innate
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Posts posted by innate
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I hear from a reliable source that Bernard Aubertin is to build a new organ for St John's College, Oxford - 'picture of case to follow when I can work out how to get it onto here (can anyone help please? - I have a pdf. version)
'Should be good - and nice to have one a bit closer than Aberdeen or Paris!
AJJ
Pedale
Bourdon 16
Principal 8
Bourdon 8
Principal 4
Mixture III
Buzéne 16
Sacqueboute 8
I/II III/II II/III
Tremblant
Appel Buzène 16’
No pedal couplers?
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duplicate deleted :angry:
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St Mary the Virgin, Oxford perhaps - see next Wednesday R3 Choral Evensong. :angry:
Certainly looks interesting. Here are the details:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/choralevensong/pip/cnc4g/
but there doesn't seem to be a Mag and Nunc.
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But it has been. Cranmer would be spinning in his grave if he knew that we sing hymns. Metrical psalms he might have allowed, but certainly not the bulk of what appears in our hymn books. And the concept of male altos is more than a bit iffy too.
Articles Of Religion - XL
Concerning the alto voyce and Its Use in worship
It is a thing playnely repugnant to God's word for a man of mature years to sing the praises of God in a queanly voyce. Rather, as Saint Paul saith, men shall be men and boys shall be boys. Or something.
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Ah, a man after my own heart! Not only do I take it in crotchets, I also play it with four-square Victorian homophony. It's a sort of protest, you understand.
I'm not antipathetic to "Praise Songs" or anything in The Source, Junior Praise etc. per se although some of the material is very weak, musically and lyrically. What really annoys me are the vacuous expression and tempo markings. There's one marked "hymn-like"; do they mean dirge-like? And there seems to be little awareness of the difference between 4/4 and ¢. For me coming to much of this material for the first time it can be disarming to be told after a service: "It doesn't go like that."
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Hadn't thought of the reed option - thanks.
I always play these 3 as a "Triptyche" so to speak, and cannot decide if they warrant changes of registration, or whether to use the same registration for all 3 and allow the differing textures and times (3/4, 6/8, 9/8) to provide contrast. Or whether to be "cumulative" - eg 8 / 84 / 842........ Thoughts please.
It's never occurred to me before but given the significant numerological references in CÜIII perhaps there could be a numerological aspect to the registration. 3 stops; 6 stops; 9 stops, perhaps. I'm not being completely serious here, but it could be a starting point if you are "stuck". Actually I imagine the second one to be more "intimate" than the others.
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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'?...
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?
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Well, there are transcriptions, and then others transcriptions.
Take Karg-Elert's for example: his Bach, Händel and even the famous
Schubert's Ave Maria are gems, and genuine organ music so well
this was made.
Pierre
Not to mention Bach's transcriptions for organ of orchestral music by Vivaldi. Should they be added to the dustbin too? Not Walford Davies but pretty far from the starting point in only a couple of messages!
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I have felt for some time that this issue is nothing else but a storm in a teacup.
But the DTI. with their vague and misleading statements, did nothing to stop that storm from growing. It seems that the Home Office isn't the only Government department run on a combination of ignorance and incompetence.
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I see with somewhat wry amusement that some modern digital organs have `unsteady wind' as an option.
I spent much of my life trying to get rid of unsteady wind in pipe organs.
FF
It's a matter of taste, I suppose. In a real pipe organ there ia something slightly unnatural about completely steady wind and "perfect" tuning. I prefer the kind of organ where there is a subtle "random" element to the sound which means no two chords sound the same! Of course, electronic substitutes are unnatural by definition, and their designers put their best efforts into making them appear to sound as natural as possible.
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Any suggestions of a specification to replace the current instrument?
Oh, yes. But unfortunately I can't post the stoplist here as it's over 10000 stops. Alternatively you could use that online stop dictionary and pick one of each.
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I hope this topic doesn't upset anyone. Apologies in advance!
I wondered if anyone cared to suggest the 20 best hymns; the hymns that all churchgoers should be introduced to, both musically and theologically. Ancient, traditional, modern - the choice is yours.
And no fights about musical styles, please.
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Vater Unser from Clavierubung III; or just possibly O Mensch bewein.
I'd count both Vater Unsers from CÜIII as the greatest pieces of music. And O Mensch Bewein', and anything else from CÜIII but not the rest of the Orgelbüchlein.
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Off at a slight tangent: IMHO any builder who provides less than 56 notes on a manual is being particularly unhelpful to anyone who does not want a restricted repertoire. I was blessed with a neo-classical Dutch organ c.1980 for seven years of my organisting. I asked 'why do we not have at least a 56 note compass?' (manuals stopped at F) The answer came: apparently top F sharp and G are never provided on new organs in Holland. Since pipes are cheapest at the top of the compass and the action/chest space required is also the least, I found this economy a constant annoyance.
Trinity College, Cambridge only goes up to F on the manuals; I seem to remember that Gillian Weir included Transports de Joie in her opening recital!
Has anyone played the Bach Pièce d'Orgue on an organ with the low B on the pedals? I once saw a suggestion that this was Bach nodding in the direction of the French ravallement (?) where the pedal reeds go down to the A below bottom C. Sumner lists the compasses of all the organs Bach "lived with" and I think none of them had the top F in the pedals that he uses in several pieces.
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But be careful about complaints of repition - in a few weeks time many churches will use the hymn "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" - just count how many times that text uses the word "Hallelujah"! (and rightly so).
What about the Hallelujah Chorus in Messiah? And all those, to me beautiful, repetitive litanies and alleluias in the old Catholic liturgy? Or the 9-fold Kyrie? Or even Praise Him, Praise Him, Praise Him, Praise Him from Praise. my soul, the King of Heaven? I think we should examine our own hearts before knocking the sentiments of others. And never knock anyone for asserting their legal copyright.
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I thought the injunction was "be still and know that I am God" - not jump about and make a noise.
For every "Be still" injunction in the bible I bet there's a "Make a joyful noise", "Shout unto the Lord", "Praise Him upon the clashing cymbals". And didn't that arch-conservative (with regard to music in worship) Ralph Vaughan-Williams set the text "O Clap Your Hands"?
The children where I play the organ and the piano sing both sorts of song.
And with regard to "choice" there wasn't much choice in 1662. If you didn't like the BCP then emigration or worship in secret were your only options.
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No, from what I remember it was actually modest, and was derelict. I have to say that any money spent on that would be far better spent on the organ. There are scores of theatres around and even they struggle to survive. I suppose even that cannot be said without causing another huge debate
. No one can have an opinion. I'm not sure what theatres you may be comparing it with but this link:
http://www.alexandrapalace.com/theatre.html
says it has (had/would have) a capacity of 2000 and is approximately the same size as Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which also had organs in the past.
May I suggest in the nicest possible way that you cheer up a bit, Richard.
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Does anyone have any idea what sort of organ Phelps was going to build for Christ Church in the 1970s? I should imagine that it would be tracker, werkprinzip, 3/4 manuals and possibly using the Smith/Scott cases; in other words pretty much like the Rieger that they ended up with. But would it have had the French stoplist? Might it have been non-equal temperament? Any Phelps theories about building and voicing for such an acoustic? Just curious.
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Back on the subject of electric verses pipes and house organs - it's worth bearing in mind many organ builders now make small 2 manual and pedal organs of about 5 or so stops. Usually, these end up in the £25-£35k bracket - so what you would expect to pay for a new 5'6'' to 6'6'' Grand piano by a reputable maker. And they are very much the equal of a good grand. I guess, given a few years there will be second hand ones about, roughly in line with 2nd hand grand piano prices...
For those of us, who don't have pockets or space for these, then, just like clavinovas, there are your Wyvens and Viscounts at a fraction the cost... I see quite a lot of parrallels between the house organ market and the piano market.
So what is the home pipe organ equivalent of, say, a Yamaha C3 Grand? Just over 6 foot in length and to be found in many recording studios even if not a professional pianist’s first choice they retail for c.£10000. I'd be in the market for a 2/P, 3 stop pipe organ at a similar price but couldn't think of going to £25-£35K.
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If you mean where I think you mean, may I point out that some of the cartoons and virtually all of the comments are actionable - and that I rather like my job....
I wonder if you should seek legal opinion as to whether a handwritten comment in a book in an organ loft constitutes publication of a libel.
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I remember accompanying Howell's Like As The Hart at Southwark Cathedral for a visiting choir on a Saturday evensong. A passing train obliterated the start of the three final chords and the minister came in with the prayers while I was still playing.
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The second point - surely no-one tunes in a 'mathematically accurate equal temperament' - the octaves would be too wide. Most organ builders (and, for that matter, piano and harpsichord tuners) have their own system of modified 'equal' temperament tuning. Fourths and fifths (in 'white-note' keys) are often bent one way or another, for example. This is surely why each key has its own tone-colour. To my ears, D-flat major is a richer sound than D major - which I find brighter than E-flat. I also find G major brighter than A major, to name but three examples.
At the risk of wading in with both feet where I have no right to tread, I think the reasons for "stretch" tunings (where octaves aren't exactly octaves) on the piano (and for all I know the harpsichord) is to do with something called inharmonicity which is something to do with the harmonics/partials of a particular note not being exactly "in tune" with the fundamental, particularly the first harmonic/second partial.
The key-colour thing is a real can of worms: there are very good reasons for key colour on, for example, string instruments (where the open strings have a palpable effect on the resonance of the instrument) and un-modernised woodwind instruments (where notes involving compicated "forked" fingerings have a very different basic timbre to those using simple fingerings); however modern playing techniques and instrument design have the elimination of such vagaries at their core. I would ask what differences you find, in terms of key colour, between performances of the Bach Magnificat in its original version in Eb and its revised version in D and, and this is the clincher, between performances of both versions at A440 and performances of both versions at A415 (the common modern standard for "Baroque" instruments). Also remember that when Bach was writing the "48" he transposed existing pieces to fill up his scheme.
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Schwimmers per se are not a problem; what is the problem, is the very aim
at "rock-steady wind" in the false organ, that is, the ancient or ancient style
one.
The true baroque organs we have in Belgium display as awkward a wind
as Steinkirchen's description by C.Fisk.
I seem to remember reading of some modern organs where the winding can be switched at the console from "rock-steady" to "musically-natural-breathing". Have I imagined this?
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I would suggest that one has to be careful here, because even the slightest editing mark is covered by copyright....even if that is but a correction to the original composer's mistakes.
Of course, it works both ways. I doubt that a certain publisher of the Bossi Scherzo would take legal action if you copied THEIR mistakes onto Sibelius!!
MM
How I wish I'd trained as a copyright lawyer! I've heard that music publishers put *deliberate* mistakes in their editions in order to be able to prove copyright infringement (as is also done by map publishers). I would like to see some of the more erratic editions sued under the Sale Of Goods Acts! James Joyce's Ulysses was republished in a new "corrected" edition in order to establish a new copyright for the benefit of the publishers, the Joyce estate, and the unfortunately named editor Herr Gabler. Scrutiny has shown the new edition to contain 3000 changes from the old one, only 1000 of which may be improvements!
Digital Futures....?
in Nuts and bolts
Posted
I've played the Lammermuir at St Margaret's, Putney a few times and really enjoyed it. Is it an exception?
MJH