Pierre Lauwers
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Posts posted by Pierre Lauwers
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Two very interesting comments !
@pcnd: Indeed, one could hesitate. That stop sounds rather dull for a Gamba in the lowest
part of the compass. There, it could be a Principal or a Flute. But it displays quite a degree
of treble ascendancy, gaining both in strenght and timbre in the treble; this is not a Principal
trait, rather an open Flute substitute, and the piece gains much in drama with it.
Oscar Walcker built his Principal with wide scales, after british models, without treble ascendancy.
@MM: Baroque organ = crazy organ. Indeed ! a "reasonable" baroque organ is something
that has been invented in the 20th century.
Pierre
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Paul's knowledge about the british organ will be sadly missed from abroad.
Pierre
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Now I come back to this very interesting point:
"The timbre varied on almost every note."
(Quote)
......And *gerade* (precisely, straight) this IS the baroque organ, even when it is crammed
with foundation stops. The scales you cannot understand with beautiful Excell presentations,
because they are completely empiric, taylored for each situation, each church. Whenever
there is any "rule" behind those scales, they can rely on some kind of "magic thinking"
like "sacred numbers" and so on, a "sense of proportions" that lies completely outside
of any modern "logic".
Most of the time -with, again, the exception of Silbermann and some of his followers- we deal
always here with "mixed scalings", that is, you'd get several distincts "curves" on your Excell file.
Accordingly, the tone varies through the compass.
Is it a fault ? To the eyes of any romantic builder, yes, without doubt. But in polyphonic music
this is quite useful. It is surprising nobody criticize Schnitger organs, which are exactly the same
for that matter.
And yes, this is the kind of "awkward things" Bach assessed and played.....
Pierre
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If this were in Italy, I may be tempted into wondering of this wasn't one of the organs on which John Compton conducted his tonal experiments.
Im sorry Pierre, but I just think it's horrible.
I can#t imagine Bach beating a path to the church door.
Are you sure that's a string?
Could it be the Traverse Flute, because those pipes are overblowing slightly, and sound quite close to an orchestral flute being plaued badly.
MM
It is indeed a Traversflöte (overblowing), but with string's attacks. There are such stops in any Trost
organ as well.
Pierre
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There is not enough string tone for my liking; this is too bland. In addition, I would prefer a stronger gradation of tone. In the quieter moments, the Pedal solo (which sounds like a 4ft. Diapason) is a little too loud. It needs a good, rounded flute timbre for this solo, in order to contrast with the keen(er) string timbre of the clavier.
A nice acoustic ambience, though.
This is a 1938 organ. This means, already "orgelbewegt"'; and what were the first stops that this fashion
suppressed from the Specifications ? The 8' open Flutes !
(Addenda) That there is no 8' open Flute on the first manual you can guess from the voicing of the Gamba
played against the Vox coelestis here.....
Pierre
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A rarity: a 1938 Oscar Walcker organ:
The Adagio is the most interesting by far (and also musically as well!), hear
that voicing.....
Pierre
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There was just a new interesting one posted on Youtube yesterday:
Pierre
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A splendid 1913 thing (with pneumatic action):
Pierre
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As I said, french-speaking builders did not like to hook their reed pipes.
Another interesting manner was Maurice Delmotte's in Belgium (at work
between about 1900 up to 1960!). The 16' Swell reed stop had its first octave
"going through the bottom" of the swellbox, on an auxilliairy chest that lied
at the level of the pedal stops in the basement of the organ; and of course,
that stop was borrowed towards the Pedal. A clever idea.
Pierre
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Halas, MM,
I have been trained first in motor design/ engineering (before shifting to history!) so that I can say
your views, so logical as they may seem, are somewhat out-dated.
And yes, it is out of place here, so I suggest you ask the engineering teams in Japan
directly.
And so let us go back to the organ, and what I mean with "Pneumatic actions need to be trashed
like a modern, high-revving engine".
When pneumatic organs were built, they ever had some form of combination system. Often,
this consisted of some fixed combinations (Voix céleste on II with Flute on I: Foundations; Tutti...)
with rather simple registrations that were often used then.
They also had a number of couplers, among which the absolute hit was the Swell to great in 16',
a sub-octave coupler also.
Now some years afterwards, the fashion changed. The people wanted shrill, top-heavy sound, so that
the sub-octave coupler went out of use as well as the combinations.
But the organ was still used for some decades, before going in the depth of the *forgetting*
.....And then, again some decades later, somewhat funny people like your servant re-discovered
those poor little "bac à cantiques" ("canticles binns", as they were called in Belgium till 1980).
Of course, they did not re-work that good ! they had to be awakened first. Mind you, there are few moving
parts in such a system, but those that exist are all leather, an organic material.
But some functions were, 9 times out of 10, completely out of order and refused to work.
Guess which ones ?
Bingo: the combinations and the sub-octave coupler Swell to great !
So the best way to maintain a pneumatic organ fit "by trashing it" is:
-Play, play, play them again ! with "repertoire", so that all the notes are used, from the lowest
to the highest, on each manual.
-Use the couplers. Activate the combinations, even for a short time or if you won't use them.
The aim is to have absolutely all leather parts moving, at best once a day.
Pierre
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Ah yes! Honda VTEC....spot on engineering.
You can't actually thrash them because they're short-stroke, lean-burn engines; the variable valve-timing producing more low-down torque than would otherwise be available.
They're like a nice sewing-machine.
MM
....And here lies the risk: should you content yourself with this low-down torque,
the longetivity of the engine will suffer. Give it revs!
With a pneumatic action it is the same.
Pierre
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Indeed, there were half-length 16' reed stops in the romantic period ! an example
was the "Tuba magna" of Cavaillé-coll, a stop he used in swellboxes when the available
height was unsufficient for a full-length one. And he did not "hook" his resonators as often
as the british builders did.
We speak here of a chorus stop of course; among the soloists, the half-length ones are numerous.
Pierre
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I'm trying to get my head around this Pierre.
You seem to be suggesting that top quality materials and thrashing an engine will make it last longer.
A formula One engine revs to 17,000 rpm, it uses the most exotic materials (including magnesium), sodium cooled valves and a variety of exotic steels and alloys. The working life is about 600 miles, after which it needs to re-built at a cost of approximately 300,000 Euros.
Makes organ-building look cheap doesn't it?
MM
No, I did not talk over a F 1 engine, but rather a Honda VTEC one. And yes, that one will last longer
if trashed enough to reach its optimal temperature.
And yes a pneumatic action, if it can stand to be forgetted for 50 years, likes to be trashed as well;
the more you play it, the better it works. Preferably everyday -the same is true fror the electro-pneumatic
action-.
Pierre
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"Were pneumatic actions ever designed to last centuries without any maintenance, unlike small tracker actions?"
(Quote)
Of course, this we shall never know. But what we DO know is that the system which does endure the least badly
to be neglected is well that one (the tubular-pneumatic action).
I have been teached (in the 70's already) that "quality" and "reliability" are actually subjective notions, in that
there are many acceptions of this.
You can have, for example, two engines:
-One old simple thing in cast-iron, with lateral valves, traditionnal alimentation, ignition and so on; this thing
can last for decades, but you have to maintain it all 2,500 Miles, or it will soon refuse to start. And you'd better
drive it rather cool, avoiding high revs.
-One modern, all-aluminium unit, with double overhead camshafts, electronic injection and ignition, revving
up to 8,000 RPM or more.......Good for more than 100.000 Miles with nearly no maintenance, even if you
trash it, even MORE if you indeed DO trash it.
But whenever something goes wrong, any repair will be more time-and-cost intensive.
There are also such cultural differencies about the assessing of the finish, handling, and so on.
So according to your technical training, you will find one system or the other "better", while actually, the real
point lies with the quality of materials and workmanship, whatever the system may be.
Pierre
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"Music is not a living theme park for organ-historians."
(Quote)
Mind that some of us might belong to a jurassic one !
Pierre
(LOL!!!)
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Here is something fully "Post-romantic", with another kind of attacks, as worthwhile
as the( true!) baroque ones in the Casparini organ:
There are no "good" nor "bad" periods !
Pierre
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Indeed, MM,
Late romantic and post-romantic organ music can be very fast:
.....With smooth attacks. This said, it is true even a Diapason Phonon has transient attacks ! You simply
hear less of them than in others cases.
As for those "would-be-controlable" transient named "Chiff", I always considered them as a fad.
But when you hear the CD Mr Urbaniak and Rost recorded on the Casparini organ of Adakavas,
an organ with much transients, you note the difference with the "modern chiff" !
While this one resembles to something like this:
......(plopss).......tik........TSCHACK!!!!......tschukk...... etc, rather at random than "controlled", what you hear
with the Casparini organ is rather a matter of articulation, each pipe attacking with a conson, this conson
being never louder as the note itself, and strictly the same with each note:
tatatatatatatata....
It is quite different, and the very worf "chiff" becomes inaccurate.
See here about the CD recorded at the Casparini organ of Adakavas:
http://www.vargonai.lt/cd_urbaniak_rost_adakavas_en.htm
Pierre
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During my next life !
Pierre
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You have Mail, Pcnd !
Here is a wonderful example of an "old nail" -this time with electro-pneumatic action-
which I would place immediately under legal protection (Denkmalschutz, Monument historique):
Other vidéo:
This 1931 organ, entirely devoid of any pretention in aspect and materials, deserves a careful
listening. Those two videos are enough to realize how a gem it is.
And by "legal protection", I mean all of it, old electrical bits included. The fad of replacing
old electric material with modern electronic stuff must be stopped !
(We can of course protect the system with modern, rapid fuses)
Pierre
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I would disagree with this on the evidence of several good recordings (by top-class players), and by the fact that I have first-hand experience of both playing and listening to polyphonic music played on such choruses.
I am sorry, but I am not sure what you mean here. I can find no dictionary listing for 'lisibility' *. Do you mean [a word synonymous with] 'clarity'? If so, I would suggest that the opposite is true. I find that the tierce rank sounding as part of a chorus in polyphonic music actually obfuscates the clarity of the music - as opposed to the aural transparency of a good chorus which contains only quint mixtures.
* This is not intended to be snide or derogatory, Pierre. Your language skills are far superior to my own.
No panic, Sean, you are always welcome !
As for the "tierce matter", I think that at this point, we should go togheter to Angermünde, and then to
Saint-Maximin du Var, and discuss the thing again afterwards with a Bouillabaisse and a Rosé de Provence.
I *know* how I am *right*, but, in the same time, I also know that if I were you, I would express
the same views as you. The matter is too complicated to be sorted out by the Web !
Pierre
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Except that we cannot know for sure exactly how it sounded - and how it felt to play when it was new. You also state that the restored action has given trouble lately. Surely this proves the point Heckelphone and I made on another thread? If a newly restored action is already giving trouble, was its restoration wise - and was it a responsible use of resources?
As there are already many such organs that have been restored on the continent, without troubles afterwards,
it would maybe be interesting to have some of your pneumatic organs restored by our builders, in order
to pave the way. I could suggest some names by PM (No mystery, you know them all...)
Pierre
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"initial transient speech"
(Quote)
This is the problem: as the aim, in late-romantic playing, is to avoid those transient altogheter,
you are still seeking something else here.
Pierre
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Does anyone here know a British organist who regards his or her pneumatic action as a viable modern-day solution to making music, rather than a quirky but interesting relic to be carefully nurtured and tolerated? If so, please invite them along.
The same can be said about the tracker organ -even more an old nail-, the next step of this way of thinking is to give up the pipes altogheter and go for the toasters, the *modern*-day "progress".
Pierre
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Your original statement that "the principle of pneumatic action is not to be questioned" has jumped forward two spaces, six to the left and turned around three times to get to this; the action is OK because this is what the music should sound like, and the music sounds like that because the action responds like that. The only alternative you admit is a chiffy neo-classical box of squeaks, which has nothing to do with the argument at all as far as I can tell.
That's not the debate we're having. Nobody disputes that pneumatic action is an acceptable way of making pipes sound, and indeed some of them last quite a long time with the right combination of weather, attention and luck. You said the principle of pneumatic action is not to be questioned. Therefore, would you, in all seriousness, build one from scratch today in a country with long-ish dry summers, long-ish centrally heated winters and about four weeks of moderately warm and humid weather between each? I sincerely hope not.
I think that before condeming all the alternatives as 'neo classical' you might address my earlier point; that the widespread adoption of the electropneumatic action happened because of the widespread difficulty, expense and inconvenience of having an action which was characterised by being slow in response, unpredictable on cold/hot/dry/wet days, and exceedingly complicated to fix should (say) something go wrong with one note of one coupler. Something better came along which kept the best features of the old and combined them with speed, reliability, convenience, compactness and a very low price.
(That's not to say that I'd bin every pneumatic action. I wouldn't. But I'm curious about why your defence of them has to go so far into the realms of ideology that it begins to lose credibility.)
The funny thing is the fact that E-F Walcker adopted the Kegellade -first step towards pneumatic chests, as well as the Barker lever was the first step towards pneumatic actions- because he met huge problems with the classical slider-chest in....Russia.
To say the pneumatic organs that have succeeded through long perios owe it to "chance" or "care" is.....Maybe somewhat ideological. Sorry, but the ones who did it in Belgium were precisely those that were deprived of any care at all!
To build new from scratch ? I would certainly do. And to do it in continental, severe climates ? After some testing on a limited basis, maybe. It would certainly be interesting to have, for example, a pneumatic chest as a temporary extension of an existing organ, tested in a church were the conditions are difficult.
The saying that such actions are "slow, unpredictable" etc would be disagreed with by several builders, in Germany, but also in France, who have especialized with it since years.
Pierre
Youtube
in General discussion
Posted
There are indeed two discussions in one for the moment here.....The awkward thing was the baroque
Traversflöte in another video.
Well, I could fill some pages with Widor. 35 years ago, it was customary to despise his music
completely; nowadays, some pages are fashionnable again......Save the slow pieces, which are deemed
just a bit higher as supermarket music.
I strongly disagree with this !
Those "little" pices -like this Adagio- are completely underrated gems. In them lies the true dramatic
in Widor's music. I myself rate it 10 times higher than the Toccata. It is in those moments that Widor
goes beyond virtuosity, towards some depth in expression.
The 10th organ symphony, the "Romane" -90% of which is made of rather slow movements and rather
light registrations- express that trend to its fullfilment.
PROVIDED -of course-, in both cases, the player understands that and plays accordingly; in this
video at Kaunas, the organist does. And I guess he choosed the "wrong" (and indeed it is wrong if we follow
Widor's remarks) stop just because of that dramatic ascendancy, an ascendancy we can be sure existed
in the Flute stop of Cavaillé-Coll Widor himself used.
Pierre