Alain Litanies

[JWAnderson]

Evening all,

 

I have just returned from the church and was having a look at the Litanies with the thought of learning it.

However, the sheet music indicates that it would need three manuals (G.O., Pos, Rec), but the organ I play regularly only has two and I cannot easily get access to a three-manual organ in town.

So my question is, does the piece work on only two manuals or does it really need three?

 

Cheers,

 

JA

[davidh]

Evening all,

 

I have just returned from the church and was having a look at the Litanies with the thought of learning it.

However, the sheet music indicates that it would need three manuals (G.O., Pos, Rec), but the organ I play regularly only has two and I cannot easily get access to a three-manual organ in town.

So my question is, does the piece work on only two manuals or does it really need three?

 

Cheers,

 

JA

I have heard the piece played very effectively on a two-manual instrument - but I don't know how it was done.

[Colin Harvey]

Yes, it can be played on a 2 manual and pedal organ. I occasionally roll it out on my own organ of 2 manuals, which also has mechanical stop action - it's not especially hard to manage. Anyway, most English-style Choir organs don't equate to a French-style Positif in the French Romantic notion of terraced dynamics so even with a 3 manual English organ you'll have to diverge a bit from Alain's directions.

[Peter Clark]

An organist I know regularly played it on this:

 

http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=A00691

 

 

Peter

[innate]

The rhythm that starts at bar 20 sounds completely different if you use the registration by M-C Alain in the 1971 Edition with the Réc/Pos coupler. What should (to me) be a funky:

 

DA-da-da DA-da-da Da-da | DA-da-da DA-da-da DAH_

 

turns out more like:

 

da-da | DA-da-da-da DA-DA da-da | DA-da-da-da DAH_

 

I've not seen any other edition so can't tell if this matches what Jéhan's intentions were.

 

Apologies if I've already bored the board with this.

[JWAnderson]

Yes, it can be played on a 2 manual and pedal organ. I occasionally roll it out on my own organ of 2 manuals, which also has mechanical stop action - it's not especially hard to manage. Anyway, most English-style Choir organs don't equate to a French-style Positif in the French Romantic notion of terraced dynamics so even with a 3 manual English organ you'll have to diverge a bit from Alain's directions.

 

This is interesting. I would be interested to know how you register this piece on the said organ.

 

JA