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Well, that's what I think. The Vox is always one of my favorite ranks on an organ, and this one just speaks out to me -no pun intended.
Starts at around 3:20.
Performed by Martin Jean.
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
The Franck E Major Chorale is one of my favorite organ piece of all time, and he plays it very well. The organ is surprisingly well-suited to the piece, or at least what he played of it. And what a Vox Humana stop indeed! With the beautiful tremolo added, it sounds almost ethereal. Quite the opposite of the Cavaille-Coll Vox Humanas I'm used to listening to in many of my CD's.
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
[quote user="MD1032"]With the beautiful tremolo added, it sounds almost ethereal. Quite the opposite of the Cavaille-Coll Vox Humanas I'm used to listening to in many of my CD's.[/quote]
Like them or not, the C-C sound is what Franck would have known. Although he might have loved the Woolsey Voxes we can be fairly certain that he didn't have that in mind when he composed the E major Chorale.Comment
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
Indeed the Vox is beautiful, however it is one of the most difficult ranks to get properly
winded, voiced, tuned and tremmed. I just don't have the patience to get it right.
Any ideas?:
Al JohnsonComment
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
That's quite ethereal-sounding indeed.
The vox humana on the italian baroque organ at the Memorial Art Gallery up here is quite a fascinating sound. It's almost like thecombination of a harsh reed and a very light, wispy flute, yet I swear it sound like someone singing "Yahhhh!" I have a clip of the organ playing if anyone wants me to email it to them. Unfortunately I was unable to record the vox humana.[:(]Comment
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
I'd be interested in hearing that stop Hammondlover!
And I LOVE the Woolsey Hall vox humana. I hope I can hear it in person some day. Its one of the stops that proves me to that there are two arts in the organ: playing and building.Comment
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
[quote user="al"]Indeed the Vox is beautiful, however it is one of the most difficult ranks to get properly winded, voiced, tuned and tremmed. I just don't have the patience to get it right. Any ideas?:[/quote]
I seem to recall reading somewhere that theatre organs are tuned with the trems on? I find that rather bizarre, but then I'm much more familiar with classical pipe organs. Speaking of which - my technique fortuning a Vox: tune it to the 4' Octave (Principal) in the same division; if the Octave is too flutey, it is sometimes better to use a 4' String, which tends to be rather stable pitch-wise.
I only tune on the wire. If one pipe is a bit loud I might adjust the flap (or resonator opening)slightly. I try not to get too close to the pipes when I tune, and if I must remove the pipe I let it cool before tuning it. Thatis much more applicable to flue stops, butit isa habit I maintain for reedpipes.
I tune without thetremolo. [:)]Comment
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
If there is one stop that has the most different sound for the same name the the Vox Humana it must be. I like them a bit on the raw side. Just unreplacable for some music. No reasonably large organ should be without one.Comment
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
To return the vox in my organ to original sound, set the caps (which rotate in the case of a Wurlitzer vox) to original voicer marks. Tune only on the wire with the tremulant off. The reeds should be tightly held in the block with the wedge. This method is the same as recommended by Soubasse.
The comment about tuning with the tremulants on refers to tuning the Tibia. Sometimes the Tibia is so heavily tremmed that the pitch does not vary symmetrically from the center. It must then be tuned with the trem on to get the correct pitch. This practice makes the Tibia not useful for use as an independent stop in classical music when the trem is not used. The non-symmetric pitch variation can be caused by closing the toe holes too much to reduce the volume or by using too much tremulant action. On a lasge instrument with many stopped flutes, making one rank unusable in some combinations is not a problem. In a smaller organ, the loss of a single rank is significant so that I believe that keeping the Tibia tremulant to a more modest pitch excursion is a better compromise.
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
Thanks for that explanation. Now I know a little bit more about theatre organs! [Y]Comment
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
This (Prelude)is the Vox at the CC at Notre Dame de Metz. It's sampled with trem (e.g., tremulant is not artificially applied).
http://www.milandigitalaudio.com/met...-herzeleid.mp3
I'm sure it's anobvious comment, but do listen with something decent, and other than the 1/2" diameter speakers in a laptop :-)
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
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Re: The sweetest Vox Humana I've ever heard.
[quote user="acc"]]Note also that they were built 44 years apart from each other, and not quite by the same builder. [;)][/quote]
True on both counts. But Mutin is considered to have stayed very much in the spirit of CC :-)
Either way the Metz does have (to my ears anyway) a lovely Vox. Especially for this Brahms,. which is a beautiful thing in it's own right.
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