"When
heard from the choir .... its tone is very like a fine Pedal diapason
combined with a soft 16-feet reed of equal quality and intonation."
Thus Hopkins and Rimbault describe the violone on the organ at Cologne
cathedral in 1877. Organ lovers can have no difficulty in "hearing"
that sound in their minds. "A blazing (or fiery) trumpet "
can well be imagined and, thanks to CDs, the characteristics of
a "Schulze-like diapason chorus" are easily identified.
"Cathedral roll", was universal shorthand for an effect
dominated by large -scale 8' and 16' stops, much praised in the
earlier years of the twentieth century . By contrast, Hugh Allen,
whose books on harmony and counterpoint still appear on many bookshelves
as standard texts, dismissed the sound of baroque instruments as
"bubble and squeak".
The Victorian
concert organist, W.T. Best, on hearing a singularly aggressive
railway-engine whistle, told Father Willis that it reminded him
of one of the latter's Harmonic Flutes ~ but the two were not on
good terms at the time.
Growing interest
in pipe organs has resulted in increasing numbers of writers of
articles discovering how hard it is to find the right words to describe
the timbre of stops and choruses and there have been numbers of
conspicuous failures.
Try to identify
the qualities described below:-
(a) the sound
of smashing glass:
(b) a sound like green seaweed on a gently-ebbing tide;
(c) the tone is reminiscent of a ball of fluff with spikes sticking
out of it.
Smashing glass
refers, of course, to over-eager mixtures on the Swell. This seemed
an exaggeration , until, one day, a player given to marked dynamics
played a rapid crescendo followed immediately by an equally fast
diminuendo. This, on full swell with the octave-coupler added produced
an effect that would have delighted any old-time theatre organist
called on to suggest that a sack of bricks was being dropped on
to a conservatory from a passing aeroplane. No more exact description
of the sound than "smashing glass" could be imagined.
The gently-ebbing
tide gives (b) a clue to the undulations of string stop drawn with
the voix celestes. Did the writer intend green seaweed as a compliment
or was he implying that the tone made him sick? No one knows and
the sound (if any) of seaweed is an area yet to be researched.
(c) the spiky
balls of fluff come from Noel Bonavia Hunt's 1923 volume on Modern
Organ Stops. NBH was a skilled voicer whose duties as a parson caused
him to recline with regret many of the commissions offered to him
- including work on the organ at Philadelphia's Wanamaker store.
Existing examples of his work show extreme refinement of tone and
perfect balance throughout the compass.
The stop he
thus describes is the Horn Diapason - one of those hybrids usually
found only in large organs where cost has been no consideration.
It also occurs in smaller ones where reedy-toned flues are preferred
to actual reed pipes on account of their greater ability to stand
in tune. Voicers must hear pipes differently from less-gifted mortals;
the sound of spiky balls of fluff are as elusive as that of seaweed.
Why not try clicking on "Listen" on this web-site and
playing the extract from Meyerbeer's Coronation March. (Better still,
if you have the disc, play the whole track.) The solo stop used
is the Bombarde. Can this be described in words in such a way that
a non-musician would gain some idea of what it sounds like?
If you like
to send your description in, we'll try to show it here - anonymously
if you prefer.
D.Bridgeman-Sutton, 2002.
(With
thanks to Warwick Henshaw for the pictures from Bardon
Enterprises' recent reprint of Noel Bonavia-Hunt's Modern Organ
Stops originally published in 1923.)
.......... * A postscript
!
The August
2002 number of Organists' Review has on its cover, as usual, a most
attractive photograph. This shows the new Harrison & Harrison
instrument in Front Street Methodist Church, Burlington, North Carolina.
The elegant colonial building is now graced by a handsome pair of
organ cases in classical style that blend with the overall design.
On page
238, Harrison's advertisement features this new organ, giving specification
and background information, including details of wind pressures
- "12" for the grandiloquent tuba".
Using the
contact facility on the firm's website - www.harrison-organs.co.uk
I rather cheekily suggested that "grandiloquent" was not
the right word, quoting the Oxford Dictionary's definition as "pompous
in language - given to grand talk" with its suggestion of the
meretricious and unreliable.
Mark Venning,
Harrison's Managing Director, replied:-
"I
claim the authority of Cicero and Virgil for the use of this fine
word to mean "speaking grandly or in a stately fashion".
It is a pity that the slightly pejorative meaning seems to prevail
in modern English, but I feel it is good to resist such tendencies."
No tubas
speak more grandly than those that come from H&H's Durham factory
and it is always a pleasure to meet the elegant and well-informed
use of words. As this exchange illustrates, semantic problems can
occur when describing organ tones. Resisting current usage, perhaps,
creates others.
One thing
is certain. If either Cicero or Virgil is in the market for a new
pipe organ, Harrisons will enter the tendering process with a head
start.
Other musings
in Views and Reviews:
Feel free to email with questions or feedback
