Translation please

[Contratrombone64]

Well, google translate only works very vaguely. My schoolboy French isn't brilliant.

Anyone profer a non-google translate suggestion for this:

Fonds et jeux Anches

 

[el_supremo]

I believe it means all foundation stops and reeds.

Pete

 

[Corno Dolce]

Roger that. Also, If my memory serves me, *Ajoutez les Anches* means to add the reeds.

*Retranchez les Anches* for to subtract or take away reeds.

 

[Ghekorg7 (Ret)]

Fonds : Fodamentales : basic stops 8/4/2/2 2/3
Jeux : toys = play. All French use this word in Organ terminology
Anches. My very old Larousse Dictionary (1932) doesn't say anything.
Daquin : Noels sur les jeux d' Anches. Marie-Clair Alain '70 rec(ERATO). Means all reed stops, she played with them the piece and gives all registrations she used.
So, Jeux d' Anches = play with reed stops.
Still I have to find where this word (Anches) came from.

Please David download the Cavaille'-Coll CC2.0 jOrgan disposition from Bernd Casper's site (see my post here on el/dig organs) and see and hear the stops with their names. This organ is full of fonds&anches stops.

Cheers
Panos

 

[el_supremo]

Jeux does mean play, but in the context of the organ it means stops. E.g. "jeux doux" means soft stops.
Page 5 of this score http://imslp.org/wiki/12_Pièces_pour_Orgue_(Gigout,_Eugène) has an index of French terms and their English translation.

Pete

 

[dll927]

There is an old saying that fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong. Only one problem -- they all speak French. I majored in Spanish, but am pretty innocent of French.

Anches does indeed seem to mean reeds. If you ever look at the details on pictures of Cavaille-Coll organs, those pedals down there above the pedalboard are labelled "Tirasses" (manual-pedal couplers), then "Anches", which are actually the so-called ventils that bring on the reeds and upper registers, which are on a separate windchest. Then next, the manual couplers.

Here's another one to chew on -- I understand that "bourdon" means a bumble-bee in French. Now how did that get into the stop list??? Did somebody think that a 16-footer sounded like a buzz of a bumble-bee?

I got that because I once downloaded a translation of the specs for the St. Sulpice organ, which seemed to give literal translations, some of which were rather odd. It obviously wasn't done for the organ!! Not sure if I still have it.

 

[Soubasse]

Most of what little French I know comes from years of playing French organ scores!

Fonds et jeux Anches - I've not seen it written that way before but certainly, my immediate thought is as everyone else has already said, ie, Foundation and Reed stops. I'm more familiar with jeux du Fonds et Anches (or just Fonds et Anches). Fonds is also often abbreviated to Fds.

There are quite a few Leduc and Universal editions of organ music that have a handy glossary/list of stop names on their inner covers, usually in English, French and German (and occasionally Italian).

Someone more knowledgeable than me may wish to verify this, but I gather that "Tirasse" as a word is peculiar to the organ in that it's derived from tirez (pull - as in pedal pulldown coupler) but is not used outside of organ nomenclature?

There are at least two different definitions for Bourdon depending on which source you read, but the more frequently occurring appears to be a French word for "bass" (there have certainly been other definitions citing it as meaning "buzz" hence "bumble-bee"). Given that Fauxbourdon means "false bass", its meaning as "bass" seems more likely, particularly in the context of the organ of course. Bourdon is also the name used by the French for the drone pipes in bagpipes and the drone strings on a hurdy-gurdy.

Matt

 

[Contratrombone64]

Jeux does mean play, but in the context of the organ it means stops. E.g. "jeux doux" means soft stops.
Page 5 of this score http://imslp.org/wiki/12_Pièces_pour_Orgue_(Gigout,_Eugène) has an index of French terms and their English translation.

Pete

Hey, thanks, really the most helpful response to this question of mine, also quite like the pieces, must give 'em a whirl.

David

 

[Pat17]

I think the answer has already been given as for the translation. To be noted in French you must write...

"Jeux d'anches"

... and not...

"Jeux anches"

...which is a grammatical mistake

 

[Ghekorg7 (Ret)]

Fonds : Fodamentales : basic stops 8/4/2/2 2/3
So, Jeux d' Anches = play with reed stops.
Panos

Hi Pat17 ! and welcome to the forum !
That's what I wrote !

Cheers
Panos

 

[Contratrombone64]

I think the answer has already been given as for the translation. To be noted in French you must write...

"Jeux d'anches"

... and not...

"Jeux anches"

...which is a grammatical mistake

Maybe but the French spoken and written (more importantly) by organists of French origin is very idiomatic, I was speaking to the lady who is in charge of Modern Languages at the College where I work, she's a fluent speaker of French. She clarified this for me, call it a quirk. It's the same as italians using "allegro, andante, presto" and other terms, quite specific to music and often now, slightly different in meaning.

 

[Soubasse]

Yes that's a good point. I know that for Italians, piano can also mean "gently" which can be used in the similar contexts that we would, ie, to "speak gently" or to "put down that glass gently." Similarly, forte meaning "strong" as opposed to "loud."

When I've tried to get some translations of certain performance directions in some French scores, I've been told it was tricky because it was an "older dialect."

To quote Obelix: "These Europeans are crazy!" (Mind you, they could have a field day with that altogether unintelligible language known here as "strain" ... or if you're attempting to pronounce it properly "strayan")

 

[Pat17]

Maybe but the French spoken and written (more importantly) by organists of French origin is very idiomatic, I was speaking to the lady who is in charge of Modern Languages at the College where I work, she's a fluent speaker of French. She clarified this for me, call it a quirk. It's the same as italians using "allegro, andante, presto" and other terms, quite specific to music and often now, slightly different in meaning.

Sorry for my remark, that wasn't meant to be offending... I just wanted to complete what has been stated before. As for me, reading "jeux anches" is as strange as if I was asking for "a cup coffee" - which actually should be the correct way to do in German - Eine Tasse Kaffee.

Languages are somewhat tricky... and French is far from being the easiest of them.

 

[Pat17]

Yes that's a good point. I know that for Italians, piano can also mean "gently" which can be used in the similar contexts that we would, ie, to "speak gently" or to "put down that glass gently." Similarly, forte meaning "strong" as opposed to "loud."

Absolutely, they are all Italian adjectives that may be used in on a day to day basis.

When I've tried to get some translations of certain performance directions in some French scores, I've been told it was tricky because it was an "older dialect."

If you are referring to Baroque Music, this is correct. It was written in Intermediate French (basically the French language from the 16th to the 18th Century), which is quite understandable for a French speaker, but I can imagine difficult to get for someone using the language as a foreign one. If it can make you feel more comfortable, the old French (Middle Ages) is almost impossible for me to understand.

I had once the same issue in English, trying to read Shakespeare in its original version. Though he was writing on the 16th Century - if I am not mistaken - it was hard for me to catch up the meaning of his text...

 

[el_supremo]

I knew I had found another list somewhere or other and have only just unearthed it. The second page of this score also has translations of French terms into English:
http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/2/27/IMSLP04737-BoellmannFantasie.pdf

Pete

 

[dll927]

About that "tirasse" --in Spanish, "tirar" means "to pull" (as long as you're not in Mexico, where it's "jalar" a lot of the time).

The so-called Romance languages all derived from Latin, so that fact that there are relationships is no surprise. They are Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, and some Romanian. If "tirasse" means "pull down", well, on mechanical organs that's exactly what they do --pull down the manual notes to the pedals. That's why the keys dutifully depress without being touched. The same could be said of the manual couplers on a mechanical.

 

[Contratrombone64]

dll927 - thanks for that, fascinating

 

[Ghekorg7 (Ret)]

About that "tirasse" --in Spanish, "tirar" means "to pull" (as long as you're not in Mexico, where it's "jalar" a lot of the time).

The so-called Romance languages all derived from Latin, so that fact that there are relationships is no surprise. They are Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, and some Romanian. If "tirasse" means "pull down", well, on mechanical organs that's exactly what they do --pull down the manual notes to the pedals. That's why the keys dutifully depress without being touched. The same could be said of the manual couplers on a mechanical.

Indeed dll. Try also the French "tirer" witch means to pull. Same thing.
You can translate tirasse as pulling.....

 

[Pat17]

Please be careful, 'to pull' is translated 'tirer' into French.

'Tirasse' is something else - I'm sorry, I do not know the translation into English. Tirasse is referring to a coupler that allows to play a manual - great, choir, swell, etc... - from the pedalboard.

 

[Pat17]

The so-called Romance languages all derived from Latin, so that fact that there are relationships is no surprise. They are Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, and some Romanian.

Actually, these languages are called "the Latin languages" in French ("les langues latines"), or sometimes the Greek-Latin languages, due to the importance of Greek roots that passed to the modern Meditarrenean langugages through Latin.