davidh
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Posts posted by davidh
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Not wanting to divert this thread away from organs, on piano tuning I'm intrigued at the reference to the three strings being detuned. Perhaps this is necessary on the (music interrupting) brilliance of Steinway and Yamaha to soften them up, but on a softer Bechstein for chamber use, the tuning of the three strings to be not just in tune but to respond in phase, brings a laser-like definition to the sound.
See Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_acoustics which reads:
"The three strings create a coupled oscillator with three normal modes. Since the strings are only weakly coupled, the normal modes have imperceptibly different frequencies. But they transfer their vibrational energy to the sounding-board at significantly different rates.
The normal mode in which the three strings oscillate together is most efficient at transferring energy since all three strings pull in the same direction at the same time. It sounds loud, but decays quickly. This normal mode is responsible for the rapid staccato "Attack" part of the note.
In the other two normal modes the strings do not all pull together, e.g., one will pull up while the other two pull down. There is slow transfer of energy to the sounding-board, generating a soft but near-constant "Sustain"."
Clavichords are normally strung in pairs, and part of the art of tuning is to make sure that the two strings of a pair are ONLY JUST not quite perfectly in tune. It's easy to verify that the tiniest tweak, not perceptible as a different in pitch, can change the balance of a note from loud and coarse with little sustain into a quieter longer sustained response. It was perhaps misleading when I wrote that multiple strings on the piano are tuned to slightly different notes, when I should have said that they are minutely detuned. The balance is a matter of taste.
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The Well-Tempered Organ by Charles A. Padgham is a fine little publication that should lie next to your music - certainly in those libraries of folk who get asked to provide programmes for tempered instruments. It is so well written with many hints and helps for tuning too as well as giving at a glace the excellent keys, the good keys, the poor keys and those you should avoid!
Positif Press, Oxford. ISBN 0 906894 13 1
All the best.
Nigel
Unfortunately it has been "temporarily out of print" for quite a while. I asked Positif Press about this, and they couldn't say when it is likely to be reprinted.
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I have quite a library of books, papers and websites about tuning and temperaments. Of these, the most useful for practical tuning are:
A Guide to Musical Temperament, by Thomas Donahue, Scarecrow Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8108-5438-4
and
Clavichord Tuning and Maintenance, by Peter Bavington, Keyword Press 2007, ISBN 978-0-9555590-0-6
For computer tuning programs, see
and
http://www.fmjsoft.com/chromatia.html
For information on tuning and temperaments, see
http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory27.htm
which (a long way down the page) includes a "Temperament/Tuning and Pitch Calculator" with data on about 300 different temperaments.
Note that different keyboard instruments are affected by temperament in different ways.
Clavichords are affected by the precise pressure of the player's finger on the key, so small differences between different temperaments aren't important, and a player can "bend" a note by exerting more pressure. Clavichords have little sustaining power, so tuning errors aren't easily heard in terms of beats, except by the very careful listener very close to the instrument.
The basic harpsichord has one string to each key (more elaborate ones allow different strings to be chosen, or several strings to be sounded). The strings are thin, light, and under low tension compared with a piano, so the harmonics are pure, and tuning needs to be very precise.
Pianos are more complicated. From the bass which uses single strings, higher notes have two strings and the highest have three. The multiple strings are usually tuned to slightly different notes to achieve richness of sound, and so the "pitch" of a note is not clearly defined. The heavy strings necessary to permit high tensions are quite stiff, compared with those of a harpsichord or clavichord, and they therefore suffer from "inharmonicity" - in theory the harmonics should be exact multiples of the fundamental note, but on the piano each overtone is just a little bit higher than the true harmonic, which is why tuners "stretch" the octaves.
Organs are the most demanding, as long sustained tones are possible and beats are easily heard. Unlike harpsichords and clavichords, they are rarely retuned by their owners to different temperaments. (The exceptions are "chest" or "continuo" organs which may have only one or two stops, and are designed so that pitch and temperament are easy to change).
Both mixture and mutation stops create problems, as they have to be tuned to the pure harmonics of the fundamental, a C will have pure harmonics at octaves (no problem) but also at fifths, etc, and the corresponding keys on a tempered instrument produce notes which are not exactly tuned to the harmonics. This is why the change from mean tone tuning, with its emphasis on pure thirds, to equal temperament created problems with third-sounding ranks of mixtures, and why the old cornets with their prominent thirds fell out of favour.
To hear a number of pieces, each played in several different temperaments for comparison, try
http://www.frogmusic.com/bt.html
where you can buy CDs of music by Bach, de Grigny and Purcell played in several different temperaments on a Rodgers toaster.
See
for Bradley Lehman's website about how he "decoded" information on a Bach manuscript to find "Bach's tuning", and to buy CDs comparing his version with others. His theory has generated a lot of controversy, but many professionals who have tried it have found that it works well for them.
There are many CDs of historic and modern organs tuned in different temperaments. Kenneth Ryder at St Peter Mancroft, Norwich using Vallotti,is one example. An interesting example can be found at
http://www.gothic-catalog.com/product_p/lrcd-1090-91.htm
of Hans Davidsson playing Buxtehude on the mean-tone organ at Goteborg.
The whole subject of temperament is highly controversial. There's a vast amount of historical and theoretical material out there, and both experts and the ignorant debate the issues quite fiercely (including who they decide are the "experts" and who are the "ignorant").
Let the performer use his or her ears.
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Young has similar characteristics and favours the more # keys whilst Kellner could be said to be more inclined towards the b's (up to 2 a-piece). As D is a favorite baroque keyboard key (both in minor and major), I tend to veer more towards the genius of Thomas Young (1773-1829). But instrument, acoustic and mood plays quite a part!
All the best,
N
And, yet again, there are two different versions of Young's temperament !!!
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Using a meter, whilst attacking a two manual harpsichord, I set one manual to Kirnberger and one to Kellner by accident
and rather liked the slightly stronger Kirnberger but haven't dared to take the piano that far!Kirnberger II or Kirnberger III ? When the version is not specified, the usual assumption is that the IIIrd is used. In the clavichord world Miklos Spanyi has been making a lot of use of Kirnberger II, very effectively.
Recently I heard David Breitman perform Mozart, CPE Bach, Haydn and early Beethoven on a Paul McNulty fortepiano, using this temperament, and it sounded wonderful, far better to my ears than KIII. Of course one of the issues is how far you are prepared to be restricted in the range of keys that you can use.
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All very useful and very neatly set out.
It's odd that Fenner Douglass is not mentioned (as there are other secondary sources in the bibliography).
For readers who prefer English see "The Language of the French Classical Organ" by Fenner Douglass, second edition 1995, Yale University Press. Copies are available from Amazon at £14.50.
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When I visited a Swiss protestant church I heard the chorales sung very slowly, with a long pause at the end of each line. I think that there was a punctuation mark at the end of each line, so phrases weren't split unnaturally. It all worked very well, and gave me the unusual feeling that the congregation members were actually thinking about the words that they were singing.
There are many chorale preludes which separate the lines of the text with long ornamental passages, and I suspect (others will know more about this) that the organists would improvise similar passages in these pauses when hymns were sung; not to the taste of everyone when J S Bach was playing.
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I remember how when I was a teenager I had access to an organ, on which I practised one Saturday. On the following day, part way through the service, there was a cipher. The trustees blamed me, although still I can't think of anything that I could have done from the console of an electric-action instrument which could have caused it.
The moral of this story, is that if something goes wrong, the teenager is likely to get the blame.
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Many years ago, and having discussed it with the officiating priest, I played the Entree from Messe de la Pentecote during ther Offertoty on Pentecost Sunday. .... The result? An anonymous leter denouncing the use of this modern (1951?!) music in church.
That's what comes from casting artificial pearls before real swine.
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I may be grumpy, but there is a serious point to be made. There are many people around who are knowledgable about organs, and if any one of them had been invited to view the programme at a late stage in editing, most of the errors would have been identified and removed. I am sure that there was plenty of other good material available which could have been spliced in to fill any gaps.
WE know that there are errors, because it is our particular interest, but when we watch programmes on other topics we don't always question what we are told. One can't expect the production teams to know a lot about all of the programmes that they work on, but I think that it is reasonable to expect that people who know the subjects should check programmes for accuracy before they are broadcast.
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Curiously the presenter announced a trumpet stop and then drew a "cornopean".
He continued about "The lovely trumpet descant that is based on the tune associated with the great organists Henry Purcell and Jeremiah Clarke". The programme "factsheet" states "The trumpet descant is based on the famous 'Trumpet Voluntary', thought for many years to be by Henry Purcell, but now known to have been composed by Jeremiah Clarke."
It certainly has nothing to do with the famous 'Trumpet volunteer" based on the Prince of Denmark's March, which probably was written by JC but mistakenly attributed to Purcell by Henry Wood. It is actually based on the "Martial Air" which, as far as I know, has never been associated with Clarke.
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And another! "The idea of a town hall, a concert hall with its own instrument is a thing unique to Britain and starts in the 19th century and it's all part of civic pride."
Technically that may be strictly true, but it's as well to remember the Dutch tradition, that the organ in the church often belonged to the town, and the organist was employed by the town rather than the church.
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Just one more niggle while we are about it.
"The way this pipe speaks is much like a child's recorder ..." Not the same as like an adult's recorder, then. The recorder can be a very beautiful and subtle instrument when well played, but that phrase, probably quite unintentionally, doesn't do the recorder justice.
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... someone should tell Chapuis to cut his hair.
It might be better to tell him to get someone else to cut his hair.
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After this recommendation, for which many thanks, I've just purchased Vol 2. (Fast service from Amazon - ordered day 1 arrived day 3, and I didn't pay postage). Very enjoyable. although I think I would have liked a few more views inside the churches, and someone should tell Chapuis to cut his hair. For all that, I agree, "magic". The microphones were obviously placed at suitable positions within the naves. From what I can make out from the Plenum Vox website, Vol 1 was a DVD but doesn't appear to be available any longer, and Vol 3 isn't as freely available as Vol 2.
I have just ordered Vol 1 (the DVD) from amazon.fr and they claim to have despatched it yesterday.
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Thanks again, Barry.
There is no contract, so no terms of engagement. I was simply invited (by one of the other organists) to join the rota.
They have done so (twice - I called again for further clarification).
Tried that - it kept referring to a contract (which I don't have).
You were invited to join the rota and the FD asked you to play on the understanding that you would be paid for it, so you have a verbal contract which is just as binding as a written one, although it is much harder to establish exactly what the terms are, and a court would judge on what is usual and customary in such cases. What you do not have is a written contract.
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SACDs are a problem for those of us who use a DVD player for playing CDs. Once that they have detected that there is a second layer they are unable to cope. One solution to this problem, if you have a computer with a CD reader, is to copy the CD (and it copies the CD layer only) onto an ordinary CD. Doesn't work if your computer has a DVD reader!
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I recently saw advertisements on the web for a DVD: "J S Bach and the Magic of Slovak Caves", and as it was very cheap I indulged my curiosity.
The organ pieces are familiar - Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV565, Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C, Prelude and Fugue in A minor, Fantasy and Fugue in G minor, and several chorale preludes.
The pictures are almost exclusively of Slovak Caves, with occasional pan and zoom shots of two different werkprinzip organs. Much is made of the visual pun with the similarity in form of rows of organ pipes and stalagtites. Neither of the organs pictured is the one being played.
The on-screen titles show: "Lamp of God" instead of "Lamb of God", and because the person who did the titling mistook the end of a section in the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue for the end of the piece, every subsequent title is out of place. The final piece is therefore given the title "Slovak Gaves" (instead of "Slovak Caves") to complete the track list. The firm which did this refers to its work as "authering".
However, I have many recordings of these pieces, and while several performances are as good as on the DVD, none are better. The tuning is clearly not ET, although I thought that it was rather milder than 1/4 comma mean-tone. I contacted Miklos Spanyi whose name appears on the box, and he replied:
"This is in all probability the same recording which has been issued on numerous labels either under my name or 'Otto Winter'. This is undoubtedly my recording, one half of a material of about 2 hours (2 cd's) of Bach's organ pieces recorded in 1987 on a little organ in Szombathely/Hungary, built in 1986 by Orgelbau Eule (Bautzen,Germany) very much in the style of Gottfried Silbermann. The tuning was the only slightly modified tuning once supposed to be Silbermann's: 1/6 pyth. comma meantone. (In recent times it has been pointed out that Sorges' description of Silbermann's tuning principles was false, Sorge deliberately wanted to create a negative impression of Silbermann.) This recording was made by Hungaroton, in those times still a state-owned firm offering recording services with Hungarian artists and technicians on order of 'Western' tradesmen making deal with cheap classical recordings. This is how my cd's were issued in many places (mostly Germany or Austria) with the false artist name Otto Winter and adding 'on Silbermann organ'. As far as I know no further versions with Otto Winter's name are available."
It was available on Cd from Point Classics at a very low price. Now it's out of stock, and copies are advertised on the web at prices from £87.55 to £133.29.
David Hitchin
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I first came across Hugo Distler's organ music nearly 50 years ago, on a 10 inch LP recorded by Piet Kee at Almaar, playing the chaconne from "Nun komm' der Heiden Heiland. With some difficulty I found and bought the score, playing some parts on the piano, as I had no access to an organ then.
For a while he was little known outside Germany, but he was vey much celebrated by young Germans, especially for his choral music, as they saw it as modern music with roots in the great German Baroque tradition, untainted by Naziism.
A friend who visited Germany brought me back a box of 6 LPs, with all of Distler's organ music, played by Arno Schonstedt, and including a few recordings of Distler himself playing. I learned more from Larry Palmer's book, "Hugo Distler and his Church Music."
More recently many CDs have become available, organ works played by Armin Schoof, and both sacred and secular choral works of great beauty.
Bas de Vroome's complete recording of the organ works has excellent interpretations played on several carefully chosen Dutch instruments.
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Over 18 months or so, we probably hosted about 12 such visits (including the American HS on their European Tour). There was a huge variety of numbers and ages involved in the visits, some more geographicly spread than others. They ranged from only 12, mostly elderly people who had a great time getting a free organ recital and short talk (but of a very low standard of playing when they had the chance). ....
I didn't have the opportunity of playing the organ (or any keyboard regularly) until I retired. Now I have joined the local association, have been on two tours overseas, and I'm learning to play, very much helped by a church a few hundred yards away with an organ they let me use for practice almost every week-day. At 65 one doesn't learn very quickly! I was just getting to the stage where I was thinking that I might cautiously try playing organs on one of these trips - just something short and simple on some quiet stops.
Guilmant's post makes me wonder whether "elderly people" "of a very low standard of playing" are considered an asset for a local association or a liability.
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Forgive me if this is straying closer to theology than to music, but what evidence is there that God enjoys the B Minor Mass more than Daisy, Daisy?
David Hitchin
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What are they actually called in the trade? I bet there is a name for them: the most obscure widget in every industry has a name. I bet it's not "prong thingy".
According to Kimber Allen, "Music Desk Hook"
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Although I've never heard the RFH organ "in the flesh", the recordings I've heard lead me to think that the less of it reinstalled, the better!
If it were rebuilt somewhere other than the RFH it might sound better.
and rather liked the slightly stronger Kirnberger but haven't dared to take the piano that far!
The Best And Most Appropriate Temperaments?
in Nuts and bolts
Posted
The baroque trumpet is a good example of this. Although these had no valves (and almost certainly no finger holes) they could be played with great agility and in tune near the higher harmonics. After Bach's time the skills were lost, and a century ago people trying to perform his works substituted alto clarinets, played an octave lower, and even invented a small version of the modern trumpet which thye called the "Bach trumpet".
Eventually someone decided to make a copy of one of the original instruments. It was easy to adapt one of the modern machines to spin the metal to an acoustically perfect bore, but the instrument was useless. The perfect bore held the harmonics so tightly that they couldn't be "lipped" - and it is well known that some of the higher harmonics do not lie anywhere near the notes of the musical scale.
The next attempt used the traditional methods, of taking flat sheets and hammering them into shape. Inevitably there were many small deviations from acoustic perfection, but the instrument worked perfectly.