innate
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Posts posted by innate
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It all depends how far you have to go in preparing for `prepared' stop. In my experience I can only remember about 5% of `prepared for' items I came across ever being fitted. I have come across quite a few third keyboards that have been fitted to a `prepared for' console, which must have cost a bit but were never completed by being connected to anything.
Even with mechanical action a third manual with no stops could be designed as a coupling manual. I've no direct experience of such an arrangement but I can imagine how it could make a neo-classical organ slightly more adaptable for romantic music.
As for prepared stops, I'm surprised how often these turn up on new European organs (according to websites!). I'm sure that once it seems the church can get by without the pedal trombone or the Positive sesquialtera it must be hard to generate the impetus to raise the additional funds.
Michael
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I'm jesting, of course. It's just that invariably your (and DHM's) responses have indicated a fundamental avoidance of the point, and answered the question with another question (and, of course, details of the next sales pitch!). I know how good the product is, and don't understand why you think these fripperies make it better. I've received a good few private emails in the last day or two which clearly indicate I'm not alone in believing they don't and that their presence leaves the product with less integrity than it had before, in a world where having the actual sound of the pipes is the USP, the only important thing and the only truly replicable part of the experience.
Just to clarify, I have no connection with the HW product. In fact I have never seen or used Hauptwerk; I've been arguing about principle here. It strikes me that the HW project, in computer terms, is in the "emulator" category and the "calcant" provision is completely understandable in those terms in addition to its, possibly subjective, musical worth.
And in case you are unaware, the "I've had loads of private emails that support me" claim is not generally respected in cyberspace.
Michael
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Don't drag me into this! I'm on his side, not yours!!!!!
I was trying to kill two birds with one stone. And failing, it would appear.
Michael
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Name three. In particular, three things that have replaced something that went before, and have faithfully reproduced all its inessential quirks as well as its functionality.
I was thinking of aspects of performance practice and instrument design eg tracker actions, upperwork, non-ET tuning, ornamentation, articulation - rather than anything brand new. Generally, what comes after is less than it's cracked up to be.
By all means let's have a Calcanten stop that rings a bell at the treadmill to tell the hapless operative to start generating power for the organ, without which the organ honestly won't play. At least it would serve some purpose and not be an utter sham.Why are you so incensed by a little piece of software? As David suggests, get incensed by something massively offensive like Microsoft Windows or Rupert Murdoch instead. And what is sham about an on-switch, for heaven's sake?
Michael
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The editions are out of copyright if they are older than ?25 years and the composer has been dead 70. Witness what happened when the rule used to be 50 years and Kalmus produced their copies of the Hamelle editions. You can still buy these of course even though the rules changed again to 100 and then to 70 years. Everything is open season from 13th March unless the editions are very recent !!
I think that the 70 years counts from Dec 31 of the year in which the creator dies, so technically Widor won't become public domain until 31.12.2007 although I'd be surprised if Hamelle got shirty with you between now and then. On the other hand David Titterington's edition of THE toccata (the one with the misprints) may well be protected until 70 years after his (DT's) demise. Cf. the relatively recent "corrected" edition of Ulysses, which was, it seems certain, brought out specifically to extend copyright income for the estate and the publishers.
I am unaware of a hundred-year rule ever being in place in the UK. Can you illuminate me?
Michael
Sorry to reply to my own post, but to clarify Mr B's point about editions: I think the 25 year copyright is for the typesetting and layout, not the editorial content. But copyright law is extremely complicated and I may well have got this round my neck.
Michael
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Great analogy!
If we continue down the laudable path of attempting to reduce our carbon footprints then it's quite possible that we'll have to wind up our Hauptwerk machines every ten minutes or so, like those clockwork portable radios. Or perhaps each house will have a treadmill.
By the way, I really can't see anything wrong with HW recreating the blower switches and wind noises. If you don't like HW's approach don't use their products. And remember, lots of things that we didn't like or couldn't understand a few years ago are now standard.
Michael
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Further to the "what would we like Santa to bring us?" thread there's a nice film near the bottom of this page that sums up why we all need a lovely little practice organ.
http://www.per-o.de/uebungsorgel.html
Michael
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I have to go into physical and mental training for "Dear Lord and Father.....give me strength!"
I find that "fff" to "ppp" is a problem on a tracker-organ without pistons or at least 2 registrands, but I've worked out a method.
[description of stop control snipped as it has already been quoted once]
MM
This is one of the funniest things I have ever read. I'm grateful I didn't have a mouthful of tea at the time. Many thanks.
Michael
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Shouldn't that be Montre de 243.8cm?
The cm is not a scientific unit (SI) and should be reserved for domestic use.
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It occurred to me, now I've got some spare time and an active website, would anyone be interested in an on-line organ music Misprint Corner? Not so much a bit of naming and shaming of publishers as a bit of constructive feedback -maybe even a resource to serious students. I could stock quite a good page or two over time, though this would be a lot faster and more complete if others decided to add their six-penny-worth as well. These do not have to be proven misprints, so much as corrections that make real musical sense. I would acknowledge all contributions publicly.
What a marvellous idea! Maybe there would need to be some scale of certainty about suggested corrections and also an extra page for printing infelicities eg notes out of vertical alignment (many instances in Bärenreiter), specific bad page turns etc. And what about copies that fall apart after two weeks' use?
There are some existing resources eg an article in OR a few years ago listing corrections to Vierne which, copyright permitting, could be incorporated into your website.
There would also be a chance to cross-reference different editions of the same work.
Sometimes publishers put small errors in deliberately, to catch copyright infringers, as happens with Ordnance Survey maps.
I've often wondered if the Sale of Goods Acts (UK) could be used against the shops selling error-ridden music, but perhaps we organists might then be held to account for errors in our performances.
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But are there actually any genuine, reasonably complete, survivals from the period?
I agree about the many later, but still historic organs around - but that really is a different issue.
I think the very least we can do, collectively, to develop our understanding of the organ music of previous ages is to make some, however speculative, examples of significant types of organ from the past where none survive. To that end, here in England, we need something from the late Tudor period and something from the Restoration. Other European countries have done much to foster interest in their indigenous organ "schools" in a way that we should emulate. The EEOP is a very laudable step in the right direction, as far as I'm concerned.
Michael
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I know that these discussion topics frequently wander off down unexpected paths, but surely this one takes the biscuit. Organ anoracks may be sad people, but who in their right mind wants to read endless postings about keyboard shortcuts?
Please get back on topic or let it die.
I'm sorry you don't consider the discussion appropriate. Every on-line group I've ever been part of, e-lists, Usenet, and boards such as this one, has had threads that digress to a discussion of computer keyboard shortcuts for accents. It's almost inevitable when you consider the means of communication. There's nothing particularly anorakish about organists in this regard.
Michael
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Hi
I use character map frequently for NPOR entries, as the editing software is a basic text editor, the normal WIndows shortcuts don't work.
Tony
The "normal" accents, eg ü, Ü, é, è, ç, â, ñ, are all very easy on a Mac; there is something called Keyboard Viewer that helps you find the keys to press. To help the Polish au pair I turned on the Polish keyboard layout and there were the l's with slashes and everything! And, Tony, I'd imagine the keyboard shortcuts would work in a Text Editor too, though I'm no expert.
Michael
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I know exactly what you mean. My worst experience of this kind occurred when I accompanied a carol service for pre-school children and their parents/carers. The woman leading the service announced the first carol, then immediately launched into singing it without giving me a chance to play an intro. The congregation (presumably used to this) joined in. My first reaction was to get up from the piano and take my leave. However, I decided that to do so would make me look stroppy (slightly bothered about this) or incompetent (very bothered about this). I ended up working out the key in which the carol was being sung and joining in (very ‘positively’) at the beginning of v2. The same thing happened in the second carol. In the third and fourth, I came in immediately after ‘We will now sing’ before the tile had even been given. The following year, the request for me to play was answered with, ‘Oh, I’m ever so sorry, I’ve already got a booking on that day’.
It would be good if someone could have a word with the over-enthusiastic service leader to explain how things should work. Otherwise she'll carry on alienating musicians until there are none left.
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From a couple of practice sessions before FRCO in 1981 I remember that St Augustine's, Queensgate, South Kensington, had something odd in the way of couplers. Now I've looked it up:
http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N00947
I see it's the Ch to Sw of this thread.
I couldn't decide why this was done here, but a lack of Sw to Ch was less than helpful for preparing for the HNB at Kensington Gore
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Now.....assuming that you've been good boys/girls and Santa is paying,
please specify for him your ideal design/specification of house organ.
Rules:
1. Keep this positive! Don't waste time telling us why you are not choosing something else
2. Keep it appropriate to the space you currently have available. Santa is not giving away new houses.
3. You can't have an organ from somewhere else, this one has to be newly built.
I'd like one of these, as is:
http://www.orgues-bancells.com/show?ar_id=26
But if Santa was paying for a custom job:
Man I 61 notes C-c''''
Principale 8'
Spire Flute 4'
Man II 61 notes C-c''''
Bourdon 8'
Recorder 2'
Pedal 30 notes C-f
Quint 5 1/3'
II/I
II/I 4'
I/P
I/P 4'
II/P
Tremulant to whole organ
Some interesting and useful "well" temperament, eg Niedhart, Valotti, Kellner
Mechanical action, of course.
Maybe, and this would involve a lot of soul-searching and research, either an ability to transpose the organ, or low or high pitch. In other words, not just a practice organ, but one that could be used for intimate performances with other instruments, eg baroque flute, oboe, tromba di tirarsi etc.
If anyone feels like being my Santa I can provide my bank details...
Michael
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Apologies straight away if anyone has already mentioned this (a quick glance down the postings would suggest not) but I have only just got round to reading my copy of Church Times from December 22nd and noticed the following in the "Your Questions / Your Answers" section on page 12, and I quote in full:
"If the church organist posts a critical and offensive comment about the family service and the vicar on a blog for organists, what action should a PCC member take in support of the Vicar?!
I just thought it might be worth bringing this to the attention of everyone?
Best wishes
<pedant mode on>
This isn't a blog, it's a Discussion Board.
<pedant mode off>
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I'm sure that the sort of registration used for congregational hymns in this service has been pretty consistent over quite a few years now - Great to mixture and Full Swell at the minimum. This seems to me to have been used virtually without relief and totally regardless of the style of the hymn or the meaning of the words.
Someone else has said it and I concur: this is more-than-likely intended to dominate and force the congregation on and (frankly) I sometimes I think the King's Carols congregation show the better taste in their choice of speed.
Are you implying that there's something deliberately antagonistic going on, on the part of either congregation, Director of Music, or both? That would add an extra frisson to such a global event.
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The Mayhew Bach ...
The editor was Alan Ridout. <snip>
If his source text was that of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe you could be onto a real winner. On the other hand...
The editorial work of the NBA is still protected by copyright. Some of the "misprints" in Bärenreiter will be to help establish copyright infringement. Anyone care to do a note-by-note comparison?
Michael
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He was talking about Bärenreiter
Bärenreiter has misprints of its own but the scholarship behind the text is thorough; the motivation of the editors was generally to present Bach's final intention. To be fully informed of how the final text was arrived at you need to read the Critische Bericht (?sp.) that is printed to accompany each volume of music; unfortunately they are quite expensive and, I think, only available in German. Try your nearest university music faculty library.
Michael
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The Preston disc is a very interesting recording. I have a copy of the 1983 DG recording of the Rebuke and Liszt in it's original case and condition. I was lucky it was given to me but what e-bay was charging was a bit much. Good performances and organ in reasonable tune (apart from the fugue in the Rebuke plus the 2ft on the great is a little unbalanced).
However might I mention another good interpretation is the Roger Fisher rendition of the Rebuke in his early EMI disc from Chester Cathedral?
Oh and Keith John has done a good Rebuke on the Priory Label!
Thy Rebuke hath broken his heart!
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New College is looking to appoint a full time assistant organist: http://www.newcollegechoir.co.uk/news.htm. I can't help wondering why. Is the college playing safe in the face of the generally declining standard of organ scholars? Being one of the top four organ scholarships, I wouldn't have thought they need worry about lack of talent yet.
Or maybe being brilliant isn't quite good enough?
Or... what?
Top four? King’s, John’s, Christ Church, Magdalen are the other fully-choral foundations at Oxbridge, with Trinity and Clare at Cambridge giving them a run for their money.
But to answer your question, perhaps Dr Higginbottom is scaling back his involvement with the choir. Christ Church has generally had an Assistant Organist as well as an organ scholar in modern times. Given the mention of some work in New College School, perhaps they saw an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.
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Andrew Fletcher once told me that he thought that Urtext was all very well, but that when the source contained obvious misprints / copyists slips etc etc, he didn't think it was doing anybody any favours to reprint them...
I'd play from facsimiles of the original editions or MSS if I could get hold of them - that way I'd feel closer to the composer. Certainly there's something about the way Messiaen or Duruflé looks on the page that informs, if only subconsciously, how we perceive the music, and there's no reason that turn of the 17th Century German "house style" wouldn't do the same for JSB. Although I suppose a blind musician's perception would bypass the written appearance.
Michael
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I was particularly fond of the ESSO (?) advert which used the nachtmusik from Mahler's Seventh Symphony... Fab!
Castrol GTX, I think. Very good use of music in a very well-made series of adverts.
Michael
Things That Really Annoy You
in The Organ
Posted
The usefulness of a read through the Tuner’s Book to the visiting organist has been mentioned on this board before. If you prefer visitors not to write in the Tuner’s Book then keep it out of sight and provide a sheet of useful tips for the visitor, if you think things might need spelling out.
In the case of a prepared division or stops how is the visitor supposed to know?