Does anyone have a reference for typical construction of a manual Bourdon 8' in French organs from 1600 to 1750? Was part of the range likely wood? If chimneys were used, in what range? Differences between 17th and 18th century?
Anybody with easy access to Dom Bedos' mighty tome from the late 1700s, I'd be grateful to know what it says about this.
May I ask why you enquire? [:)] "L'art du Facteur" is an immense tome (actually two) of French technical writing, so I'm a little reluctant to take on suchspecific technical questions... [:D] There are other sources too, but this all takes some research.
Some information is easily found online however:
According to Audsley [The Art of Organ Building], Dom Bedos most often states that the chimney is exactly one-third the diameter and one-half of the length of the body of the pipe. Dom Bedos mentions larger diameter chimneys were sometimes used, and that the bass octave is typicallywood. Large, flexible ears assist in tuning.
According to Audsley, the mouth is from one-fourth to two-seventh the internal diameter of the pipe width, and about two-fifths of its own width in height.
Dom Bedos gives a typical diameter of 3.30 inches for tenor C (minimum 2.93 inches). A scale of 1:v8 is assumed.
Examination of the organ of the Abbatiale Sainte-Croix de Bordeaux (historical restoration according to Dom Bedos) providessome intrestinginformation:
Bourdon 8' du Positif:15 wood basses
Bourdon 8' du Grand-Orgue:15 wood basses
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The chimneys appear to be carried to the top of the compass. In general any4' Chimney Flutewill probably have opentapered trebles (not sure of the break point, it differs from instrument to instrument).
You've answered my question more completely than I'd hoped for. The reason I asked was that I'm trying to pick appropriate samples for my French Classical stoplist from my electronic substitute's library, and the choice of Bourdon 8 has been troublesome. I usually listen to CDs of historical organs to help with this since I'm not physically able to travel, but my early French organ CDs rarely expose a Bourdon by itself.
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