is to develop his head voice. They are just different styles of vocal production. Or have I misunderstood your point? Eh? Explain, please! When I was a treble the technique I used to get my top notes was quite definitely the same falsetto I used to sing alto when I was older. I know I'm a bit peculiar, but...

Stephen, many thanks for your illuminating comments. There's some very useful food for thought there. As far as tone production goes, I'll know I've cracked it when I can get a choir to sing the first chord of Byrd's Ave verum with a magic pianissimo that doesn't sound as if the singers are still three-quarters asleep and hungover after a hard night's partying!

Well, yes, this must be physically true. Yet singers do speak of chest resonance and head resonance - at least those I have spoken to do - by which I understand them to mean the degree to which a falsetto-like quality is allowed to imbue the tone (without resorting to full-scale falsetto production of course). That is all I meant to convey by the term "head-voice". As for the resonating spaces I will have to defer to those who know what they are talking about, but again the singers I have spoken to do talk about such things and, whatever the physiology behind it, there is a noticeable difference in resonance between a singer who has had proper voice-production lessons (supported diaphragm and all that) and one who hasn't. Boys voices can develop considerable resonance when taught, but I'm not sure it can ever quite equal those of grown men (though I'm no singer, so I'm happy to be told otherwise).

The Mini Concerto was by John McCabe, wasn't it? I wasn't there myself, but I remember hearing extracts, including McCabe's piece, on the radio. This, of course, was in the days when they played organ music fairly regularly on Radio 3 - or the "Third Programme" as it probably was then. I seem to remember that the broadcast was pretty much the same as the LP that was issued (perhaps that was exactly what they played). Other highlights for me were Lemmens's Storm and Bossi's Étude Symphonique. I've never understood why the Bossi didn't catch on more than it did with English organists - at least I've hardly ever heard of anyone playing it. It's easy listening for an audience, entertaining to watch if you've got a video screen and not half as difficult as it looks or sounds. For those who don't know this piece, there are a few mp3s of it on the web: http://www.musicteachers.co.uk/journal/ind...e=bowyer&page=4 http://dseverin.club.fr/mp3.htm http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/details/66978.asp (nice interpretation, but you can keep the organ)