Digital Organ Choice

[FelixLowe]

YEEEEOOOOOOW!!

Felix, you couldn't get a Phoenix to sound that bad if you ran over it first with a big truck!!

While Wyvern does employ Phoenix technology for some of their high end organs, this organ is definitely NOT one of them! This one sounds like road-kill.

The organ in the video has to be a pretty old electronik-sounding analog organ. Listen to the "tuning" on this thing. It only has two sets of tuning oscillators for the entire organ! That's only 192 pitch sources compared to modern organs where each note of each stop is independently tuned, yielding over 4,000 pitches.

Just to refresh your memory, this is what a Phoenix sounds like:
http://www.organ.dnet.co.uk/phoenix/messiaentransports.mp3

Wyvern uses Phoenix technology? How did you know about that? Well, the two may be different. But they sound pretty close in terms of voicing. I wasn't talking about the technical aspect of tonal production, but just the voicing. At least I can tell Wyvern is not Rodgers in terms of sounding British as a British-made instrument. All I was trying to say is that Rodgers is one school, and Wyvern and Phoenix are another school within the British organ building tradition.

The recording of the Wyvern clip says the clip was made in 2009; I don't know when the organ was made -- it doesn't say. But you've got to be kidding to say the Wyvern in the clip is not digital. There are some analogue instruments made in the 70s featured on Youtube. If you say this one is analogue, you probably haven't heard what a real analogue instrument sounded like in those days.

 

[FelixLowe]

YEEEEOOOOOOW!!

Felix, you couldn't get a Phoenix to sound that bad if you ran over it first with a big truck!!

While Wyvern does employ Phoenix technology for some of their high end organs, this organ is definitely NOT one of them! This one sounds like road-kill.

The organ in the video has to be a pretty old electronik-sounding analog organ. Listen to the "tuning" on this thing. It only has two sets of tuning oscillators for the entire organ! That's only 192 pitch sources compared to modern organs where each note of each stop is independently tuned, yielding over 4,000 pitches.

Just to refresh your memory, this is what a Phoenix sounds like:
http://www.organ.dnet.co.uk/phoenix/messiaentransports.mp3

Thanks for the clip. This clip is indeed quite realistically like a pipe organ -- it sounds like the Walcker (German Romantic instrument).

Clarion, I have a question to ask about the Phoenix instruments. Because I have seen some of their stop lists and was surprised by the huge number of stops they've made available, I am wondering if their systems operate on sound fonts loaded from CD Roms (Remember, these days many sound fonts are real pipe-by-pipe sampling, of even higher quality than mathematical imitation at intervals used by digital organ manufacturers in general) or if they did their own sampling. For example, they even provided rare stops like the Geigen Regal 4' in one instance. So, did you know what they do in that regard?

 

[Clarion]

Wyvern uses Phoenix technology? How did you know about that?

I was under the impression that Wyvern's use of Phoenix technology was pretty much common knowledge amongst organists. But they don't use Phoenix tech in all of their organs. They only use it for their very highest end custom organs. The remainder of their offerings are pretty much re-badged Contents.

Notwithstanding: The history blurb for my Phoenix configuration software includes Wyvern as a rather early entry: ver 2.2 Added Wyvern display type; which suggests that Wyvern's history with Phoenix goes back about 8 years or so.

Prior to adopting Phoenix as their system of choice for their high end organs, Wyvern used the Bradford system. Not that I have any kind of problem with aged Bradford technology. Over the years, Bradford tech has served to produce some rather pleasant sounding organs for their era. cf.

http://www.veritasorgans.com/sounds_cd_2.htm

Although Veritas organs sound most pleasant, they sound rather primitive compared to today's offerings.

Well, the two may be different. But they sound pretty close in terms of voicing. I wasn't talking about the technical aspect of tonal production, but just the voicing.

Okay . . . I will concede that there is 'some' similarity in voicing to one of Phoenix's voicing options, since Phoenix provides a whole bunch of voicing options, like English/American Romantic, French (for what it's worth on any chosen configuration), Dutch, and neo Baroque (absolutely wonderful, and my favorite).

Phoenix is in no way confined to any kind of regional culture; they can do it all, and in fine fashion. And if the English/American configuration happens to be the most sought after; that has little to do with any kind of "core" configuration for Phoenix; where each and every Phoenix organ is custom built to customer specifications.

At least I can tell Wyvern is not Rodgers in terms of sounding British as a British-made instrument. All I was trying to say is that Rodgers is one school, and Wyvern and Phoenix are another school within the British organ building tradition.

Rodgers is perhaps a poor example to be used for comparison. Over the past 40 years, I've never met a Rodgers I ever liked.

The recording of the Wyvern clip says the clip was made in 2009; I don't know when the organ was made -- it doesn't say. But you've got to be kidding to say the Wyvern in the clip is not digital. There are some analogue instruments made in the 70s featured on Youtube. If you say this one is analogue, you probably haven't heard what a real analogue instrument sounded like in those days.

When you say that I probably haven't heard what a *real* analog instrument sounded like in those days; I'm 70 years of age, and bought my first organ in 1969. Do you really want to challenge my knowledge and experience with analog organs? <grin> Been there . . . done that.

The referenced Wyvern sample is so horrendously BAD, that it must even pre-date Wyvern's Bradford Tech days.
In terms of technology, this instrument is consistent with with the technology of the early to mid 80s!!

 

[FelixLowe]

I was under the impression that Wyvern's use of Phoenix technology was pretty much common knowledge amongst organists. But they don't use Phoenix tech in all of their organs. They only use it for their very highest end custom organs. The remainder of their offerings are pretty much re-badged Contents.

Notwithstanding: The history blurb for my Phoenix configuration software includes Wyvern as a rather early entry: ver 2.2 Added Wyvern display type; which suggests that Wyvern's history with Phoenix goes back about 8 years or so.

Prior to adopting Phoenix as their system of choice for their high end organs, Wyvern used the Bradford system. Not that I have any kind of problem with aged Bradford technology. Over the years, Bradford tech has served to produce some rather pleasant sounding organs for their era. cf.

http://www.veritasorgans.com/sounds_cd_2.htm

Although Veritas organs sound most pleasant, they sound rather primitive compared to today's offerings.



Okay . . . I will concede that there is 'some' similarity in voicing to one of Phoenix's voicing options, since Phoenix provides a whole bunch of voicing options, like English/American Romantic, French (for what it's worth on any chosen configuration), Dutch, and neo Baroque (absolutely wonderful, and my favorite).

Phoenix is in no way confined to any kind of regional culture; they can do it all, and in fine fashion. And if the English/American configuration happens to be the most sought after; that has little to do with any kind of "core" configuration for Phoenix; where each and every Phoenix organ is custom built to customer specifications.



Rodgers is perhaps a poor example to be used for comparison. Over the past 40 years, I've never met a Rodgers I ever liked.



When you say that I probably haven't heard what a *real* analog instrument sounded like in those days; I'm 70 years of age, and bought my first organ in 1969. Do you really want to challenge my knowledge and experience with analog organs? <grin> Been there . . . done that.

The referenced Wyvern sample is so horrendously BAD, that it must even pre-date Wyvern's Bradford Tech days.
In terms of technology, this instrument is consistent with with the technology of the early to mid 80s!!

All I am saying is that I've heard one or two 1970 Allen and one Content with a three-digit model number (don't know when it was made and don't know what technology it was); none of them sounded like a pipe organ. But Content of today is a far cry from the old one I heard. And I presume yesterday's clip shows a Wyvern with rebadged Content technology, but the voicing (the sampled stops), I agree, is not nearly as good as what I heard from those demo discs Content provided me with recently. I was reviewing the travelling organ of Phoenix again last night (the recent invention with the touchscreen), I do think Phoenix of that case sounds more breathy and windy with a little bit more prominent chiffing to add to it a bit of liveliness, in contrast with the Wyvern we heard last night. But they both belong to similar sort of voicing -- the Father Willis breed. I think the parameters of the Wyvern of last night were probably not properly adjusted. It sounds a bit anaemic.

When you said Phoenix is not restricted to a ''regional'' kind of voicing, are you basically admitting indirectly (although you seemed to have snubbed my question over their use sound fonts) that they actually can pick any sound fonts from any CD Rom of your choice?

 

[FelixLowe]

Thanks for your web info on http://www.veritasorgans.com/sounds_cd_2.htm. They sound very intimate, familiar voices. The first one sounds quite similar to the Rodgerses, with chapel/ Cathedral voices -- very English. They said it is located in America, but overall it is quite English in voicing. Very nice, clean recordings. The organ in Britain sounds slightly South German Baroque.

 

[Clarion]

When you said Phoenix is not restricted to a ''regional'' kind of voicing, are you basically admitting indirectly (although you seemed to have snubbed my question over their use sound fonts) that they actually can pick any sound fonts from any CD Rom of your choice?

No. You cannot pick a stop from a CD ROM. It is all programmed into the sound cards when the organ is built; although I suppose Phoenix could change the voices on the sound card, but they don't provide the voices or program to do that. The only software Phoenix provides, is the voicing software which allows you to swap stops with others on the sound cards. The other software is for configuring the organ, i.e. designating what you want to be connected to each tab and piston.

My organ is set up with three separate, individually selected organs: English/American Romantic; French; and Neo Baroque. It also has a fourth configuration which is a mixture of organ voices plus some really great sounding orchestral instruments: trumpets, oboe, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, bass drums, etc.

I am confined to 44 stops for any given configuration. If I wish to change one or more of those 44 stops to something different, then I have over 200 stops to choose from. You can't change them while you are playing; it's done with computer software; and when you get a setup you like, you program the new configuration into the computer memory cards. If you change your mind later, you can load an old configuration into memory, or create a new one.

 

[FelixLowe]

No. You cannot pick a stop from a CD ROM. It is all programmed into the sound cards when the organ is built; although I suppose Phoenix could change the voices on the sound card, but they don't provide the voices or program to do that. The only software Phoenix provides, is the voicing software which allows you to swap stops with others on the sound cards. The other software is for configuring the organ, i.e. designating what you want to be connected to each tab and piston.

My organ is set up with three separate, individually selected organs: English/American Romantic; French; and Neo Baroque. It also has a fourth configuration which is a mixture of organ voices plus some really great sounding orchestral instruments: trumpets, oboe, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, bass drums, etc.

I am confined to 44 stops for any given configuration. If I wish to change one or more of those 44 stops to something different, then I have over 200 stops to choose from. You can't change them while you are playing; it's done with computer software; and when you get a setup you like, you program the new configuration into the computer memory cards. If you change your mind later, you can load an old configuration into memory, or create a new one.

That's what I guessed is the case with Phoenix. Certainly, you wouldn't need to ''boot'' your organ or any hard drive before accessing those stops on your organ to play it. What I was asking is if, during the setup of the Phoenix organ by the manufacturer, they pre-loaded sound fonts into the chips or, as you said, the fixed soundcards. My question is: did the company do their own sampling? Do they go out to the churches and cathedrals throughout Europe to record the played pipes in front of the organ to compile their soundcards?

You see, there is nothing to be ashamed of even if the company actually pays royalties for use of other people's work. As I said, today's organ sound fonts are said to be generally acheived through pipe-by-pipe sampling. So all that is matter is the file storage, the amplifier and loudspeakers, which would produce even better sound quality their quality measures up. I see why you seemed to ''misunderstand'' or dodge my question. But I personally think sound font organs are nothing to be ashamed of at all. They exceed quality of many manufactured instruments, as I have reviewed some setups on Youtube. And this is no surprise because those people are professional sound recorders and editors -- they don't build or make organs. Their efforts are just about capturing those sounds and making files on them. Many home sound font studio organs are messy, like having to putting the pedal and speakers and wires all over the room, but the sounds generally exceed the quality of many out-of-the-box instruments. But if Phoenix is sound font-operated and has neatly made cabinets, the flexibility makes it a good choice in the market.

And I was also asking basically: if I've purchased a CD ROM of a set of a certain Dutch or Danish organ sound font, can I hand it over to Don Anderson and ask him to make me a Phoenix organ that has those sounds inserted into the soundcards to make a customised instrument?

 

[Clarion]

My question is: did the company do their own sampling? Do they go out to the churches and cathedrals throughout Europe to record the played pipes in front of the organ to compile their soundcards?

Yes. Phoenix does ALL of their organ voice sampling. One interesting example, is the home organ they built for prominent American organist Haig Mardirosian. As a practice organ, Haig wanted something that duplicated the sound of his church organ. No problem! Phoenix sampled his home church Letourneau, and added a few stops sampled from one of Letourneau's hometown churches. Cf:

http://phoenixorgans.com/installation.php?installation=57

(And when it comes to truly wonderful pipe organs, Letourneau occupies #1 position on my list.)

While North American samples are all done by Don Anderson, British samples are done by Dave Bostock and in Ireland: Stephen Hamill, organist, composer and Phoenix co-founder.

Stephen has recently released recordings of his latest samples which tend to focus upon his new reed samples. Take a listen to his newbies at the top of his webpage: http://www.phoenix-organs.co.uk/audio.html.

I know the source of each and every stop on my organ which are derived from the following sources:

St. Catharine's Cathedral, St. Catherine's, ON, Canada 1990 Letourneau
Emmanuel Parish Church, Southport, England 1913 Harrison & Harrison
First United Methodist, Holland, Michigan, USA 1982 Harrison & Harrison
Mark St. United Church, Peterborough, Canada 1965 Hallman
First Presbyterian, Kilgore, Texas, USA 1949 Aeolian Skinner
First Methodist, Houston, Texas, USA 1965 Aeolian Skinner
St. John's Anglican Church, Peterborough, Canada 1956 Casavant
St. Thomas Anglican Church, Toronto, Canada 1990 Guilbault-Therrien
Parr Hall, Warrington, England 1875 Cavaille-Coll
Bedford Parish Church, Leigh,(Manchester) England 1922 Harrison & Harrison
Mossley Hill Parish Church, Liverpool, England 1937 Willis
Christ the King Cathedral, Hamilton, Canada 1937 Steinmeyer
Chichester Cathedral, England 1985 Hill/Mander
Immaculate Conception Church, Montreal, Canada 1961 von Beckerath
Eglise St. Vincent, Merignac, France 1994 Guillemin
Ascension and St. Agnes, Washington, DC 2000 Letourneau

You see, there is nothing to be ashamed of even if the company actually pays royalties for use of other people's work.

Phoenix does indeed pay for their orchestral sound samples; but when it comes to organ samples upon which their reputation rests, they do everything in-house, with no compromise in quality.

I see why you seemed to ''misunderstand'' or dodge my question. But I personally think sound font organs are nothing to be ashamed of at all. They exceed quality of many manufactured instruments, as I have reviewed some setups on Youtube.

I don't know anything about "sound font" organs, nor do I perceive any need for such. What I've heard of Viscount's physist efforts has left me less than impressed or enthusiastic.

And this is no surprise because those people are professional sound recorders and editors -- they don't build or make organs.

Exactly!!

And I was also asking basically: if I've purchased a CD ROM of a set of a certain Dutch or Danish organ sound font, can I hand it over to Don Anderson and ask him to make me a Phoenix organ that has those sounds inserted into the soundcards to make a customised instrument?

Nope! Unless you want to go with something like JOrgan . . .

 

[FelixLowe]

Yes. Phoenix does ALL of their organ voice sampling. One interesting example, is the home organ they built for prominent American organist Haig Mardirosian. As a practice organ, Haig wanted something that duplicated the sound of his church organ. No problem! Phoenix sampled his home church Letourneau, and added a few stops sampled from one of Letourneau's hometown churches. Cf:

http://phoenixorgans.com/installation.php?installation=57

(And when it comes to truly wonderful pipe organs, Letourneau occupies #1 position on my list.)

While North American samples are all done by Don Anderson, British samples are done by Dave Bostock and in Ireland: Stephen Hamill, organist, composer and Phoenix co-founder.

Stephen has recently released recordings of his latest samples which tend to focus upon his new reed samples. Take a listen to his newbies at the top of his webpage: http://www.phoenix-organs.co.uk/audio.html.

I know the source of each and every stop on my organ which are derived from the following sources:

St. Catharine's Cathedral, St. Catherine's, ON, Canada 1990 Letourneau
Emmanuel Parish Church, Southport, England 1913 Harrison & Harrison
First United Methodist, Holland, Michigan, USA 1982 Harrison & Harrison
Mark St. United Church, Peterborough, Canada 1965 Hallman
First Presbyterian, Kilgore, Texas, USA 1949 Aeolian Skinner
First Methodist, Houston, Texas, USA 1965 Aeolian Skinner
St. John's Anglican Church, Peterborough, Canada 1956 Casavant
St. Thomas Anglican Church, Toronto, Canada 1990 Guilbault-Therrien
Parr Hall, Warrington, England 1875 Cavaille-Coll
Bedford Parish Church, Leigh,(Manchester) England 1922 Harrison & Harrison
Mossley Hill Parish Church, Liverpool, England 1937 Willis
Christ the King Cathedral, Hamilton, Canada 1937 Steinmeyer
Chichester Cathedral, England 1985 Hill/Mander
Immaculate Conception Church, Montreal, Canada 1961 von Beckerath
Eglise St. Vincent, Merignac, France 1994 Guillemin
Ascension and St. Agnes, Washington, DC 2000 Letourneau



Phoenix does indeed pay for their orchestral sound samples; but when it comes to organ samples upon which their reputation rests, they do everything in-house, with no compromise in quality.



I don't know anything about "sound font" organs, nor do I perceive any need for such. What I've heard of Viscount's physist efforts has left me less than impressed or enthusiastic.



Exactly!!



Nope! Unless you want to go with something like JOrgan . . .

Thanks, Clarion for the information. Despite what you said on the last point about Phoenix not being able to process a sound font situation, I don't know why I am often under the impression or ''suspicion'' that some of these digital organ builders' work involved taking or paying for someone else' soundfonts and, through some sort of conversion or translation mechanism, those soundfonts in their original format become changed into another file format, which can then be used as the organ stops. This is because to actually record and edit every bit of sounds of an organ or a dozen organs is arduous. Then, also the churches may demand payments in the process because their organs have to be sampled for commercial use. So what I guess is there must be an industry standard(s), where certain soundfonts become used even directly. In the past digital organ makers also said they conducted pipe-by-pipe sampling, where in fact they only sampled pipes at intervals. So you know... For your case, your said you know exactly where your organ stops (each of them?) come from. I am amazed! So truely, I must not have been so accurate to describe Phoenix's in general as a ditigised Father Willis. But it is of that sort (it leans towards that sort), and not the other kind of British imperial/chapel voicing.

 

[FelixLowe]

A music page provided by a Dutch custom digital organ builder called Van Der Poel (http://www.vanderpoelkerkorgels.nl/) quite amazes me with exactly the type of Mixture stops it has got. I have not really found another brand that produces the original Austrian Baroque Mixture. And in a certain way, this brand seems to attempt simulations on what I call the ''Hapsburg glory'' of the Austrian Baroque tradition. I am not only talking in terms of Mixture, but also other stops. I guess this brands does pretty well in the sensual, sentimental, historical interpretation of church music with a highly devotional character. It belongs to a subcategory of the South German Baroque school, where the French, German and Italian traditions meet. I guess you can get it right here with the '''soul' of the European church music'' in it. It is that kind of things, you know what I mean... I mean if you want an environment where you can imagine living in the Hapsburg days, that's THE choice. It is the only correct interpretation if you so desire that. That's from all the digital organ listening experience I have had.

Personally I guess this brand won't be inexpensive, but I guess the closest equivalent would be the out-of-the-box Ahlborn Galanti. But I don't think Galanti has made that kind of glorious Mixtures.

 

[Clarion]

For your case, your said you know exactly where your organ stops (each of them?) come from. I am amazed! So truely, I must not have been so accurate to describe Phoenix's in general as a ditigised Father Willis. But it is of that sort (it leans towards that sort), and not the other kind of British imperial/chapel voicing.

Hi Felix,

Yes, I know where each and every voice on my organ originates. It's really not that big a deal, since each voice is filed by source, stop ID etc. At the outset, Phoenix supplied me with an Excel spreadsheet showing the name and source of each stop for all 4 divisions of the organ. In addition to that, Phoenix also provided me with a complete list of hidden, but available stops.

As for your observations regarding Phoenix and Willis, I would suspect that you have made a rather astute observation. While my experience with Phoenix is pretty much confined to North American experience, I know little about English voices/voicing.While all English organs, to me, sound just a tad Willis-like; I have no idea as to the voice sources Phoenix uses in England.

A recent Phoenix project, sampling an entire major Father Willis organ, leads me to believe that current Father Willis samples are something new and different.

In Toronto, it has only been a few weeks since Phoenix installed an entirely Father Willis based organ.

http://phoenixorgans.com/installation.php?installation=142

This is something new and different for Phoenix here in North America.

 

[FelixLowe]

Hi Felix,

Yes, I know where each and every voice on my organ originates. It's really not that big a deal, since each voice is filed by source, stop ID etc. At the outset, Phoenix supplied me with an Excel spreadsheet showing the name and source of each stop for all 4 divisions of the organ. In addition to that, Phoenix also provided me with a complete list of hidden, but available stops.

As for your observations regarding Phoenix and Willis, I would suspect that you have made a rather astute observation. While my experience with Phoenix is pretty much confined to North American experience, I know little about English voices/voicing.While all English organs, to me, sound just a tad Willis-like; I have no idea as to the voice sources Phoenix uses in England.

A recent Phoenix project, sampling an entire major Father Willis organ, leads me to believe that current Father Willis samples are something new and different.

In Toronto, it has only been a few weeks since Phoenix installed an entirely Father Willis based organ.

http://phoenixorgans.com/installation.php?installation=142

This is something new and different for Phoenix here in North America.

That's interesting info., Clarion. Thanks. Guess what I think a four-in-one organ should consist if there is a choice to pick. Maybe I would prefer a one-in-five, if possible, if one must take several organs together. I guess, I would pick: Marcussen and Sons (Danish classical), British Imperial Chapel (British Baroque-to-Victorian), French Classical, Austrian Baroque and Arp Schnitger (North German Baroque). Another combination can be: Danish Baroque (rare, only available at Skandinavisk Orgelcentrum), American Classic (Aeolian Skinner type, widely available from Allen), English Cathedral, Silbermann (South German Baroque, available from a German company called Kassel) or Schlicker (available from Allen), and French Romantic (available from Allen). These two sets are a very interesting contrastive combinations. I mean, they really show the differences between the historical organ schools. But if Phoenix says, for example, it has a Father Willis with the French Classical in it at the same time, I don't think the difference is so prominent when you switch over between these schools. It is interesting to note that most of the Dutch companies we know of today: Content, Johannus and Van de Poel, none of them are really making out-of-the-box instruments from the Arp Schnitger tradition, which is instrinsically the North German School, most notably those instruments built by Sherer, Christian Muller and Arp Schnitger during the tradition's heyday, many of which were/are found in Holland. The only company that has claimed to be doing that is Allen. But its website seems to forever say ''coming soon'': http://www.allenorgan.com/www/products/heritage/hearspecs.html for the sample audio for Arp Schnitger. We don't know if something went wrong or it is work-in-progress.

My view on the so called "British Imperial Chapel", a term I've coined myself to refer to the default voicing of many of the ordinary Rodgerses as well as the pipe instruments made by Conacher of Manchester is that it is good for playing British music from High Baroque to the Victorian era -- it really makes you feel the era has come to life. For example, if you want to play the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel and some Purcell pieces, such voicing gives a truly British voice to them. You could even be roused into thinking of Dublin, or some warships rolling on whale-roads with the Union Jacks flying high. This voicing is preserved in many Australian instruments, I guess. But the English Cathedral voicing of Father Willis seems more often employed in sizeable congregations today in major Cathedrals in Britain. It gives an impression of spatial sonority and considerable weight of the accompaniment for congregational singing. Of course, today many Rodgerses are sizeable instruments, too, but they were only augmented for commercial needs. The true British Imperial Chapel instruments were rather small-scale with small but often complete stoplists -- with Mixtures, a Trumpet and a Cromhorne and a Clarion.

When we study Barbara Owen's work, The Registration of Baroque Organ Music, which attempts to exhaustively disclose and outline all national schools in Europe across space and time from late Rennaisance onwards, it is a shame that she did not publish an accompanying cassette or a CD to show what she meant by all those historical sounds that have once appeared. But in fact those sounds have been well preserved today digitally. And it is a luxury that we can have access to the abovementioned company's websites, which provide accompanying audios to explicate and illustrate Owen's literary descriptions of those organ schools she discusses.

But nothing has changed my view so far on the Marcussen and Sons or Content D5000 and D6000 series because I think the Danish classical voicing seems to be quite unencumbering and they are quite pragmatic, clean and straightforward voices.

 

[FelixLowe]

And how about this concert hall Marcussen and Sons in action, playing Ride of the Valkyries: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDd6rYKYoB0? I think it is magnificent.

 

[FelixLowe]

The rarity BUXWV 139 by Buxtehude was heard played yesterday at St John's Cathedral's Christmas service, as I visited the church. It is the first time that I heard the song played live. I believe most organists don't even know this song exists in the repertoire.

Now one comment I want to make here on the Allen organ installed there in Central, Hong Kong. The organ definitely has sufficient power in terms of volume, but there is a weakness about it which I mentioned in the past in connection with some Allen installations -- the lack of steoreophonic quality. This is even the case in examples I encountered in the past in many of John Hong's performances on Youtube. That instrument he uses again lacks that one thing which makes a piece sound as a pipe instrument. Now it shouldn't be the case because many people say Allen adopts Space Technology. Yesterday's performance at St John's seems to have been acheived through using the American Classic mode in the Allen. When I heard the few songs played there, my only criticism is that it simply was not sufficiently 3-D. The first impression you get upon hearing the performances like those is that you know you are listening to an electronic instrument, and not a pipe one. Since I have used an Allen MDS-II standalone module before, I do think that Allen's samplings, most of them, are of superb quality. So maybe such lack of 3-D quality is to do with the amplification channeling and the lack of a higher number of loudspeakers installed, which cause the ensemble to sound flat, almost anaemic. I guess St John's has opted for the cheap way of getting around with installing the expensive organ. The result is comparable to using your computer speakers to play what one would expect to be hi-fi music.

But two points I want to single out for comment of yesterday's Christmas service also -- Allen's Corno di Bassetto seems quite realistic and lively, and the Holzgedackt there also features quite interesting chiffing, which makes one able to recognise right away that it was a Holzgedackt playing -- with the wooden sticks beating sounds being quite prominent. This makes the stop distinguishable as not a metal stop, but the wooden one.

 

[FelixLowe]

This presentation of the overture of Handel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba played on the Dutch Baroque organ at kerkdienst in de Hervormde kerk te Farmsum built by N.A. Lohman & P. van Oeckelen in the years 1829 & 1870: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr_uGBnOCZ8 attests to the true voice of the North German Baroque organ around the time of J. S. Bach. Certainly the voicing goes back much earlier than these Romantic era dates. The voicing of the unison flues is essentially in the style of Arp Schnitger or Trost, or something along that line, with airy and transparent flues as well as light, sombre and ringing rather than excessively bright mixtures. Even on Arp Schnitger instruments, such mixtures are not found today. The mixtures found on the instrument of the attached video belong to what they call Fritzche mixtures made mainly from lead with very little zinc mixed into the alloy. Certain trace metallic elements were mixed into the alloy for fortifying the pipes, so they don't wilt quickly over time. The method of casting the metal is said to be very different from how modern pipes are manufactured today. The voicing you heard in the video attached also attests to the voicing at the time of Buxtehude around Late Renaissance and Early Baroque. Of course at that time, the effects they used to create a dignified ensemble, as in Buxtehude's time, was a simple combination of flues and mixtures -- reeds were often left out in organo plenum. In the Anglophone world, we often heard ensembles augmented through the addition of reeds, such as the Trumpet 8' or a Fagotto 16'. But it is nice to hear the kind of historical rendition of flowing chords purely leveraging on flue stops and to find out how they acheive an uplifting, philosophical character on a historically voiced instrument, such as the one in the video presentation above. And wasn't it the effort of the Gotenborg Project trying to produce a replica of an organ of similar voicing, calling it the true North German Baroque organ? You can hear a presentation of Toccata from Organ Symphony No. 1 on that organ built in Sweden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHaWrbNtUtw, where the Fritzche mixtures are very clearly demonstrated over half the length of the clip. This kind of voicing is not too far from the Danish Baroque style, such as those digital organs championing that style available from Skandinavisk Orgelcentrum of Denmark today. Their brand of organs, said to be since 1982, is seldom heard of in the international market, but they have a full page of music files for appreciation of their sampling: http://www.kirkeorgel.dk/DA/DA_musik.htm. Personally, I feel that it may be the only brand that concentrates on sampling work of the "North German Baroque" style. We don't know what happens to the Arp Schnitger sampling project of Allen Organ. The Danish shop, I suspect, is probably the only shop where you can get a digitised version of these old Dutch/ Danish instruments in the authentic Arp Schnitger/Fritzche style. BUXWV 161 found on that music page probably gives the best demonstration on a digitised example as close as you could get of the old Fritzche mixtures. And I suspect that originally, the two national Baroque organ traditions (of Holland and Denmark) were effectively one and the same, before Marcussen and Sons split off in its Danish neo-classical direction later while Holland also headed off to its own neo-classical direction in the style most notably championed by today's Sweelincks and Rembrandt organs of Johannus.

Disposition of organ at the Hervormde kerk te Farmsum, Holland:

Hoofdwerk: C - g'"
Praestant 8'
Bourdon 16'
Viool di Gamba 8'
Quintadena 8'
Octaaf 4'
Roerfluit 4'
Quint 3'
Octaaf 2'
Cornet 3 st.
Mixtuur 3-4 st.
Trompet 8'
Vox Humana 8'

Rugwerk C - g"'
Praestant 4'
Fluit 16' D
Fluittravers 8' D
Holpijp 8'
Fluit 4'
Woudfluit 2'
Flageolet 1'
Dulciaan 8'

Pedaal: C - d'
Prestant 16'
Subbas 16'
Holpijp 8'
Violon 8'
Octaaf 4'
Quint 6'
Bazuin 16'
Trombone 8'

 

[L.Palo]

Apparently the most common method of casting the metal for the pipes traditionally was an a bed of sand (as compared to a stone bed with cloth covering nowadays) which produces a quicker dissipation of the heat and a different structure in the finished metal. Also the means of thinning the metal to the exact dimension was done manually with planes and scrapes instead of with a lathe (that's done today). Furthermore the organbuilder selected the sheets of metal with the thicker part to the bottom of the pipe and the thinner to the top.

However, as I've heard debates between organbuilders (mr Munetaka Yokota included) they think it's an interesting finding but that the manipulation (intonation) of the pipe is far more affecting the sound than the method of casting.

Evidence from pipes of the organ originally built for the German Church in Stockholm also suggest that both methods of casting actually existed already around 1600.

As, I've had the fortune of playing the big North German styled instrument in Gothenburg (Örgryte) I can attest that the intonation and tone is absolutely beautiful without screeming tendencies. Actually, if anything, the intonation was almoast too perfect compared to any truly historic instrument I've heard. But then again, it was a newly built instrument that should mimic an old one.

In the mechanical feel they certainly succeeded with the impression of an instrument from around 1600 in Gothenburg. It's very heavy in touch and the keys (with directly hanging action) at the console are both noisy and have a great sidewards play, especially on the great.

But the tone! The sound of the instrument is wonderful! Almoast stunningly beautiful with it's meantone temperament.

Kind regards

 

[FelixLowe]

This presentation of the overture of Handel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba played on the Dutch Baroque organ at kerkdienst in de Hervormde kerk te Farmsum built by N.A. Lohman & P. van Oeckelen in the years 1829 & 1870: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr_uGBnOCZ8 attests to the true voice of the North German Baroque organ around the time of J. S. Bach. Certainly the voicing goes back much earlier than these Romantic era dates. The voicing of the unison flues is essentially in the style of Arp Schnitger or Trost, or something along that line, with airy and transparent flues as well as light, sombre and ringing rather than excessively bright mixtures. Even on Arp Schnitger instruments, such mixtures are not found today. The mixtures found on the instrument of the attached video belong to what they call Fritzche mixtures made mainly from lead with very little zinc mixed into the alloy. Certain trace metallic elements were mixed into the alloy for fortifying the pipes, so they don't wilt quickly over time. The method of casting the metal is said to be very different from how modern pipes are manufactured today. The voicing you heard in the video attached also attests to the voicing at the time of Buxtehude around Late Renaissance and Early Baroque. Of course at that time, the effects they used to create a dignified ensemble, as in Buxtehude's time, was a simple combination of flues and mixtures -- reeds were often left out in organo plenum. In the Anglophone world, we often heard ensembles augmented through the addition of reeds, such as the Trumpet 8' or a Fagotto 16'. But it is nice to hear the kind of historical rendition of flowing chords purely leveraging on flue stops and to find out how they acheive an uplifting, philosophical character on a historically voiced instrument, such as the one in the video presentation above. And wasn't it the effort of the Gotenborg Project trying to produce a replica of an organ of similar voicing, calling it the true North German Baroque organ? You can hear a presentation of Toccata from Organ Symphony No. 1 on that organ built in Sweden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHaWrbNtUtw, where the Fritzche mixtures are very clearly demonstrated over half the length of the clip. This kind of voicing is not too far from the Danish Baroque style, such as those digital organs championing that style available from Skandinavisk Orgelcentrum of Denmark today. Their brand of organs, said to be since 1982, is seldom heard of in the international market, but they have a full page of music files for appreciation of their sampling: http://www.kirkeorgel.dk/DA/DA_musik.htm. Personally, I feel that it may be the only brand that concentrates on sampling work of the "North German Baroque" style. We don't know what happens to the Arp Schnitger sampling project of Allen Organ. The Danish shop, I suspect, is probably the only shop where you can get a digitised version of these old Dutch/ Danish instruments in the authentic Arp Schnitger/Fritzche style. BUXWV 161 found on that music page probably gives the best demonstration on a digitised example as close as you could get of the old Fritzche mixtures. And I suspect that originally, the two national Baroque organ traditions (of Holland and Denmark) were effectively one and the same, before Marcussen and Sons split off in its Danish neo-classical direction later while Holland also headed off to its own neo-classical direction in the style most notably championed by today's Sweelincks and Rembrandt organs of Johannus.

Disposition of organ at the Hervormde kerk te Farmsum, Holland:

Hoofdwerk: C - g'"
Praestant 8'
Bourdon 16'
Viool di Gamba 8'
Quintadena 8'
Octaaf 4'
Roerfluit 4'
Quint 3'
Octaaf 2'
Cornet 3 st.
Mixtuur 3-4 st.
Trompet 8'
Vox Humana 8'

Rugwerk C - g"'
Praestant 4'
Fluit 16' D
Fluittravers 8' D
Holpijp 8'
Fluit 4'
Woudfluit 2'
Flageolet 1'
Dulciaan 8'

Pedaal: C - d'
Prestant 16'
Subbas 16'
Holpijp 8'
Violon 8'
Octaaf 4'
Quint 6'
Bazuin 16'
Trombone 8'

For contrastive purposes, this presentation of War March of the Priests on a pipe organ in Britain is of French style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUeSyySrfAg. I guess this is what a French Classical organ sounds like on close-up. You can hear the screaming 1 1/3' pitches, the often-tuned-too-loud Larigot, along with the Fourniture IV which is of a totally different type than the Fritzche mixtures. The French mixtures are often bold and slightly more brilliant than the Fritzche, but the main difference is that the French ones are more opague, not as transparent and lucid as the those heard in the North German instruments.

 

[FelixLowe]

Two organ presentations on As the Deer Panteth here: (1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vybrFnEtxA&feature=related (the opening phrase is believed to be played on the Dulciana on Hauptwerk with the soundfonts from the Brindley and Foster sample set on the 1907 St Anne's Moseley organ in Birmingham, England, and (2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECg6EeTnmFg, which is an improvisation performed on an organ connected to an Allen MDS Expander II (Allen Vista) organ sound module featuring the heavenly Arco String stop, the Christmassy Chime stop and the realistic Harpsichord stop.

 

[FelixLowe]

This presentation of the Fugue of BWV 552, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJmxQ7zYcow, which many connect to O God Our Help In Ages Past (St Anne tune), is related to Psalm 90, from which the hymn text was paraphrased. It was played on the ecclectic Gabler organ at the Weingarten Basilica, somewhere in Germany, I guess.

 

[FelixLowe]

Have a listen to this virtuosic performance of Mendelssohn's War March of the Priests on the 4-manual/44-rank 1925 E. M. Skinner organ at First United Medthodist Church in Illinois: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvnteVjUKMU&feature=related. This instrument seems to sound quite similar to Donald G. Harrison's Aeolian Skinner organ which came about a decade later. Harrison is said to have restored and reformed E. M. Skinner to the standard of what they called the neo-classical style, which is later termed the American neo-classical organ, such as when Allen organ manufactures its American Classic instruments. It is the latter standard that seems to be used. But according to Harrison, the main difference is merely the addition of high-pitched mutation stops to the dispositions of the E. M. Skinner instruments.