Six manual Klais inaugurated in Malmo, Sweden

[Contrabombarde]

This behemoth has been referred to a few times on these fora and has now been inaugurated:

https://www.klais.de/m.php?sid=481

The six manual console controls several organs around the building and the two stop jambs are giant touchscreen monitors. The specification of the new Choir division mutations takes some beating. Genuine question - how on earth do you accurately tune some of those more exotic partials (based around the 8 foot, 16 foot, 32 foot, 64 foot and yes, 128 foot harmonics?

16'
10 2/3'
8'
7 9/17'
7 1/9'
6 14/19'
6 2/5'
5 9/11'
5 1/3'
4 12/13'
4 4/7'
4 4/15'
4'
3 13/17'
3 5/9'
3 7/19'
3 1/5'
2 10/11'
2 2/3'
2 6/13'
2 2/7'
2 2/15'
2'
1 15/17'
1 7/9'
1 13/19'
1 3/5'
1 5/11'
1 1/3'
1 1/13'
1 1/7'
1 1/15'
1'
16/17'
8/9'
16/19'
4/5'
8/11'
2/3'
8/13'
4/7'
8/15'

[innate]

It must be easier to tune a “pure” ratio than any equal-tempered interval unless you are using electronic tuning aides in which case any interval will be as easy to tune as any other, all other things being equal!

[john carter]

We often use the turn of phrase "It has all the bells and whistles" for a complex machine.  This remarkable organ appears to have more bells and whistles than you "can shake a stick at"!  I wonder what happens if you shake a stick at the touch screen? 

It's fascinating, but I do wonder how much of it will ever actually be used?

[John Robinson]

I suppose they could have bought a synthesizer more cheaply!

[AndrewG]

The console looks more like an oversized Hauptwerk set up to me.  🤔

I can't believe changing registration on the hoof is any fun - so would need everything pre-setting.  I like the modern design of the organ cases though (in your attached link).

[Zimbelstern]

Having looked at the numerous photos of the organ on the Klais site, my own view is that, as far as the cases are concerned, they have created a thing of great beauty that blends extremely well with the building. These things are, of course, a matter of personal taste.

I do feel the touch screens may be problematic, however. The first problem is that every screen is different, so you can never be certain where anything is. Secondly, my experience on my own home setup is that you can never be completely sure when you hit the screen at speed that it will behave as you want it to. Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes you just miss what you wanted to hit, and sometimes the tiny delay leads you to involuntarily repeating the action, which can result in undoing what you just did! I think this is probably because a touch screen is two dimensional. Maybe these things will only work satisfactorily when touch screens are replaced by holograms, giving the impression that one is physically pulling or pushing on a real stop. Perhaps the answer here is virtual reality and organists in the future will need to wear one of those virtual reality masks whilst playing the organ! God help us!

[Rowland Wateridge]

At the recitals I go to, our most accomplished players, on the largest organs with all the available up to date gadgetry, still do some hand-registration.  Pulling or pushing a single stop can make a dramatic change.

So, whilst this looks like the ultimate 21st century organ technology in console design, I think that the assistance of registrants is already contemplated; note the circular stool provided at each end of the organist's 'bench'.  MM might see in this a reversion to the great and historic Dutch organs!

Post script:  There's another interesting photograph of the console on Google with two revealing features.  The left hand screen is partially obscured by a reflection of a lattice window.  Possibly not a problem, I suppose, once everything has been set up.  In this photograph, the music desk has been lowered to cover the top sixth manual - as used to happen to the fifth manual at Birmingham Town Hall until Thomas Trotter had it removed. 

Edited June 10, 2019 by Rowland Wateridge
Added re Google photograph

[pwhodges]

Presumably the swell pedals at the sides are for the registrants to operate?

 

Paul

[Rowland Wateridge]

I also wondered that.  I haven't read everything on the Klais website.  I didn't find a specification.  Perhaps I missed something.  It also looks as though there could be a stepper at each end of the pedal 'well' - no toe pistons as such.

[Contrabombarde]

1 hour ago, Rowland Wateridge said:

I also wondered that.  I haven't read everything on the Klais website.  I didn't find a specification.  Perhaps I missed something.  It also looks as though there could be a stepper at each end of the pedal 'well' - no toe pistons as such.

The full specification is at

https://www.klais.de/_klais/bilder/pdf/Malmoe_Pipework.pdf

As for the buttons,

"The individually programmable control for each pipe of the choir organ offers 'unheard-of' possibilities. Here is a tiny selection:

• adjustable delay and hold time, f.e. for echo effects or diminuendo or crescendo by stop change while holding a key
• any chord formation from different sounds and pitches to each key (chorus effect, mixture setter)
• iridescent sounds through rapid change of the controlled colours while holding a key 
• In addition, there are the possibilities offered by an individual and settable wind control of all chest levels (one unenclosed and two enclosed under separate expression."

[AJJ]

2 hours ago, Contrabombarde said:

The full specification is at

https://www.klais.de/_klais/bilder/pdf/Malmoe_Pipework.pdf

As for the buttons,

"The individually programmable control for each pipe of the choir organ offers 'unheard-of' possibilities. Here is a tiny selection:

• adjustable delay and hold time, f.e. for echo effects or diminuendo or crescendo by stop change while holding a key
• any chord formation from different sounds and pitches to each key (chorus effect, mixture setter)
• iridescent sounds through rapid change of the controlled colours while holding a key 
• In addition, there are the possibilities offered by an individual and settable wind control of all chest levels (one unenclosed and two enclosed under separate expression."

Just what you need for Blaenwern on a Sunday morning!

A

[MusoMusing]

On 09/06/2019 at 16:40, innate said:

It must be easier to tune a “pure” ratio than any equal-tempered interval unless you are using electronic tuning aides in which case any interval will be as easy to tune as any other, all other things being equal!

Where is John Compton when you need him?

Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre mixture compositions:-
 

Cornet 11rks: 5.8.10.12.14.15.16.17.18.19.20

Plein Jeu 9rks: 12.15.17.19.21.22.23.24.25

MM

[MusoMusing]

3 hours ago, Contrabombarde said:

The full specification is at

https://www.klais.de/_klais/bilder/pdf/Malmoe_Pipework.pdf

As for the buttons,

"The individually programmable control for each pipe of the choir organ offers 'unheard-of' possibilities. Here is a tiny selection:

• adjustable delay and hold time, f.e. for echo effects or diminuendo or crescendo by stop change while holding a key
• any chord formation from different sounds and pitches to each key (chorus effect, mixture setter)
• iridescent sounds through rapid change of the controlled colours while holding a key 
• In addition, there are the possibilities offered by an individual and settable wind control of all chest levels (one unenclosed and two enclosed under separate expression."

Why do I keep contemplating "Artificial Intelligence"?

[Rowland Wateridge]

I have just looked at the pipework analysis.  Am I being dense, or is this seemingly huge organ really a vast extension organ with just 1,645 pipes (plus percussions)?   MM to the rescue, please.

[Vox Humana]

I'm too old to get my head around it all, but, more to the point, I'm not even interested enough to try.  I'm not really an IT luddite, but just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should.  Bring back the good old days when you could fix a car engine just by opening the bonnet and whacking something with a spanner.

[MusoMusing]

8 hours ago, Rowland Wateridge said:

I have just looked at the pipework analysis.  Am I being dense, or is this seemingly huge organ really a vast extension organ with just 1,645 pipes (plus percussions)?   MM to the rescue, please.

I allowed ten minutes of my life to look at the specification.  It is indeed a quite modest extension organ, and actually a great deal smaller than the lost Compton at Wolverhampton, at Downside, Southampton, St Brides, the Odeon Leicester Square and many, many others.

6 manuals is just an absurdity for so few pipes, and if that translates into (61 X 6) + 32 = 398, it means that there are just 4.1 pipes per available note.

Horror of horrors!  I note that the Principal "chorus" includes consecutive octave extensions, resulting in the missing note syndrome. The further thought occurs, that by setting up the combinations to play different pitches, it would be possible to play a harmonised melody just by using the sequencer and holding a single note!!!!!!!!!!!!

John Compton would have loved it, for all the wrong reasons, but just because it IS possible using computers, doesn't mean that it has the slightest musical credibility.

I shan't be booking an air ticket anytime soon!

MM

[Phoneuma]

‘6 manuals is just an absurdity for so few pipes, and if that translates into (61 X 6) + 32 = 398, it means that there are just 4.1 pipes per available note.’

I’m not sure that the 6 manuals are just for this new choir organ MM!

Looking at the Klais site the new console. also controls the west gallery Marcussen organ and a couple of other divisions (Altar and something else). 

https://www.klais.de/m.php?tx=225

 

[S_L]

6 hours ago, MusoMusing said:

I allowed ten minutes of my life to look at the specification.  It is indeed a quite modest extension organ, and actually a great deal smaller than the lost Compton at Wolverhampton, at Downside, Southampton, St Brides, the Odeon Leicester Square and many, many others.

6 manuals is just an absurdity for so few pipes, and if that translates into (61 X 6) + 32 = 398, it means that there are just 4.1 pipes per available note.

I shan't be booking an air ticket anytime soon!

MM

I also spent ten minutes of my life trying to work it all out!!!

It's not quite as absurd as it, at first looks!! My understanding is that the six manual console controls not only the new 18 rank choir organ - and its pedal organ -situated on either side of the church -  which is entirely extension, but also the 'great Marcussen' organ, a large 'straight' four manual which is in the West Gallery of the church and also the small echo and altar organs - the remains of the 1914 Walcker organ.

I can't make up my mind whether the console is the way things will go from now on! "It'll never catch on!" is a dangerous phrase to use - not that anyone has - yet!!! And I can't make up my mind whether I like the console either!

But, like MM, I won't be booking a ticket either!!!

500 posts - I didn't know I had so much to say!!

[MusoMusing]

Clearly, they have more organs than necessary.

If this is the future, I'm going back to strict werkprinzip and Werkmeister II.......the organ equivalent to the Green Party.

MM

PS: It'll never catch on!

[Damian Beasley-Suffolk]

"It'll never catch on!" Careful now - there are a few quite recent examples of this sort of thing.

The Oberlinger organ at St Josef in Bonn was struck by lighting a couple of years ago, and while the main console is apparently still out of action, the organ itself along with a choir organ, also built along the extension principle, is playable from an electronic console by (I think) Thomas Gaida. There is a nice video by the Scottish organist Fraser Gartshore showing some of the fun things you can do with it, some rather similar to the Malmo organ. Gaida has built a couple of other similar "unifying" consoles for other German churches.

I have been to Freiburg im Breisgau - probably not the first person to go into the Munster, look at the back wall, and realise that I was in the "wrong" Freiburg - where all four organs are playable from a single console. In fact, I believe one of the organs doesn't actually have its own console.

My only problem with this Malmo console is that it is particularly ugly, resembling a cobbled-together Hauptwerk experiment. There are plenty of examples of modern remote consoles which are much nicer.

 

 

[Philip J Wells]

The sloping top to the 6 manual console should stop the flower arrangers in their tracks.  However, I note the seating arrangements provide for two nice pot plants / palms on either side of the organist so all is not lost!

  

[Martin Cooke]

3 hours ago, Damian Beasley-Suffolk said:

There is a nice video by the Scottish organist Fraser Gartshore showing some of the fun things you can do with it, some rather similar to the Malmo organ. Gaida has built a couple of other similar "unifying" consoles for other German churches.

Thanks, Damian - really interesting and nicely presented by Fraser - well worth watching!

[Rowland Wateridge]

Thanks to everyone for the clarification about Malmo.  I did also wonder whether there might be an electronic screen for the music lurking behind the glass or perspex desk.  

But the Choir organ specification is an astonishing concept in its own right.  Have Klais ever done anything like this before?

[Ian van Deurne]

In my young days working for Johannes Klais, such a "thing" would never have been contemplated, especially because as has already been said here that it resembles something from the realms of a pipeless digital instrument!

[John Robinson]

39 minutes ago, Ian van Deurne said:

In my young days working for Johannes Klais, such a "thing" would never have been contemplated, especially because as has already been said here that it resembles something from the realms of a pipeless digital instrument!

Money talks, I suppose.