I would like to clarify my remarks about pedal design in small organs.
If the Brunzema organ, for example, was to be a historical reconstruction
of a Silbermann, fine. My point is that there are some significant Bach
works that would not work out very well on such an instrument, because
of the very skimpy pedal. A single 4' choralbass in the pedal would have
helped a great deal. Regarding the pieces I mentioned, I confess to an
error: "Lobe den Herrn" is the modern name of the tune; the Bach name
was "Kommst du nun Jesu" (BWV 650 - I guess this will teach me to write
about such things without my copy of Schmieder handy!). There are three
difficult overlaps that occur if you try to play the accompaniment on one
manual: measures: 6, 8, & 31, and two less serious ones, measures 40 & 46.
If you then play these parts on separate keyboards, that leaves the 16'
for the cantus firmus and that just doesn't work. Concerning the F major
Toccata (BWV540) there are serious "missing note" problems in measures
243, 255, 259, 299, 353, and 361. In the absence of a workable form of
notation in E-mail, I resort to solfeggio:
MANUAL SOL TI SOL RE TI
PEDAL SOL.............FA.....
1/16 BEAT 1 2 3 4 5 6
On the 2nd and 4th 16th notes the pedal is holding the note SOL and if
the Great is coupled to the pedal and you are also playing on the Great
you don't hear the Great SOL and it is VERY distracting. Most times
this figure occurs, however, the pedal is an octave lower. There are a
number of other places where this kind of problem occurs in this piece,
although they are not quite so obvious.
This assumes that it was not planned to play more recent literature on
the Brunzema organ. My own preference is that a small residence organ
should allow at least a modestly successful registration for all the
organ literature; I agree with Allen Ontko that when you only have a
few ranks you are probably better off with a unit organ. They can be
designed with integrity and intelligence [I would probably want to go
mechanical at about 12 ranks]. It seems to me that depending on couplers
to provide the pedal resources is just as much "borrowing" as unification
is, however historical it may be. By ther way, I have found the following
analogy to be useful in describing "borrowing" to organ committees:
Imagine a choir with 2 sopranos, 2 altos, 2 tenors, and 2 basses. When
The altos are not otherwise busy, they sing with the sopranos (now 4
voices on the soprano part). When the range is right, and the parts
are not otherwise occupied, the sopranos, altos, and tenors sing the
same part. Now there are 6 voices on the part! By the same token, when
the range is a little lower, the basses, tenors, and altos sing the
same part, again 6 voices. And for a limited range, all 4 parts sing
exactly the same note, now 8 voices on a part! BUT, let each part be
different and you have what you really have, a double quartet and NOT
a 32 voice choir.
Glenn A. Gentry
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