I just returned from Paris with views of Notre-Dame and other Cathedrals. Very beautiful but they wouldn't invite me to play. Darn.
We hear about these largeorgans but what is really necessary to have an organ capable of solo and accompanyment?
Let's allow some unification, no tracker, restrict it to around 10 or 15 ranks without any 32 footers.Some enclosed and some exposed pipes.
Let's see if we can come up with the most "bang (honk) for the buck (euro)" and reasons why. Just the ranks, please, to keep the boss from getting upset.
I just returned from Paris with views of Notre-Dame and other Cathedrals. Very beautiful but they wouldn't invite me to play. Darn.
We hear about these largeorgans but what is really necessary to have an organ capable of solo and accompanyment?
Let's allow some unification, no tracker, restrict it to around 10 or 15 ranks without any 32 footers.Some enclosed and some exposed pipes.
Let's see if we can come up with the most "bang (honk) for the buck (euro)" and reasons why. Just the ranks, please, to keep the boss from getting upset.
I'm not sure how specific I should be here, so I guess I'll speak generally.
For a thrifty organ, I'd go electropneumatic, two manuals, with about 7 stops on the great and 5-7 stops on the swell, and about 4-5or so on the pedal division, and some couplers. I'd go aboutmaybe 15 ranks or so, (depends on the size of the room or church, how many people it can fit and acoustics).I would love expression pedals for both divisions, (i.e.great and swell). If not economically feasible, then an expression pedal for the swell as per usual.
If you're looking for bare bones, I'd go electropneumatic, two manuals, with about 8-10 ranks.Four stops on the great, 4-5 on the swell, and 3-4 on the pedal division. A swell to great coupler and a swell to pedal coupler. That's it, bare bones!
Both organs ideally situated in the central axis of the room you wish to put it in.
Bare in mind though, I am no organ builder so I'm sure other folks have something far more profound to say on this than me.
Thinking back to earlier successful minimal instruments I have seen:
A Small chapel organ highly unified with only a stopped flute and a gemshorn..
A small home/ theatre organ with only a tibia, string, and Vox.
A tracker practice organ with an 8' flute duplexed to both keyboards, then a 4' principal on manual I and blokeflute 2' on manual II; I-II, I-ped & II-ped couplers. It was surprising the variety that little bit could produce.
If I had 8-10 ranks to work with, I would have an unenclosed diapason 8' (mellow) principal (bright)4' and mixture, then enclosed unit flutes stopped16' - 4', and open unified 4'-1' , a bright, narrow string for 8' and 4'. and a mellower string or dulciana celeste singlerank TC 8'. This would be used independently with flutes, string, or even principals. An independent 1 1/3 voice - perhaps with a TC 2 2/3' on another manual would be very useful and effecient.
For reeds, I would put a full but balanced trumpet with a short 16' &8'octave running up to full lengthin the4' octave; and a Vox Humana TC 8' with independent tremelo, that with trem off, could strengthen other choruses and act as a solo voice. And all logical couplers.
Unification is not a sin, but the organist has to be very careful to avoid duplications between manuals, and must understand exactly what rank in what octave he is calling on in his registration. The skill of the builder in scaling and voicing will make all the differnce in creating a unified organ that is better than "tolerable"
All this would be easier to express as a specification, but then, working within the challenge of constraints is interesting also.
[quote user="al"] I just returned from Paris with views of Notre-Dame and other Cathedrals. We hear about these largeorgans but what is really necessary to have an organ capable of solo and accompanyment? [/quote]
Al, you should have looked in the front of these impressive cathedrals; almost any large church in France will contain an Orgue de chœur - a little giant of an organ which is used strictly for accompanying the choir.
Speaking Orgues de chœur, here is a recording of a relatively small one (15 ranks) which simply amazes me:
Scroll down to find Volume 8 - The Cavaille-Coll organ of the Heilig Hart Church at Hasselt, Belgium.
I was looking around the Internet for a link to the spec (as we cannot post here). Luckily, the following link also contains additional commentary from somone who is just amazed by the organ as I:
What is the difference in voicing and scaleing between your sw and gt open diaps?
Having two independent 16' flutes on the pedal, have you considered unifying one of them as a 10 2/3' to give you a resultant 32'? (or at least the bottom octave thereof). [Before somebody jumps you about extending the gt. Diapason to 16' in the pedal, let us remind them that the cost of that last octave of metal stop would buy a complete 2' or 4'rank.]
Are you opposed to intermanual borrowings on general principles, or have you had some bad experience in your youth? [:'(]The Sw trumpet at 8' and the gt reed at 4' on the pedal would seem a must to me, and you would enjoy having the single celeste rank on the great also to work with all three flue stops.
Why do you see the hautbois as preferable to a cromhorn or clarinet? Either would be traditional and either can fill out a chorus as well as beingin a solo.
Am I correct in assuming a full complement of couplers both inter and intra?
Lets all keep contributing our thoughts here[<:o)]
My impression is that the parameters for the exercise are pretty fluid. That being said I can't really explain why I started/stopped at the size I did. My leanings were to small size and simplicity towards the end of cost savings in this instance.
1 - I'd love to have a resultant, and due to the glut of available pipework my inclination would be to throw 12 dedicated pipes on to make it a nice thwacking 32' - provided the circumstances called for it.
2 - If the instrument were to grow a hair it would be nice to extend the reeds down to 16' in the Pedal. But no, I don't have an issue with pulling the reeds down at 8' pitch to the Pedal. To provide the 4' pitch I would be more inclined to simply give the Pedal an 8va tab/knob since everything is extended way up anyway.
3 - A Swell string celeste is pretty standard equipment. I do not favor mixing types of ranks for celestes at all, as they rarely blend well IMHO.
4 - I think the Hautbois has a slight edge in utility as a growler and a solo stop. I like 16' Clarinets as double reeds but I'm always inclined to stick with the Hautbois first.
I have access to a custom 5-rank Möller Artiste with a principal, gedeckt, string, celeste, and trumpet; all enclosed. Thegedeckt and opendiapason both go all the way down to 16'. The instrument purrs and it can reallythunder too. The room is small but quite live. In spite of the heavy borrowing (derived mutations as well), this organ can play almost anything. Anything except perhaps French classical pieces...
In addition to the spec in question, the specification for MenchenStimme's real live residence organ has also been posted just below; which I hope I have correctly interpreted.
The Great Open would by no means be a boat horn, but it should have more 8' meat than harmonic development, perhaps a 43-44 scale out of common metal with standard tuning slides and a 1/5 mouth.
The Swell Diapason would be more of a Violin Diapason, probably scaled in the upper forties, slotted, spotted metal, with 1/5 mouths.
The general idea is to put the Great and Swell 8' stops in a subservient order of power, but not too far apart that they can't be brought into the ensemble smoothy. In order of power they would be as follows:
1. Great Open
2. Swell Open
3. Gemshorn (somewhat powerful, a wide taper)
4. Salicional
Somewhere in there the Swell Stopped Diapason would be pretty aggressive, and the Claribel flute a bit skinnier so as to not melt your ears off in chords.
Nate, that looks like a great spec you've got there. At the heart, itreminds me abitof the organ at my church, but with unificationreplacing some of my actual ranks.In fact, it's replaced a couple of the useless ranks (like the Dulciana on the great... what were they thinking?) with better ones. Also, the trumpet's finally on the swell where it's useful, and the oboe is now being used on the great where you could solo, I suppose. And yeah, if you could have one more rank, I'd like to have either that 8' Melodia onthe great (really adds some guts to the great) or the 16' Trumpet in the pedal.
And one thing they missed on the organ's current console is the 32' resultant. I mean, come on, it's free! :)
Thanks for the kind words. The Claribel flute is similar in many ways to the Melodia except that it is closer to organ tone because it has a standard "English" mouth instead of an inverted one.
I know that Oboes don't usually go outside the Swell but yeah, it's nice to have some balance by having a hefty reed in there to counter the more potent Great chorus. There is also more useful stuff to accompany the Oboe in the Swell, especially the stopped flute.
It's hard to have to draw the line in the small organ - there are so many things that could be added to the spec to make it better but alas, it would then be a bigger organ!
I have to disagree with the "useless" Dulciana statement.
The old builders knew precisely what they were doing, which is why it is so common to find this stop on old organs!
A Dulciana is the best way to create a sense of quiet dignity during a church service.
It is soft, yet keen enough to give a sense of pitch (unlikemany Stopped Diapason or Gedeckt examples). It is an open pipe, therefore it has some body to the tone. These qualities make it perfect for accompanying a singer.
If you only have two manuals, just what stop do you use to accompanythe typicalSwell Oboe? A Melodia may well be too "hooty"; the Diapason is likely to be too tubby.
A Dulciana works very well as the sole accompanimental stop in an unenclosed division.
One last thing - the Dulciana adds color to the Stopped Diapason or Gedeckt. Together they make the equivalent of a 2nd Open Diapason, a nice compliment tothe louder (1st) Diapason.
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