Loud Organs His Glory

[MusingMuso]

Others could think and write the reverse, MM. That's the problem with the tastes.
And they have the same problem in the U.S. You cannot have a discussion about
Holtkamp (sr) there nowadays, so strong -and diverse- are the opinions.

Best wishes,
Pierre

==================


It's not a question of opinion or of taste IMHO.

If I were to re-design a symphomy orchestra which eliminated violas, clarinets, timpani and french horns, and then replaced them with  kazoos, a vacuum-cleaner, a spin-dryer and a small, wind-up toy monkey banging cymbals together, I would expect to be heavily criticised  if not stoned to death.

On the other hand, if I am an organ-consultant, it seems that no-one would disapprove if I threw out all the mixtures, replaced everything above 4ft C with Claribel Flutes and Harmonic Piccolos, eliminated anything above 8ft on the Pedals, then buried the whole thing in a concrete bunker with whole trees as individual swell shutters. I may even be considered a tonal-visionary and an innovator.

There is, after all, a certain void in the thinking processes which, on the one hand,  created the Schnitger organ at the Jacobikerk, Hamburg, and on the other hand, that which created the Wurlitzer organ at the local flea-pit. Although I am quite happy to credit each with musical value, and quite happy to consider them both to be pipe-organs, in terms of musical philosophy, they are on different musical planets; the first being the planet black & white, and the other being the planet purple. In point of fact, so enormous is the musical void, I think it may be fair to state that a modern digital organ would be nearer to the Hamburg instrument in philosophical terms than the theatre organ could ever be.....unless it was a Compton....but that's another story.

Surely, the classical organ is first and foremost an instrument based on chorus principles, in which different timbres, (contained within recognisable choruses), speak to each other and combine with each other polyphonically and contrapuntally; perhaps even antiphonally in certain instances. That is also true of the orchestra, in which we find whole "families" of strings, woodwind and brass; each quite complete within themselves, but capable of combining with the whole tutti ensemble. Furthermore, although the orchestra has evolved to include more individual colour and expressiveness, no-one has yet sought to eliminate the sonic inclusion of complementary families or "choruses" of sound.(Even electronic synthesisers follow the same pattern).

If we go back to first principles, perhaps the greatest tragedy for the English organ, is that it developed out of the idea that one should accompany turgid metrical psalms with funereal registers, and then play pretty voluntaries on Cornets and Trumpets. Indeed, had they known then what we know now, they could usefully have created the theatre organ without having to wait for Hope-Jones. God knows, James Nares (1715-1783) was a small voice crying in the wilderness through much of 18th century England.

Whether we like it or not. most organ music in England has been lightweight in character for a very long time, and the few exceptions are all the more remarkable because of it.Indeed, dare I suggest that an awful lot of early British organists were not terribly well trained or educated, but were seen to go to the right schools and come from the right families?

In organ-building terms, everything before perhaps 1840 had evolved very slowly from what Snetzler had established, and it is was probably in the North of England rather than the South, that a new impetus built up, as the City of Manchester developed industrial, artistic and cultural links across the world. Having discovered that truly great music and organs existed beyond out shores, is it surprising that the names of Cavaille-Coll and Schulze should become synoymous with progress by the mid-19th century?  The Hill/Gauntlett revolution was the home-spun version of the same growing awarenes, and it's interesting to compare how different organ-builders initially responded to the "German" movement, and then absorbed and incorporated the more symphonic qualities of Cavaille-Coll.

I can't help but think that of all the better quality Victorian organ-builders, those of Fr Willis were the most individual and the least classical in concept; irrespective of the very complete specifications of instruments such as those built for St. George's Hall, Liverpool and the Royal Albert Hall, London. Reed dominated and highly colourful, I can understand the appeal, but in terms of mainland European classical heritage, far more removed than, say, the organs of Thomas Hill, Schulze, Lewis and even Brindley & Foster.

What happened after that is, for me, largely a matter of regret, no matter how colourful or beautiful the individual effects; the glorious exception being the organ of Liverpool Cathedral.

However, let me put this into perspective, and take the hypothetical case that I was commanded to provide music 6 hours per day for the purposes of public education and entertainment, and had the choice of six possible venues from which I could choose only one.

Would I choose Hereford Cathedral, Blackburn Cathedral, St.Bart's, Armley, Liverpool Cathedral, Beverley Minster or the ex-Trocadero Wurlitzer, London?

For fear of being labelled an indecisive hypocrite, I think I would have to kill myself, because I love them all.

MM

[Pierre Lauwers]

In short: you like them, those british organs. But they are "wrong" because they go against "principles" -from abroad".

And you mean, for example, "principles" like this one:

"Surely, the classical organ is first and foremost an instrument based on chorus principles, in which different timbres, (contained within recognisable choruses), speak to each other and combine with each other polyphonically and contrapuntally; perhaps even antiphonally in certain instances."
(Quote)
From my own knowledge of the baroque organs, this "Chorprinzip" is by far less important than it was believed
up to some years ago, and especially since the very beginning of the 18th century. J-S Bach played organs in which
the mixtures were already made to grasp all togheter in the loudest registrations, or even "to compensate the roaring basses by reinforcing the treble part of the clavier " (Joachim Wagner himself!), and no more to top pure Principal choruses, not to mention the typical neo-baroque 8-4-2-Mixture(s!) ti-tu-tah.

(There were exceptions of course: the italian Ripieno, the french Plein-jeu, and.....The british Diapason chorus, still well present in romantic british organs up to a comparatively late period).

So we can find a this-or-that "Prinzip" in every corner of the organ world, indeed. But they are no laws, let alone "Holy truths"; there are no laws in organ design, just ideas. My teacher had a very good idea; whenever I believed to have found a general rule, he found something which contradicted it in the minute.
Recht hatte Er !!!

Best wishes,
Pierre
basses

[David Pinnegar]

If I were to re-design a symphomy orchestra which eliminated violas, clarinets, timpani and french horns, and then replaced them with  kazoos, a vacuum-cleaner, a spin-dryer and a small, wind-up toy monkey banging cymbals together, I would expect to be heavily criticised  if not stoned to death.

On the other hand, if I am an organ-consultant, it seems that no-one would disapprove if I threw out all the mixtures, replaced everything above 4ft C with Claribel Flutes and Harmonic Piccolos, eliminated anything above 8ft on the Pedals, then buried the whole thing in a concrete bunker with whole trees as individual swell shutters. I may even be considered a tonal-visionary and an innovator.

Hopefully I'm not alone in wishing to thank both Pierre and MM for engaging in a debate both of erudition and entertainment in which a sense of innate humour triumphs; in the latter respect the description above is so brilliant.

The concept of families of strings, families of brass and families of woodwind is exemplified by the Oboe and the Bassoon - the Haut Bois - High Wood and the Bas Son, low sound. The development of the instruments that we are familiar with from the Baroque into the 19th century orchestra has its parallels and ancestry still alive with organs of the different periods of which we are aware. The Cornet as an Haut Bois in which the reed is replaced by the lips, and the families of cornet from Sackbut or Serpent through to the treble, developing into our family of brass from Tuba to Trumpet of quite a different nature to the woodwind family into which the reeded versions developed is so intriguingly different to the synthesis of the same reed sound by the combination of flute harmonics of which we are familiar as the Cornet stop on the organ.

Best wishes

David P

[MusingMuso]

Hopefully I'm not alone in wishing to thank both Pierre and MM for engaging in a debate both of erudition and entertainment in which a sense of innate humour triumphs; in the latter respect the description above is so brilliant.

The concept of families of strings, families of brass and families of woodwind is exemplified by the Oboe and the Bassoon - the Haut Bois - High Wood and the Bas Son, low sound. The development of the instruments that we are familiar with from the Baroque into the 19th century orchestra has its parallels and ancestry still alive with organs of the different periods of which we are aware. The Cornet as an Haut Bois in which the reed is replaced by the lips, and the families of cornet from Sackbut or Serpent through to the treble, developing into our family of brass from Tuba to Trumpet of quite a different nature to the woodwind family into which the reeded versions developed is so intriguingly different to the synthesis of the same reed sound by the combination of flute harmonics of which we are familiar as the Cornet stop on the organ.

Best wishes

David P

Pierre's reply is difficult to argue with if we look at history and the regional organs of Bach's Thuringia, but there is a slight fault-line in the pursuit of historical "authenticity."

What if we look at things from a musical perspective rather than an historical one?

So much was happening in Bach's time, and during his lifetime, we come across enormous strides in the development of instruments generally, (the piano is one such example), as well as great changes to notation, great developments in the architecture of music, (but not many innovations with Bach), as well as new methods of tuning etc.

In some ways, David's reply is nearer to the truth, because the various families of instruments had a profound impact on the development of the organ. Anyone who has heard a large, original Arp Schnitger organ, will find it curious that the reeds are quite separate from the flues, and those leathered Posaunes are a clear imitation of the brass consorts so familiar to those who know the music of Gabrieli, for instance. They act as a quite independent chorus, and are uncannily close to the real brass instruments of the period. The same is also true of the various woodwind registers, which again, are often incredibly accurate to their orchestral counterparts.

The flutes on baroque organs are quite close to that of their orchestral counterparts, and especially the recorders, and as Pierre knows, there were many experiments in voicing an organ flute to imitate the sound of the traverse flute of the orchestra.

I think we can therefore surmise that throughout Bach's life, tonal experiments occupied the minds of many organists and organ-builders, and as a consequence, the rules which have been associated with Schnitger and Silbermann, are probably themselves examples of "regional variation."
So if we look for "rules"we can easily become confused.

I would personally argue that the music of Bach was probably never heard on the best instruments; though clearly, the Silbermann organs with which he was familiar may have been a notable exception, as would those of Hilderbrandt.

Could it be, that apart from these few exceptions, the very finest organs of the baroque period were not to be found in Bach's native Thuringia?

This, I think, is the difference between the historical quest for the "authentic sound," and the search for the most appropriate musical idiom. I know that when I first played the organ of St Bavo, Haarlem, I didn't quite know what I would do with the stops, but after testing various things, listening to what happened and with a little prompting from my Netherlands host, I arrived at registrations which seemed to suit Bach's music perfectly, even though the organ post-dates Bach and is located a long way away from Thuringia.

Those registrations proved to be classic choruses for the great Preludes & Fugues, and utterly beautiful solo colours in the form of Cornets and various reed registers for the choral preludes. The sole means by which I arrived at these combinations had nothing to do with history, and carried only the authority of a musician's "inner ear." However, that "inner ear" was well versed in Consorts of Viols, the Harpsichord, Baroque Orchestras and Brass Consort music.

I'm quite sure that if one were to do an analysis of the physics of pipe organs, string and brass consorts, the sonorities of the harpsichord and families of recorders, there will be certain "rules" which dictate how the instruments are made, what size they are and how they are shaped in such a way that they sound agreeable and work in perfect harmony.

It is, for this reason, that I state my case against history, and defend the right of musicians to seek and find the best sounds and combinations of sounds AS THEY RELATE TO THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE MUSIC.

MM

[David Pinnegar]

Dear MM

Interesting thoughts as always.

One might wonder the extent to which the instrument was an instrument in its own right or to the extent to which it was imitative of the collections of instruments at the time, whether brass bands in the nature of instruments of the French Baroque through to the symphonic of the latter days.

Whether "correct" or not, the use of such an instrument in France as a brass band works well for Bach as demonstrated by Pierre Bardon which I (naughtily) recorded and put on YouTube ("St Maximin Bach D Minor"). (That performance was such a triumph that perhaps I might be excused for having wickedly captured the spirit of the moment.) Whether or not such brass bands are equally suited to Mendlessohn (YT "Mendlessohn organ sonata St Maximin") might be a matter of debate and opinion, but the performance was particularly exhiliarating at the time.

Best wishes

David P

PS By the way, in my post above, of course I should have referred to "The Cornett as an Haut Bois in which the reed is replaced by the lips,"

[AnOrganCornucopia]

Actually, Haarlem was in and playing eighteen years before Bach's death.

Oh, and I challenge ANYONE to call the Trost organ in the Altenburgschlosskapell - which Bach played and adored - inferior to a Silbermann. It survives unaltered to this day, testament to its maker's skill as organ-builder and voicer. It is, quite simply, fabulous - and possessed of a powerful, almost boomy Pedal division with a colossal 16' Posaune!

Here it is, in a competent (albeit not flawless) performance, apparently captured on a rather flying visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2QtMwpa9aM&feature=related

And now for a different extreme, here's an organ in which theatre and classical meet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqvpkkx6MBU

Now, to get back to Willis, I challenge ANYONE to question the boldness of these diapasons... just because they aren't the same thing as Armley doesn't mean they lack brightness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOZjJISUGJo
Though, yes, THOSE REEDS. I really don't think Willis was as far from Cavaillé-Coll as MM suggests - though I prefer Willis chorus reeds to those of C-C, and I don't think an unaltered C-C Clarinette is anywhere near as fine as a Willis Corno di Bassetto. I also love the sheer impact of a Willis Ophicleide... but would you really think that organ is only 35 stops? Just goes to show what the Willises' expert voicing and a generous acoustic can achieve. That the organ's entirely original action had the speed of response and repetition to cope with such a demanding modern composition is, I think, also testament to its makers' genius.

If I was asking David Wyld to build me a new organ, I would ask that the Great and Swell choruses contained both 17.19.22 and 19.22.26.29 mixtures, I think...

What about Arthur Harrison? His bigger organs would often have both a large quint mixture and a tierce mixture on the Great, or more often the four-rank Harmonics 17.19.flat21.22 - Newcastle City Hall being an example of this. There are actually mixtures everywhere but the Solo - 12.15.17.19.22 on the Pedal, 15.19.22 on the Choir, 15.19.22.26.29 and 17.19.flat21.22 on the Great, 12.19.22.26.29 on the Swell.

Meanwhile, everyone here should check out last Tuesday's The Organist Entertains on the BBC iPlayer - great episode of what I find to be a programme of rather variable quality (or at least interest to this classically-minded fan of classical and theatre organs, but not much of Hammonds). It rounded off with Tom Trotter playing "The Three Elizabeths: Youth of Britain (Princess Elizabeth)" by Eric Coates at Brum Town Hall - what a STUNNING organ that is. All the chorus boldness Colin wants and all the orchestral richness Pierre or I could ever wish for... and in a glorious acoustic too. It's off the "Thomas Trotter: The Town Hall Tradition" CD/DVD, available on Regent Records. I could bankrupt myself just buying organ CDs, but that's one I'd like to get.

[Pierre Lauwers]

"I would personally argue that the music of Bach was probably never heard on the best instruments; though clearly, the Silbermann organs with which he was familiar may have been a notable exception, as would those of Hilderbrandt."
(Quote)

Indeed not. Bach disagreeded strongly with Silbermann. This said, I understand why Silbermann was a favorite
with the neo-baroque move, with his frenchified Mixtures.

"Could it be, that apart from these few exceptions, the very finest organs of the baroque period were not to be found in Bach's native Thuringia?"
(Quote)

So much so that the thuringian organ soon  superseded  the northern one after 1750, and was seminal in the development of the romantic organ.

"when I first played the organ of St Bavo, Haarlem, I didn't quite know what I would do with the stops, but after testing various things, listening to what happened and with a little prompting from my Netherlands host, I arrived at registrations which seemed to suit Bach's music perfectly, even though the organ post-dates Bach and is located a long way away from Thuringia."
(Quote)

Like Joachim Wagner's ones in Brandenburg -away from Thuringia as well- this organ is a vast synthesis -like the thuringian organ themwelves, so close to Bohemia...-. To the point there was a guy working with Müller there who came directly from the utmost southern Germany. A guy who already built Dulcianas et al...(still inverted-conical then,
a form which became the Dolce in continental Europe). This swiss guy from Schaffousen was a dedicate Johannes Schnetzler -wieso?-

Best wishes,
Pierre

[Pierre Lauwers]

So far, so good. Now some examples of thuringian organs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2QtMwpa9aM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG4dEu5mlWo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY53wYOKt7Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n5WUJSouEw

Quite interesting, with orchestra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlpcjsAK-Ng&feature=related

....So that Albert Schweitzer's choice to favor the builder Dalstein & Haerpfer -the actual builder of the "Silbermann" organs he recorded with- was perhaps closer to the historic facts that what followed with the Orgelbewegung:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4Hs_XTYj7c
Anyone will have noted the Mixtures of those organs have tierce ranks. The only exception to this was indeed Silbermann (who sometimes provided a separate tierce rank, reluctantly, he names "Sesquialter" though there was no Quint rank!). Indeed, when one sees the Specifications of those mixtures, one soon realize they are actually
"Kornett-Mixtur" stops. Ending in the treble with something like 8-4-2 2/3'- 2- 1 3/5' (1 1/3').
This disturbed strongly the Orgelbewegung people, because their vision of the Mixtures was the one of Marcel Dupré and his followers: the Plein-jeu one side, the Grand-jeu the other one.
So they were quite happy to have the organs of G. Silbermann, which allowed them to have all the others forgetted, which they remained so up to the fall of the iron curtain.
But one thing we can already hold for sure: something like 8-4-2-Quint Mixture Bach never drawn in his life, save maybe during his months in the north !
The baroque "rules" did not exist with those organs, and we may even believe Bach was responsible for something with this evolution, "raising the hair of the listeners" with his registrations.

Joachim Wagner was also an outsider, like Silbermann, but the reverse way, as he introduced this
kind of middle-southern- organ into the north-east, in Brandenburg.
He also built those early Kornett-Mixtur stops. A good example is Sternhagen, just restored (2010). Here are a series of sound files (extracts from a CD) which is quite worth a listening:

http://www.hadulla-musik.de/OrgelSternhagen/OrgelSternhagen.html

All the best,
Pierre

[AnOrganCornucopia]

This is very interesting indeed, but I fear a tad off-topic! Might it be an idea to separate them out into another thread?

[MusingMuso]

So far, so good. Now some examples of thuringian organs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2QtMwpa9aM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG4dEu5mlWo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY53wYOKt7Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n5WUJSouEw

Quite interesting, with orchestra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlpcjsAK-Ng&feature=related

....So that Albert Schweitzer's choice to favor the builder Dalstein & Haerpfer -the actual builder of the "Silbermann" organs he recorded with- was perhaps closer to the historic facts that what followed with the Orgelbewegung:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4Hs_XTYj7c
Anyone will have noted the Mixtures of those organs have tierce ranks. The only exception to this was indeed Silbermann (who sometimes provided a separate tierce rank, reluctantly, he names "Sesquialter" though there was no Quint rank!). Indeed, when one sees the Specifications of those mixtures, one soon realize they are actually
"Kornett-Mixtur" stops. Ending in the treble with something like 8-4-2 2/3'- 2- 1 3/5' (1 1/3').
This disturbed strongly the Orgelbewegung people, because their vision of the Mixtures was the one of Marcel Dupré and his followers: the Plein-jeu one side, the Grand-jeu the other one.
So they were quite happy to have the organs of G. Silbermann, which allowed them to have all the others forgetted, which they remained so up to the fall of the iron curtain.
But one thing we can already hold for sure: something like 8-4-2-Quint Mixture Bach never drawn in his life, save maybe during his months in the north !
The baroque "rules" did not exist with those organs, and we may even believe Bach was responsible for something with this evolution, "raising the hair of the listeners" with his registrations.

Joachim Wagner was also an outsider, like Silbermann, but the reverse way, as he introduced this
kind of middle-southern- organ into the north-east, in Brandenburg.
He also built those early Kornett-Mixtur stops. A good example is Sternhagen, just restored (2010). Here are a series of sound files (extracts from a CD) which is quite worth a listening:

http://www.hadulla-musik.de/OrgelSternhagen/OrgelSternhagen.html

All the best,
Pierre

I hesitate to suggest that Pierre has missed the point a little, because the "rules" to which I refer have nothing to do with stop-lists or the existence or otherwise of Tierces. However, just to set the record straight, I think that he will find even larger quint mixtures in the organs of Hilderbrandt than in those of Silbermann, and they would be quint mixtures with possibly a separately drawn, narrow-scale tierce. As Bach and Silbermann went to inspect the organ at Naumberg built by Hilderbrandt, it is quite likely that Bach drew 8.4.2. and a purely quint mixture; possibly with or without a 16ft as well.

This business of "werkprinzip" layout is also a bit of red-herring, because the most important thing is the depth or otherwise of an organ-case. True baroque organs tended to be built very shallow,(usually in a west gallery position), meaning that the back wall is just behind the pipework in the majority of instruments. Obviously, there will be exceptions to this, but the shallow organ was perhaps the commonest way of building them. So in effect, the organ-case was one giant tone-cabinet, with the back wall acting as the reflecting surface.

The next point being missed is the nature of the voicing. Trost may have been a bit weird in pursuing strange new sounds, and one could never accuse him of being a successful businessman; taking so long to build organs and voice them, he probably forgot where he had been and where he was going half the time. The impression I get of the Altenburg organ is that of a man self-possessed, who got there in the end after a lot of trial and error. Still, if nothing else, his style does remind us that organ-building was a very localised and even parochial affair, just as Germany was at the time. Even the Lutheran mass would vary from parish to parish, with some using Latin and others German; each church having its own, unique prayer-book. There was no real unity of purpose, but there were certain ways of doing things within a spectrum of considerable diversity and variety; perhaps reflecting the constant search for new ways of expression in a newly individualistic age.

I'm quite sure that J S Bach would have enjoyed the diversity of organ sound, and found ways of expressing himself accordingly; making best use of what was available to him.

What Pierre must understand is the fact that the true baroque organ works WITH the principles of music and physics, rather than against them. This is because the pipes are left to speak naturally, with no nicking or only slight nicking of the languid. The leathered Posaunes of Schnitger, (and presumably others), were the major exception, for this was a deliberate attempt to create smoother, imitative reed-tone as a foil to the flue-choruses; hence the separation of reeds and flues, where the reeds are highly individualistic and imitative.

When pipes are scaled relative to each other, (using whatever scales were common practice for a particular organ-builder),  and voiced as naturally as possible, the end result is a certain harmony in the choruswork, which is how it should be. This is the unwritten rule of organ-pipe building, where the various pitches combine to complement the chorus effect.  Really, the inclusion or otherwise of a Tierce rank does not change the natural ensemble, but it certainly does make the effect harmonically richer and even slightly out of tune.

The very idea of "harmonic corroborating stops" is a piece of nonsense from Casson and from Audsley in America, because low-pressure voicing, where the scales are right, will result in good choruses if the voicer is skilled enough to make best use of the pipework by tailoring the end result to the acoustic of the room into which it speaks.

Of course, once you can raise enough wind with a machine, blow the pipes very hard, nick away at the pipes until they could appear on the film-set of "Saw," place dumbell-like weights on the reeds and make Dulciana scale mixtures scream like banshees; you are into the business of bending the natural laws of physics, acoustics  and organ-pipe choruses. If your name is John Compton or Fr Henry Willis, you can do it, but it takes an exceptional voicer to make it work musically. It could even be said that by using the extension principle, John Compton was obliged to work within the confines of a certain scaling and voicing discipline, where pipes of similar scale and treatment formed acoustically related choruses; albeit by using the trickery of the telephone exchange mechanism.

The people concerned with 'Orgelbewegung' may have made mistakes and come to wrong conclusions, but the one thing they got absolutely right, was the need to make organs as tonally natural and inter-related as they could be, without recourse to harmonic sleights of hand or things which are the musical equivalent to international diplomacy; getting organ-pipes to do what you think people need to hear. Harmonic corroboration is probably the organ equivalent to espionage and double-agents.

"Now look here Bond, this is called a Harmonics. Pull the knob thus, and everyone, (including Johnny Foreigner), will be your friend."

It all comes back to harmonic relationships....the idea of "Conserted music".....the Consort of Viols, the Consort of Brass and families of Recorders; perhaps even the idea of a "choir" or "chorus."

If the idea of conserted anything hints at communism, then you can always do what Hope-Jones and Wurlitzer did, by ditching the Diapason Chorus completely. That was probably the most honest thing they ever did, because it freed them from the tyranny of counterpoint.....or should that be "counter-agents?"

MM

PS: I enjoyed writing the above.   8)

[Pierre Lauwers]

The Hildebrandt's Mixtures at Naumburg seem quite modern; indeed, they are not original, but one may
admit that -contrarily to another Silbermann's ex-worker, J. Wagner- Hildebrandt built them like Silbermann,
i.e. after a rather french manner.
As for the depth of the cases, well, there are many in eastern Germany that are rather deep; the Rückpositiv
did not exist any more, while the Brustwerk was sometimes replaced by an Hinterwerk ("Work behind"). Moreover,
the Pedal was often at the back !

The leathering of the shallots was done by nearly all german builders, at least in the bass part of the compass of the deepest reed stops. The purpose to this was to eliminate the rattle, but first to tame the basses somewhat to get a better balance between bass and treble, so avoiding the roaring basses that engulf all the rest, like one can esxperience with many a french organ (There are reasons for french baroque organs having no Bombarde on the Pedal, but rather on a manual, with moderate scales, and with a strong Cornet).

As for the "natural tone", well, this is typically a neo-baroque idea, which lended to the "nearly no voicing at all" fashion in the 1970's-1980's. Actually, the baroque builders paid an enormous attention to the voicing. But, of course,
they did not have the means for, for example, deep nicking, which costs wind. But they soon tried to combine
italian voicing goals -if not the techniques- to differentiate the strenghts of stops of similar character, i.e. "Principal amabile", "Lieblich Gedackt" etc. In short, any well-preserved ancient organ displays a stunning achievment precisely in that matter: the voicing !

As for corroborating stops: what is meant here are blending mixtures, whose aim is to reinforce the natural partials of the foundation stops, or some of them. So not to create new ones, "synthetic" tones, nor to shimmer alone, wide apart from the rest.  Neo-baroque Mixtures are something radically different, nearly solo stops. Composers like Olivier Messiaen perfectly used such stops, in a completely new way.

One of the best example of harmonic-corroborating ranks (in this case: stops!) dates not back to Audsley, but back to the 15th century:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7BK92j-PZ4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqtFO3rX8x8

Best wishes,
Pierre

[MusingMuso]

The Hildebrandt's Mixtures at Naumburg seem quite modern; indeed, they are not original, but one may
admit that -contrarily to another Silbermann's ex-worker, J. Wagner- Hildebrandt built them like Silbermann,
i.e. after a rather french manner.
As for the depth of the cases, well, there are many in eastern Germany that are rather deep; the Rückpositiv
did not exist any more, while the Brustwerk was sometimes replaced by an Hinterwerk ("Work behind"). Moreover,
the Pedal was often at the back !

The leathering of the shallots was done by nearly all german builders, at least in the bass part of the compass of the deepest reed stops. The purpose to this was to eliminate the rattle, but first to tame the basses somewhat to get a better balance between bass and treble, so avoiding the roaring basses that engulf all the rest, like one can esxperience with many a french organ (There are reasons for french baroque organs having no Bombarde on the Pedal, but rather on a manual, with moderate scales, and with a strong Cornet).

As for the "natural tone", well, this is typically a neo-baroque idea, which lended to the "nearly no voicing at all" fashion in the 1970's-1980's. Actually, the baroque builders paid an enormous attention to the voicing. But, of course,
they did not have the means for, for example, deep nicking, which costs wind. But they soon tried to combine
italian voicing goals -if not the techniques- to differentiate the strenghts of stops of similar character, i.e. "Principal amabile", "Lieblich Gedackt" etc. In short, any well-preserved ancient organ displays a stunning achievment precisely in that matter: the voicing !

As for corroborating stops: what is meant here are blending mixtures, whose aim is to reinforce the natural partials of the foundation stops, or some of them. So not to create new ones, "synthetic" tones, nor to shimmer alone, wide apart from the rest.  Neo-baroque Mixtures are something radically different, nearly solo stops. Composers like Olivier Messiaen perfectly used such stops, in a completely new way.

One of the best example of harmonic-corroborating ranks (in this case: stops!) dates not back to Audsley, but back to the 15th century:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7BK92j-PZ4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqtFO3rX8x8

Best wishes,
Pierre

With regard to regional and specific variations on a theme, I'm sure it wouldn't be very difficult to find exceptions to just about every pre-conception we assume occupied the minds of the "Orgelbewebung," but I believe that their cause was very necessary; so far had the instrument  strayed from its original conception and classical heritage. The only real truth is that there were no specific "rules" as such, but then, certain things work and certain things don't, and if something sounds good then it has to be good, irrespective of specific details.

Of course, in England, we circumnavigated the problem of powerful reed basses by the simple expedient of missing out the pedal organ altogether....a master-stroke IMHO, which must have cut down practice time enormously and permitted organists to indulge themselves in gourmet food and fine wines instead. It always strikes me as curious that no-one thought to fill in the shallots as a means of reducing power, yet they went to the trouble of leathering them and making the pipe resonators of wood. As for the thinner treble sounds of low-pressure reeds, the Cornets and Sesquialteras probably played a vital part in re-inforcing the power of the reed trebles, in the absence of higher wind pressures and harmonic trebles.

I don't agree that the idea of "natural tone" is specifically that of the "Orgelbewebung" movement. Didn't  Silbermann jest about the awful string registers on South German organs, which took several seconds, (minutes?), to settle into the fundamental tone? It took a builder of fair-organs in the 19th century to sort out that little problem, with the invention of the harmonic-bridge or "Frein Harmonique." (The organ builder was the Frenchman with the unlikely name of Gavioli). I suspect that Silbermann would have laughed out loud at Trost's equally preposterous "Traverse Flute."In fact, it's not surprising to find "string" registers which, on closer inspection, turn out to be reed registers.

As I said previously, there was a lot of experimentation going on during the baroque era;  not all of it a great success by any means.

I am slightly bemused by Pierre's comment concerning baroque voicing.

Has he never heard an Arp Schnitger organ in a small church?

It may be a deeply iconoclastic view, but wasn't Arp Schnitger the Fr Willis of his day?

He built organs to a set voicing formula, and I doubt that he did much more than regulate the pipes at the mouth. In a huge church, the effect is absolutely electrifying, but in a smaller building, utterly overwhelming. Arp Schnitger organs are far from subtle, unlike the later organs of F C Schnitger, which have tonal richness and sonority, but not necessarily overwhelming power. The Laurenskerk organ at Alkmaar is the greatest example of this, but Zwolle isn't far behind, even allowing for the rather underwhelming 32ft reed.

When it comes to nicking, it is said that after Marcussen rubbed out all the nicking on the languids at the Bavokerk, someone pointed out that Muller often finely nicked his pipes, and therefore, the nicking found in the pipes of the Bavo-orgal were probably original. A definite "Whoops!" moment, if ever there was one.
I would also dispute the assertion that in the 1970/80's little or no voicing was carried out in "the neo-baroque" organs of the day. Certainly, one hears stories about organ-buiulders suggesting that they should , "Leave the pipes a bit  rough,the way they like 'em," but such comments would not have been uttered by the best  builders and voicers such as Marcussen, Thos.Frobenius, Flentrop and others. Indeed, the organ I play, with just 8.4.IV (quint mixture) & II (Sesquialtera) acting as the pleno, is the equal of anything from antiquity, but obviously less rich than an organ with a 16ft chorus, multiple mixtures and reeds.

I think I can recognise a poor neo-baroque organ when I hear one. God knows, I've played many. That stated, I also know that a good voicer could soon rectify the roughness and work miracles on many a poorly conceived Mixture register. When it comes to good neo-baroque voicing, the organ in the Bavo-kerk is still probably the finest in the world, and lest we forget, that is probably more Marcussen, (at their best), than it is Muller.


MM

[Pierre Lauwers]

Poor baroque builders, I hope that, from where they are, they cannot read the post above.
Actually, the open-toe voicing was a diffcult, delicate, and quite time-consuming process. It was even
hazardous -fires happened during voicing sessions.
Regulating at the flue did not mean that, towards the feet, nothing happened. The holes for the pipes in the sound-board were made intentionally somewhat narrow, in order that they could be adjusted by heating
(with little iron barrels that were heated to the red; hence the fire risks). Among others, we know that the
Casparinis worked that way.

The whole voicing matter is somewhat more complicated than only regulation. Here is a link that might
be interesting:

http://www.acoustics.asn.au/conference_proceedings/ICA2010/cdrom-ISMA2010/papers/p57.pdf

....Save maybe about the 19th century.

Of course Silbermann, who was trained after the french manner (and thus, regulating both a the flue and at the foot!) of a rather quick speech, may have found the baroque Gambas somewhat curious affairs indeed. But ihn fact, as we know from a note from Joachim Wagner, their very slowness was seen as an asset, as those stops were mainly used...in quick passages, where their transients were used as a kind of percussion !
Those slow-speaking, quite rich in harmonics stops, came from Italy, where they especialized in sweet, soft, mellow and rich tones -to the price of a dedicate slowness-. All this with....Open toe voicing !
So much for the "natural" voicing...

Best wishes,
Pierre

[AnOrganCornucopia]

With regard to just one of MM's points - I believe that there is a string stop on the Saint-Sulpice, Paris organ, of Cavaillé-Coll's manufacture, which is in fact a small, delicate reed. Whatever one can say about the Baroque builders, one cannot argue that C-C used them in the absence of the skill necessary to voice proper strings well!

Now, as I have already pleaded, PLEASE can we return to topic and farm off this very interesting and worthwhile debate into another thread!

[MusingMuso]

Poor baroque builders, I hope that, from where they are, they cannot read the post above.
Actually, the open-toe voicing was a diffcult, delicate, and quite time-consuming process.

On refection, a poor choice of words on my part.  I meant voicing rather than regulation, but I think what I had in mind was something I've read previously about Arp Schnitger, that he used more or less standard scales/cut-ups etc.

I'm not sure oi I can remember where I read this, but I'll see if I can find it again. I found it very interesting.

MM

[Pierre Lauwers]

Indeed it would be, MM. For my part, I have found the Schnitger organs indeed somewhat
vigourous in small churches, but nor crude ! And his working methods were less standardized
than those of the Silbermanns. Remember, moreover, that he quite often re-used ancient pipework.
The volume of sound must always be understood, with Schnitger's work, holding in mind that the first
aim of his organs was not our today's "ti-tu-tah", but the accompaniment of the congregationnal
singing.

I found back a good example on Youtube, Hollern: a 24 stops Schnitger in a little church:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxyRALMwz7o

Another video with H. Vogel presenting the organ:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgJJYRliYQw&feature=related

Best wishes,
Pierre

[MusingMuso]

Indeed it would be, MM. For my part, I have found the Schnitger organs indeed somewhat
vigourous in small churches, but nor crude ! And his working methods were less standardized
than those of the Silbermanns. Remember, moreover, that he quite often re-used ancient pipework.
The volume of sound must always be understood, with Schnitger's work, holding in mind that the first
aim of his organs was not our today's "ti-tu-tah", but the accompaniment of the congregationnal
singing.

Best wishes,
Pierre

I've impressed myself by finding the quote concerning Arp Schnitger; it must have been five or six years since I last came across the words of wisdom, which were written by the late Stephen Bicknell.

Much of his writing is still to be found in the archives of piporg-l, and they make for fascinating reading.

Here are a few excerpts, which I think Pierre will agree with:-

1)

Not all old European churches are resonant. Some are very resonant of
course, but the great works of Arp Schnitger and Gottfried Silbermann (for
example) are distributed about equally in rooms with big acoustics on the
one hand, and tiny wooden churches with no reverberation whatever on the
other hand. Neither builder made any change whatever in technique for the
different conditions. The sound of the organ was an 'absolute', and
remained pretty much immutable.

2)

.....there was no one 'Golden Age'.  The craft has flourished in many very different ways.  The skill generously applied to these organs,in addition to their many other merits, is that of voicing.

How seriously did the organ builders of the past take the art of voicing?
The evidence is that they took it very seriously indeed.   

3)

It does not take long to realise that there is at least a possibility that the craft of
voicing was seriously damaged by the Classical Revival in organ building.

4)

Indeed we have been though a period of exceptionally thin and bright sounding organs, for however beautiful the results achieved by Frobenius, Flentrop and Marcussen the vast majority of their contemporaries went a bit too far as far as brilliancy and articulation are concerned

5)

The world discussed a flue voicing style which combined low pressures, low cut-ups, large
footholes and no nicking. This put an accent on attack and brightness never
attempted in organ building before.

6)

Arp Schnitger, Gottfried Silbermann and Francois-Henri Clicquot all seem to
have used some nicking.

7)

In romantic organ-building the voicer was exalted.  To the Organ Reformers
the idea of precision regularity was anathema and a whole generation chose,
in effect, not to be trained in the art of voicing. Instead they set out to
teach it themselves from the ground up.  An account of such a process is an
important part of Ralph Downes' fascinating book  "Baroque Tricks."


8 )

Ralph Downes learnt by experience that, if he was to achieve his desired ideal tone, then the precision
required was fantastic.  He was right, and this is in its simple form the truth of the ancient 'secret'. 

9)

At Alkmaar Franz Caspar Schnitger spent a great deal of time and trouble on the musical
beauty of his work.  The result is stunning.

This is all very significant stuff, and Pierre is right to draw attention to it. I can also state with some certainty, that the difference between the organ I play and most other neo-baroque instruments, is the fact that it was actually VOICED very meticulously, with much evidence of very light nicking and variable cut-ups. I know that when I've played some of the finest old organs in the Netherlands and returned home, I've always felt that although I may be downsizing, I am never downgrading tonally. That is, I suppose, the ultimate statement of respect and admiration.

Elsewhere, Stephen Bicknell draws attention to the organs of Central Germany, and goes so far as to suggest that the organs of Arp Schnitger, (so beloved of the 'orgelbewebung'), are good for Reinken, Bruhns and Buxtehude (etc), and not much else. They are not really Bach organs at all. On the other hand, he does suggest that the true Bach organ was probably the style of Hilderbrandt, (especially at Naumberg), rather than that of Trost or Herbst, and Naumburg certainly has that combination of gravity and grandeur so appropriate to the music of J S Bach.

My comment about "the best Bach organs coming after Bach's death" was half right and half wrong, but of course, Bach would never have known them, which is the more important point. I was particularly interest to learn that when F C Schnitger departed for the Netherlands, there wasn't an immediately comparable organ-builder of the same stature in his native region. Furthermore, I've also learned in the past few hours, that Christian Muller came from the Harz mountain region close to Thuringia and the Central German school. This possibly explains why both Alkmaar and the Bavo-orgel are so perfectly suited to the music of Bach, and are often the first choices for the finest Bach scholars and performers.

MM

[Pierre Lauwers]

.....Not to forget Müller's companion, Johannes Schnetzler, trained by Egedacher.
(And who, somewhat later, built the closest things to  Bach organs that ever existed
in Britain).

Best wishes,
Pierre

[MusingMuso]

I was going to post a few Youtube examples of "Bach" organs to illustrate the points made, but I ran into terrible problems with the layout, and therefore post them separately, thus:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouJ3O2T4ZI0   Naumberg –Hilderbrandt organ - E minor Bach

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QJN6Q8OG3I&feature=related – Chapuis – E minor  Zwolle - organ by F C Schnitger/Hagabeer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz6MlY3MVQ0&feature=fvsr  - O mensch – Trost

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zK2L1Gt8Mg – G major Prelude - Trost

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4It95IHsA8 – Alkmaar – G major - F C Schnitger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMQKu7cPhpI – Herbst organ – 2 manual with 32 reed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghjTrkUGqfU - Joachim Wagner Organ - Trondheim - restored by Ahrend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSZRf9fvoEo - Gilleian Weir - BWV565 - Haarlem


What a feast!

MM

[MusingMuso]

And just in case anyone thinks we've strayed far from the original broadcast about Fr Willis.....not a bit of it!

The name of Fr Willis and many of the above organ-builders, all combined in "Howard Goodall's Organ Works" on TV.

How's that for continuity?

8)

MM