Brahms: Es Ist Ein Ros

[Guest Echo Gamba]

I would be interested to know how others register this. I favour enclosed 8 & 4 flutes alternating with mild strings/celestes, with or without 8' flute depending on the instrument.

[sprondel]

I would be interested to know how others register this. I favour enclosed 8 & 4 flutes alternating with mild strings/celestes, with or without 8' flute depending on the instrument.

Lovely. I once heard it on a sombre, unenclosed 8-foot string, with the echoes played on an open, narrow 4-foot flute with tremulant – very, very sweet. And you mustn't go too slow then, because you're balancing on a fine line between lovely and style saccharine.

 

Very nice it could be on different baroque-style strings with slow, expressive speech; or on a 16-foot Double Geigen all' ottava sopra with the echoes on an enclosed, well-voiced Quintadena with tremulant.

 

Best,

Friedrich

[andyorgan]

...to connect this with another current thread, hard to play this without thinking of 'Some enchanted evening'...

[pcnd5584]

I would be interested to know how others register this. I favour enclosed 8 & 4 flutes alternating with mild strings/celestes, with or without 8' flute depending on the instrument.

 

I often play it on contrasting 8ft. and 4ft. flutes - without any strings. Equally effective could be to contrast two reasonably gentle Open Diapason ranks.

[John Sayer]

I often play it on contrasting 8ft. and 4ft. flutes - without any strings. Equally effective could be to contrast two reasonably gentle Open Diapason ranks.

 

Purely as an aside, it's perhaps worth noting this piece works well on the piano, where the 'tenor thumb' can be used to bring out the chorale melody to good effect.

 

JS

[innate]

Purely as an aside, it's perhaps worth noting this piece works well on the piano, where the 'tenor thumb' can be used to bring out the chorale melody to good effect.

I agree. I love Brahms's use of the alto clef in these late pieces; it's like his use of old forms such as these chorale preludes and the chaconne in the fourth symphony and the natural horn in the Trio. I tend to avoid using the swell pedal in Brahms for a similarly "old hat" reason.

[Vox Humana]

One of the main characteristics of Brahms's music is its enveloping richness of sonority (it was Howells who pointed out to me Brahms's love of chords with doubled thirds), so in a gentle piece like this I would always be looking for warmth of colour. On a British organ I would most likely be looking to play it on just 8ft stops - multiple ones on each manual - with the colours of the two manuals differentiated enough to be distinct, but not so much as to disrupt the business of enfolding the listener in the music. I see the piece as more sensual than ethereal so I probably wouldn't use celestes for manual II, but obviously it would all depend on the organ. On a large organ there should be no difficulty in finding enough variety at 8ft pitch; small instruments are quite likely to require a different approach altogether.

[Guest Echo Gamba]

One of the main characteristics of Brahms's music is its enveloping richness of sonority (it was Howells who pointed out to me Brahms's love of chords with doubled thirds), so in a gentle piece like this I would always be looking for warmth of colour. On a British organ I would most likely be looking to play it on just 8ft stops - multiple ones on each manual - with the colours of the two manuals differentiated enough to be distinct, but not so much as to disrupt the business of enfolding the listener in the music. I see the piece as more sensual than ethereal so I probably wouldn't use celestes for manual II, but obviously it would all depend on the organ. On a large organ there should be no difficulty in finding enough variety at 8ft pitch; small instruments are quite likely to require a different approach altogether.

 

I rarely find (on the instruments I play regularly anyway) soft 8' stops with sufficient definition to enable the chorale melody mentioned by innate to be discerned - hence my preference for 4's and undulants to add definition.

[Pierre Lauwers]

Here is an example with a celeste:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFE3jCzsW4s

 

(Marienkirche Lübeck organ)

 

Interesting, though the use of the celeste might be discuted

from an historical point of view.

 

Pierre

[Guest Echo Gamba]

Here is an example with a celeste:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFE3jCzsW4s

 

(Marienkirche Lübeck organ)

 

Interesting, though the use of the celeste might be discuted

from an historical point of view.

 

Pierre

 

Interesting point regarding the celestes! At risk of heading off-topic, I should know and could do some research, but when did undulating ranks first appear in which countries?

 

(NB-Suggest disabling Google as default search engine, and substitute Pierre! )

[Pierre Lauwers]

The celeste existed in Germany since at least the end of the 17th century.

Görlitz had already two ones in...1700.

But even towards 1900, there were many little organs built in Germany without

a celeste, and without even a swellbox!

Both are absent in many little Gebrüder Link organs of that period, but are still ideal

for the music of Brahms. We have some fine examples in Belgium, as already said

here elsewhere.

 

Pierre

[Guest Echo Gamba]

The celeste existed in Germany since at least the end of the 17th century.

Görlitz had already two ones in...1700.

But even towards 1900, there were many little organs built in Germany without

a celeste, and without even a swellbox!

Both are absent in many little Gebrüder Link organs of that period, but are still ideal

for the music of Brahms. We have some fine examples in Belgium, as already said

here elsewhere.

 

Pierre

 

So I can use celestes for Brahms then?

[Pierre Lauwers]

Of course you can, according to the organ you play.

We simply aren't sure Brahms encountered it.

But then, we may as well use an Unda-Maris in Bach

-a stop we are sure Bach knew-.

 

Pierre

[tiratutti]

In 2008 a new book called "Orgelregister, ihre Namen und ihre Geschichte" (organ stops, their names and their history) appeared in Germany. The author is Dr. Roland Eberlein. The book contains 760 pages full of informations about organ stops. Looking at the entry "Unda maris" you will find that Casparini built a stop Onda maris for St. Peter and Paul Görlitz in 1697-1703. Older stops are from Italy, called Piffaro and out of the 16th century.

 

Cheers

tiratutti

[Pierre Lauwers]

Indeed. The book is available here:

 

http://www.orgel-information.de/catalog/pr...roducts_id=2062

 

(Görlitz also had a labial "Vox humana", which was in reality an italian "Voce umana".)

 

Pierre