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A Fall Organ Festival in Portugal

by Larry Palmer
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Chestnut roasters selling their aromatic wares on the avenues of Lisbon and the cobbled streets of Evora, as well as the slightly guttural sounds of Portuguese, spoken all around me, signaled decisively that I was not in Texas during the third week of October 2000. Warm, sunny fall weather greeted travelers to Portugal October 24-29, the week of the fourth annual organ festival in the Alentejo region, 100 miles or so southeast of Lisbon. Organized by organist and historian João Paulo Janeiro, the programs took place in Evora, Vila Viçosa, Serpa, Alvito, Estremoz, and Arraiolos. Featured works this year were from the time of Portuguese monarch Dom João V (1706-50); four of the concerts utilized distinctive 18th-century organs.

 

The first events took place in the municipal museum of Evora, where eminent musicologist and Iberian music specialist Gerhard Doderer led a late-afternoon seminar on the little-known composer Jaime de la Te y Sagan (d. 1736). Being decidedly Portuguese-challenged, I decided to continue my recovery from the rigors of a long trip, and join the festival-goers later that evening for the first concert, a revelatory recital by Professor Doderer's wife, Cremilde Rosado Fernandes (Professor of Harpsichord at the Escola Superior de Musica in Lisbon). Playing a triple-fretted clavichord in a program of four sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, six by Carlos Seixas, and three by Antonio Soler, Mme. Fernandes played with grace and authority. Tastefully ornamented repeats, musical and skillful, banished any thoughts of boredom. It was especially good to hear, successively, two possible solutions to the tremulo "problem" in Scarlatti's scores: Fernandes gave us both mordent and repeated note trills in K. 208.

Concerts beyond Evora took place in smaller towns, difficult (if not impossible) to reach by public transport. Since I had no desire to drive a rental car (there were enough musical thrills without adding death-defying negotiation of tiny alleys and highway acrobatics), it was only through the good graces of Senhor Janeiro, who drove the not-inconsiderable distance from Lisbon for each program, that I was able to attend most of the programs. Wednesday's recital in Vila Viçosa was set in the chapel of the Ducal Palace, a marble building of imposing grandeur. The organ, in a side gallery, is an unsigned instrument, perhaps the work of an 18th-century German builder (Janeiro suggests Ulenkampf because of the non-Iberian Cromorne and Sesquialtera registers included in this one-manual instrument of eleven stops). Organist Jesus Martin Moro (Professor of Organ in the Conservatory at Pau) played a suitable and vigorous program of works by Cabanilles, Mestres, Casanoves, Frei Jacinto do Sacramento, Seixas, Domenico Scarlatti (the first time I had ever heard his "Cat" Fugue, K. 30 played on the organ), ending with an exhilarating Sonata de Clarines by Soler. The drive back to Evora was made memorable by the sudden appearance of four wild pigs, crossing the road very sedately directly in front of us.

I did not attend the Thursday concert for viola da gamba and organ, given by Hille Perl and Michael Behringer (Freiburg-im-Breisgau). According to reports from listeners the temperament of the organ in Igreja Matriz, Serpa, was quite astringent for the advanced modulations of the Bach Sonatas in G and D. Other works on the program were by Corelli, Poglietti, and Bononcini. On this day I was driven from Evora to Alvito (in the car of the Regional Minister of Culture), booked into a five-star pousada, the Castello of Alvito (a renovated historic building now run as a luxury hotel by the government), and introduced to the glorious 1785 organ by Pacali Caetano Oldovini, in Igreja Matriz, where I would play the next recital in the series.

Oldovini, an Italian who built organs in Evora and throughout the Alentejo, was the link which first brought me to Portugal several years ago. The Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University owns the unique Oldovini organ to be found outside Europe. Our 1762 instrument, purchased in 1983 from Dutch musicologist M. A. Vente, was originally in the Cathedral of Evora. Senhor Janeiro, who has made an inventory of surviving instruments by Oldovini, had written me to ascertain details of our instrument, and since has guided me in visits to other instruments from this builder's hand.

The organ in Alvito, built in the last year of Oldovini's life, is a magnifcent single-manual instrument of nine registers (with an extended compass to D5 and bass short octave). Especially beautiful are the Flautado (8-foot Principal), stopped flute (4-foot), an Italianate Voz humana (celesting rank), and the Clarim (a brilliant en-chamade reed, from middle C-sharp up). The church interior, richly adorned with ceramic tiles and gold-inlaid altars, provides a warm, resonant space.

I divided my program into two halves: first, music of the "Iberian Heritage"--works by Valente, Pablo Bruna, an anonymous Obra de falsas cromaticas (to show the Voz humana), and three works by Cabanilles. Then, as requested, music from the time of Dom João: two sonatas by Seixas, alternating with short pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, two Scarlatti sonatas, and finally a rip-roaring Seixas Fugue in A minor, with the Clarim blaring away on the repeats of A and B sections.

Another beautiful organ (post-Oldovini, 1791) was heard in the recital by Rui Paiva (Professor of Organ at the National Conservatory in Lisbon) on Sunday evening in Igreja San Francisco, Estremoz. His program, largely comprising galant music from Italy, proved to be exciting due to intense, energetic playing of works by Zipoli, Paganelli, Padre Martini, Galuppi, Domenico Scarlatti, and Handel (Fugue in B-flat Major, Concerto in F "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale").

A very late-night trip back to Lisbon, with an unforgettable approach to the city over Santiago Calatrava's Vasco da Gama Bridge (the longest in Europe), an early morning arrival at Lisbon Airport, and the shock of flight cancellations (the worst storms in a decade had hit western Europe), led to an unscheduled extra day in Lisbon. Not, however, a long enough delay to allow attendance at the final concert of the festival, a harpsichord recital by Ana Mafalda Castro (Professor of Harpsichord at the Escola Superior de Musica in Porto), on Friday November 3 in Arraiolos (music of Pedro de Araujo, Francesco Durante, Zipoli, G. B. Platti, Seixas, Scarlatti, and Soler).

The IV Jornadas de Orgão Alentejo was a festival which met its artistic goal:   the presentation of a specific Iberian keyboard repertoire on treasured instruments of the region, with enough additional music from non-Iberian composers to establish context and provide further 18th-century compositions for comparison. Funding from the Culture Ministry, the Archdiocese of Evora, and the Foundation of the Casa de Bragança supported the engaging of artists from four countries--making this truly an international effort. Although attendance was less than in former years, thanks to the artistic vision and organizational skills of festival director João Paulo Janeiro, those who attended the programs heard, once again, a rich and colorful selection of baroque music played on instruments for which it was intended. Well-restored organs in picturesque historic sites, the lure of memorable food and those outstanding local wines, as well as a reason to spend time in Portugal: what could be better? And there was the smell of chestnuts roasting . . .

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Brazilian Association of Organists and Organ Builders

Latin-American Conference of Organists and Organ Builders

by James Welch
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The fifth annual Conference of the Brazilian Association of Organists and Organ Builders coincided with the third annual Latin-American Conference of Organists and Organ Builders in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from September 6-10, 1995. The amount of activity in the organ world in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay has grown considerably in recent years: the Association now has a membership of approximately 150 from around South America. The conference was extremely well planned and administered, and presented a cosiderable amount of information about instruments, both historical and modern, from around the continent. Excellent recitals and lectures were given, and the entire meeting was marked by a great sense of conviviality. About 25 people attended, many having travelled great distances. Most of the meetings were conducted in Portuguese, but those from Argentina and Uruguay were able to communicate easily in Spanish, since the two languages are very similar. Since several of the organ builders are immigrants from Germany, or are of German heritage, some German was spoken as well.

The President of the Associação Brasileira de Organistas is a very talented woman by the name of Any Raquel Carvalho, who was actually raised in the USA and studied in Georgia, so she is fluent in English and is well acquainted with the activities of the AGO. (Any Carvalho, Avenida Plínio Brasil Milano 2195/201, Porto Alegre, RS 90520, Brazil. 011-55-51-341-4349. E-mail: [email protected]) The Brazilian conference was patterned after an AGO convention. The secretary, and the person who founded the Associação in 1992, is Elisa Freixo, who lives in Mariana, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, where she presides over the fascinating Schnitger organ.  Josinei Godinho, a fine organist from São Paulo, is the treasurer, and Yolanda Serena is the secretary.  (For information: Associação Brasileira de Organistas, Caixa Postal 5, Mariana, MG 35420-000, Brazil.)

The conference was held at the Igreja São José (Church of St. Joseph) in Porto Alegre, which has a 1936 Rieger organ from Germany. António Darci von Frühauf, a native Brazilian, has been the organist there for over 30 years; Renato Koch helps keep the organ running. Recitals during the conference, scheduled each day at noon and 7:30 p.m., were given by Enrique G. Rimoldi, Buenos Aires; Dorotea Kerr, São Paulo; Osvaldo Guzman, blind organist from Buenos Aires; Elisa Freixo, Mariana, Brazil; James Welch, California; and Josinei and Josinéia Godinho, two sisters from São Paulo who gave a 4-hand recital. In addition, a chamber group from Porto Alegre by the name of Stúdio de Música Antiqua gave an excellent concert of medieval music on copies of period instruments.

Because the Igreja São José is also part of a local college, the church nave is equipped with closed-circuit TV monitors. All of the recitals were broadcast over these monitors, affording those in attendance an excellent view and a very informative experience. This was particularly valuable in a country where few have been exposed to pipe organ music. Before my recital at the conference in Porto Alegre (a city of approximately 3 million inhabitants), a local television station came to the organ loft and conducted a live interview with me, probably because I was the token foreigner who could speak Portuguese.

Lectures at the conference included the following: Mysticism in Liturgical Organ Music, Renato Koch, Canoas, Brazil; The Colonial Organ of the Cathedral of Buenos Aires, Enrique Rimoldi, Buenos Aires; Basic Organ Maintenance, Manfred Worlitschek, originally from Germany but now living in Santa Maria, Brazil; The Importance of Counterpoint for the Liturgical Organist, Any Raquel Carvalho, Porto Alegre; Structure and Organization of the Preludes and Fugues of J. S. Bach, Dorotea Kerr, São Paulo; Preparation for the Evangelical Service, Josinéia Godinho, São Paulo; Mexican Organ Music, James Welch, California; Music in the Catholic Church after Vatican II, Júlio Amstalden, Piracicaba, Brazil; The Restoration of the Organ of Maldonado, Uruguay, Sergio Silvestri, Montevideo, Uruguay; Preparation for the Catholic Liturgy, Renato Koch, Canoas, Brazil; The Use of Polyphony and the Organ in Iberian Monasteries in the 13th Century, W. D. Jordan, Australia (read by Any Raquel Carvalho); Lutheran Liturgy, Carlos Dreher, Porto Alegre.

Each evening following the final concert, the entire group had dinner at a different restaurant (including Middle-Eastern, German, and gaúcho churrasco barbecue), starting at the typically late hour of 9:30 or 10 p.m.

One of the fascinating side-trips was to the Centro Educacional La Salle in nearby Canoas, where Irmão Renato Koch, a member of the La Salle Brotherhood, is a professor, as well as a skilled musician, painter, woodworker, and restorer of antique art pieces and musical instruments. There are four noteworthy instruments in the chapel of this Catholic school. The first is an 1865 Merklin organ from Paris, bought originally by Bishop Dom Laranjeiras for the cathedral of Porto Alegre. Although it is dismantled at this time, Koch is in the process of restoring it. This one-manual organ with pedal pulldown has a 56-note keyboard, 25-note pedalboard, and 6 registers: Bourdon 16, Montre 8, Salicional 8, Bourdon 8, Flûte 4, and Trompette 8.

The second organ is the Opus 2 of the Bohn Company of Novo Hamburgo, Brazil, which until recently was the largest and oldest manufacturer of organs and harmoniums in Brazil (the Bohn Company now builds only electronic instruments). This 2-manual tubular-pneumatic organ from 1939 is in fair condition, and is very typical of many other Bohn organs found around Brazil.

The third is a one-manual portativ organ, built in 1977 by Siegfried Schürle of São Bento do Sul in the neighboring state of Santa Catarina, which was colonized by Germans in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Many towns in Santa Catarina still abound in typical German architecture; blond-haired and blue-eyed people are seen everywhere, many still speaking German. This organ of 5 registers (Bourdon 8, Flauta 4, Prestant 2, Larigot 11/3, Regal 8) has the unusual feature of a harmonium-style pedal winding system. I tried the organ, which sounded lovely in the large chapel, but I have to admit that keeping the wind pressure steady while playing was tricky, far more so than playing a reed organ.

The fourth is a small lap organ, built in 1980 by Renato Koch, for the Conjunto da Câmara (Chamber Group) of Porto Alegre, which performs medieval music. The woodworking on this organ is particularly fine.

At the conference round-tables, organists and organ builders had literature available about their work. I enjoyed meeting Sergio Silvestri Budelli from Montevideo, a very enthusiastic organ builder and restorer of organs and pianos. Markus Ziel, a young organ builder from the very Germanic town of Blumenau, Brazil, was born in Germany, but came to Brazil with his family as a child. Ziel also does fine work in hardwoods. Because of the severe tropical climate, organ builders in Brazil have an entirely different set of challenges to work with, not the least of which is termites, and Ziel discussed some of the processes used to treat woods for organ building in Brazil.

One of the biggest projects for the Associação is to catalog the instruments, compositions, and literature concerning the organ in South America, so that researchers can find out what is even available. I am still discovering important sources of information on Brazilian organs, and one of the most important found on this trip is a doctoral dissertation about the historical organs in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Written by Padre Marcello Martiniano Ferreira in 1985 and presented at the Instituto Pontifício de Música Sacra in Rome, it is entitled Arp Schnitger: Dois Órgãos Congêneres de 1701, published in Niterói, state of Rio de Janeiro, in 1991. This lengthy dissertation documents fully the history, specifications, scaling, and use of these landmark instruments.

As part of my lecture on Mexican organ music, I stressed the importance of publishing music and articles about the organ. Many South American compositions exist only in manuscript form or in photocopies which languish around the continent. I displayed a copy of the book Voces del Arte (the immense catalog of organs in Mexico, with beautiful photography) and copies of Mexican organ music recently published, urging the South Americans to find publishers for their works so they could find their ways into libraries around the world, not to mention Internet coverage.

Next year's conference will probably be held in Montevideo and/or Buenos Aires. There is also the possibility of an excursion-type conference, in which those attending will travel together on a comfortable bus through Southern Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, visiting instruments and hearing concerts. With ground transportation, hotel accommodations, and some meals in a package, this would be an ideal arrangement for those not as familiar with travel in South America.

I also received invitations to perform on two other organ recital series in São Paulo. The first was the Festival Internacional São Bento de Órgão, which alternates at three different churches in São Paulo: Mosteiro São Bento (Monastery of St. Benedict), Nossa Senhora de Fátima, and Nossa Senhora do Carmo. My recital was held at the monastery. (The organ loft at the monastery is accessible only through the cloister, so only men may perform there. Women on this festival perform at the other two locations.) The concerts are open to the public and are very well attended--often there is standing room only. The monastery has a 1954 German Walcker organ (Opus 3219), with 4 manuals, 78 stops, and about 7,000 pipes. It is one of the best-maintained organs in Brazil, cared for by José Carlos Rigatto of São Paulo. Performers on the series this year came from Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the USA--truly an international festival. The organizer of this festival, which is funded in part by the Banco de Boston, is José Luís de Aquino, Rua do Manifesto 1435, São Paulo, SP 04209-001, Brazil. Phone/Fax: 011-55-11-914-8846.

The other series is sponsored by the Associação Paulista de Organistas (the Association of Organists of São Paulo). Concerts this year are taking place in the Cathedral da Sé, the Catedral Evangélica, and Igreja Imaculada Conceição, all in downtown São Paulo. My recital (of Mexican music) was held in the Catedral Evangélica, a large, reverberant Presbyterian church with a 1911 Austin organ of 3 manuals, which came some years ago from a church in North Carolina.  This organ is maintained by Warwick Kerr. For information, contact the Associação Paulista de Organistas at: Rua Carlos Sampaio 133, São Paulo, SP 01333-021, Brazil; Nelly Martins, President, 011-55-11-282-5651, or Dorotea Kerr, 011-55-11-210-5830.

One of the more unusual experiences on this trip was that of being on the same plane from Miami to São Paulo with Ozzy Osbourne, the heavy metal rock singer, on his way to a monster rock festival in São Paulo the same weekend I was to play in São Paulo. I introduced myself at the baggage claim as a fellow musician, and we wished each other well in our respective concerts.

Brazil is an enormous country, larger than the continental US, with endless possibilities for the adventurous traveller. A tip: anyone arriving in Brazil from abroad can, for approximately $440, buy a Brazil Airpass from Varig Airlines, which is good for five flights anywhere in the country. This Airpass has enabled me on occasion to travel from Rio and São Paulo to the Amazon jungle, to Salvador de Bahia, to Iguaçu Falls, to Recife, and to Minas Gerais. Brazilians are exceptionally hospitable, and I have enjoyed every one of my trips to South America. Please feel free to contact me for any information. (James Welch, 409 Central Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025; Phone/Fax: 415/321-4422.)

Four Centuries of Great Keyboard Instruments:

Vermillion, South Dakota

Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer is a contributing editor for The Diapason.

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In an historic first for the United States, three regional
early keyboard societies (Southeastern, Midwestern, and Western) met for a
joint conference ("Four Centuries of Great Keyboard Instruments: What
They Tell Us") at the National Music Museum, Vermillion, South Dakota,
May 16-19. Gratifying as it was to participate in this possible first
step toward a national organization, the main attraction of the Vermillion
gathering was the Museum and its superb collection of historic musical
instruments.

150 registrants overfilled the concert venue named for
Museum founder Arne Larson, and the group often spilled from the tearoom into
hallways for breakfast and coffee breaks. Still, the capable and welcoming
staff were able to overcame most difficulties and make all feel
welcome--sometimes rather warmly so! From an elegant buffet reception at
the home of University of South Dakota President Jim Abbott to the closing
party at program co-chair John Koster's rural retreat, physical hungers
and thirsts of the crowd were well served. All other meals, included in the
modest registration fee, were taken together in the University's Coyote
Student Center. Communal dining, a feature of previous gatherings in
Vermillion, was an appreciated convenience in this small Midwestern college
town.

A recital capped each jam-packed day. Two of these proved to
be especially fortuitous partnerships between artist and instrument. Closing
the conference, Andrew Willis played his aptly-chosen program on an
early-19th-century Viennese piano by Anton Martin Thÿm. For the first half
he chose works by Moscheles, Field, Hummel, and the rarely-performed Sonata
in E minor
, opus 70 of Carl Maria von
Weber. Following intermission Willis gave transcendent performances of
Schubert's
Moments Musicaux
(the fifth, in F minor, will never sound right again without the piano's
Turkish percussion effects) and Beethoven's
E Major Sonata
style='font-style:normal'>, opus 109, perhaps the musical highpoint of the
conference. Among several visiting European artists, Miklós
Spányi stood out for his effortless musicality and consistently
interesting playing in a program of sonatas by Johann Eckard, C. P. E. Bach,
and Joseph Haydn, performed on the colorful Spath & Schmahl 1784
Tangentenflügel (using the correct spelling of Spath, without its
ubiquitous umlaut, as discussed by Michael Latcham in an illuminating lecture
on this instrument and its maker).

A concert by Tilman Skowroneck (earnest performances of
works by Louis and François Couperin and Rameau) introduced the resonant
1785 Jacques Germain harpsichord. Luisa Morales gave straightforward readings
of Iberian sonatas, allowing only two of them to be heard on the wiry and
virile José Calisto Portuguese harpsichord of 1780, and playing far too
many more on a beefy 1798 Joseph Kirckman double harpsichord, utilizing the
kaleidoscopic possibilities for registrations available on this instrument.
Morales was joined by Spanish folk dancer Cristóbal Salvador for her two
concluding Scarlatti sonatas, after which Salvador led a post-concert dance
class for those brave enough to participate.

The conference schedule listed an additional (and
overwhelming) 32 lectures or short performances! This attendee, for one, found
it impossible to attend all of them, especially those given late in the afternoons.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

Some memorable programs included: 

* A deeply moving clavichord recital of Bach preludes
and fugues, played by wounded warrior Harvey Hinshaw, who had tripped while
loading his instrument late at night for the trip to Vermillion. Fortunately
neither Harvey nor his fine Lyndon Taylor clavichord sustained permanent
damage, although each showed bruises from the unfortunate altercation.

* Carol lei Breckenridge's Mozart played on two
clavichords from the Museum's collection: a 1770 Swedish instrument and
an 1804 Johann Paul Kraemer & Sons, built in Göttingen.

Three consecutive Sunday afternoon programs dealt with
repertoire from the now-historic 20th century, as well as some new works of the
fledgling 21st:

* Larry Palmer spoke about Herbert Howells' Lambert's
Clavichord, the first published clavichord music of the revival period.
Recorded examples played on clavichord, harpsichord, and piano served as
illustrations. Inferior sound equipment forced an impromptu performance of the
first clavichord example on the Wolf harpsichord.

* Attractively garbed in gold happy coat,
Berkeley-based Sheli Nan presented some of her own harpsichord compositions,
complete with video camera to record her every gesture.

* Calvert Johnson, with understated virtuosity, presented
a superb concert of harpsichord music by Japanese women composers Makiko
Asaoka, Karen Tanaka, and Asako Hirabayashi (now there is a focused
specialization!) on the Museum's 1994 Thomas & Barbara Wolf
harpsichord, an instrument tonally modeled on the Germain instrument, but
tastefully decorated in sober black and red with gold bands, rather than the
18th-century instrument's unfortunate color scheme of raspberry pink and
ultramarine, with a gratuitous 20th-century "French bordello" lid
painting

The original Germain, an exceptionally fine-sounding
instrument, was the most utilized harpsichord of the conference. It was heard
in programs played by Elaine Thornburgh, Paul Boehnke, Nancy Metzger, Nanette
Lunde, and Jillon Stoppels Dupree, who proved to be a passionate advocate for
the far too little-known music of Belgian composer Joseph-Hector Fiocco.

A smaller gem, the Museum's recently-acquired Johann
Heinrich Silbermann spinet (Strasbourg, 1785) was heard in performances by Paul
Boehnke and Asako Hirabayashi.

The "home team" of faculty members from the
University of South Dakota made major contributions:

* Piano professor (and program co-chair) Susanne Skyrm
played appropriate music on the soft, clavichord-like piano by Manuel
Antunes  (Lisbon, 1767) as well as
a much-appreciated traversal ("from the sublime to the ridiculous,"
she noted) of music by Beethoven (three Bagatelles
style='font-style:normal'>), Vorisek, and Herz. This program concluded with the
bellicose
Siege of Tripoli: An Historical Naval Sonata
style='font-style:normal'> by Benjamin Carr, for which Professor Skyrm employed
all the "Drums, Bells, and Whistles" available on the Thÿm
piano. Her partner in hilarity was handkerchief-waving narrator, Dr. Matthew
Hardon.

* Organ professor Larry Schou demonstrated the fine
six-stop organ by Christian Dieffenbach (Pennsylvania, 1808) as well as the
1786 Josef Loosser house organ from the Toggenburg Valley of Switzerland.

Virtuoso lectures included:

* Peggy Baird's slide presentation showing
keyboards in a wide variety of paintings ("Music for the Eye and Art for
the Ear"), delivered with her usual irrepressible wit.

* Ed Kottick's informative and entertaining
"Tales of the Master Builders," amusing vignettes from his
just-published book A History of the Harpsichord (Indiana University Press).
Hermann [Pohl] the Hapless, indeed!

* Sandra Soderlund's well-organized, informative
talk on Muzio Clementi, enriched by musical examples played on a square piano
by John Broadwood, London, circa 1829.

San Francisco's Laurette Goldberg invented some
Goldberg Variants on harpsichord history in an amazing after-dinner ramble
following a memorable vegetable, chicken, or beef Wellington banquet on Monday
evening.

Throughout the meeting several instrument makers displayed
examples of their work. Among these a French double harpsichord by Knight
Vernon featured a splendidly light action; Paul Irvin's 1992 unfretted
clavichord produced a generous volume of sound; and Owen Daly's
Vaudry-copy harpsichord delighted these ears and fingers, as did finely crafted
instruments by Robert Hicks and Douglas Maple.

During her first visit to the United States in the early
1960s, harpsichordist Isolde Ahlgrimm was especially amused by the ubiquitous
pink flamingo representations she saw in many suburban front yards. It was with
a sense of recurring cultural history that my eyes were captivated by the colorful
pink bird statue displayed at the Museum's visitors' desk, visible
through the windows of the Larson Concert Hall. Closer inspection showed it to
be a hand drum, dubbed the "Flabonga," a gift to Museum Director
André Larson.

Because of unavoidable travel difficulties, papers by David
Chung (Hong Kong) and Eva Badura-Skoda (Vienna) were read by Museum staffers.

So what did these examples from four centuries of great
keyboard instruments have to teach us? For this listener they reinforced, once
again, that most music sounds better, and far more interesting, when played on
period instruments tuned in appropriate temperaments. They underscored how vast
the variety of historic keyboards is. They showed how comparatively
monochromatic a tonal range the contemporary piano presents, and how
impoverished it is by its paucity of coloristic devices such as modulators,
bassoon stops, bare wood (or variously-covered) hammers, and Janissary
percussion.

Keyboards from Vermillion's National Music Museum
(formerly known as The Shrine to Music) demonstrated that informed restoration
and constant care permits them to function as superb instruments for music.
Curator John Koster announced early in the proceedings that keeping 1588
strings in tune for the weekend would be a major task! He managed it with grace
and skill, as he did his many other responsibilities during the conference.

It was encouraging to note a number of other visitors to the
Museum during our time there. Many of them were young students, a group
distinctly, and disturbingly, not well represented on the rosters of our
keyboard societies. I would urge each reader to plan a visit to this
outstanding American museum, and, if possible, to make this collection of early
keyboard instruments known to a student. A virtual visit to these holdings is
available through the Museum's website: <www.usd.edu/smm&gt;.

Harpsichord News

Larry Palmer
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Where next?

So, you have mastered Couperin’s eight preludes from L’Art de toucher le clavecin. What harpsichord repertoire should follow these basic pieces?

To my ears Domenico Scarlatti was the ultimate artist/composer when it came to varying textures in writing for our instrument. I have advised more than a few curious contemporary composers to consult the 500-plus keyboard sonatas from this Baroque genius and then to emulate his wide palette of various densities of sound: one of the best ways to create a varied dynamic range.

Suggestions: perhaps the most-assigned to first-semester students have been two A-major Sonatas, K (Kirkpatrick) numbers 208 and 209. There are several fine editions from which to choose, but, once again as with my choice for the first Couperin pieces, I have found that another “made in America” publication works well on several levels. The sometimes-maligned yellow-bound Schirmer Editions offer Sixty Sonatas by Scarlatti in two volumes. Chosen and edited by the formidable scholar and artist Ralph Kirkpatrick (he of the most-used numbering system for this composer), these 60 were published as Schirmer Library Volumes 1774 and 1775. (Too bad they could not have waited until number 1776, which would have been even more patriotic!) K. 208 and 209 are found in the first of these collections.

Kirkpatrick, working midway in the 20th century (the copyright is dated 1953), used source materials transmitted to him via microfilm. In a rare misreading of the dim and hazy film, he mistook the tempo indication for K. 208, transcribing Adº as “Andante” rather than the indicated “Adagio,” providing once again a perfect teaching moment when one presents the proof of this mistake. Also, it does make quite a difference: Andante, a moving or walking tempo, is not at all the same as Adagio, which, in the composer’s native Italian, means “at your ease” and thus should suggest more flexibility with rubato and a quieter, more involved personality—perhaps that of a lovesick flamenco guitarist. As for texture: the sonata begins with only two voices, soprano and bass, and adds a middle line in measure three, introduces a fourth voice in the chords of measure seven, and builds a terrific crescendo in the penultimate measure thirteen of the A section, before cadencing on an open dominant octave.

The B section begins with a single bass note, and in its first measure we are confronted with the instruction “Tremulo,” indicating a needed ornament in the melodic line. There has been much speculation and some gnashing of musicological teeth about this particular instruction in Domenico’s works. I have tried various solutions, but fairly late in my career I decided that it might possibly indicate the mordent! My reasoning: the mordent is one of the two most generally prevalent ornaments in Baroque music, but there is no indication of it in Scarlatti’s sonatas; and the mordent seems to be feasible each time a Tremulo is indicated.

Vis-à-vis that other musical ornament, the trill, it was the Iberian music specialist Guy Bovet who, during our one semester as Dallas colleagues, reminded me that the usual starting note for Scarlattian trills should be the main (written) note! I realize that many of us were heavily influenced by our piano or organ teachers who taught us to begin all Baroque trills with the note above; but in actual musical practice, this is rather silly: trills normally do begin on the written note in this Italian-Iberian repertoire, but here, and in general, I refuse to be bound to one invariable rule, and frequently substitute an upper-note trill, particularly in cadential figures that seem to ache for a dissonance (or, occasionally, simply to avoid ugly-sounding parallel octave movement of the voices). My advice is to follow Bovet’s instruction as a general practice, but also to use one’s musical instincts when required: after all, we have yet to hear those “recordings” from the 17th and 18th centuries that would prove once and for all what the local practice was. (Do, please, let me know if they are discovered.)

The paired sonata, K. 209, could not be more different from its shorter sibling: an Allegro (Happy) with some technical challenges (as opposed to the many musical challenges offered by K. 208) should prove again the inventiveness of the composer, especially in his use of varied textures. One spot that particularly delights is found in measure 70, where, after the vigorous cadence begins with two voices, the resolution is one single soprano E, a totally unexpected surprise! Kenneth Gilbert, in his eleven-volume edition of 550 sonatas for Le Pupitre, adds the missing bass note, choosing the reading found in a different manuscript source in which the next iteration of that same figure (measure 147) does resolve with an open octave in the bass. I still prefer Kirkpatrick’s reading for these passages: rather than adding notes in the first example, he does away with them at the second iteration . . . and thereby preserves an equal surprise for the B section.

Quite a few other sonatas that serve well as technique-enhancing pieces are to be found in the set comprising the first Kirkpatrick numbers 1 through 30: works published in London (1738) as Scarlatti’s Essercizi per gravicembalo. If your student (or you) want a bit of narrative music, the final entry in this set, K. 30, is particularly fun to play and hear: nicknamed the “Cat” Fugue, it is easy to imagine a favorite feline frolicking treble-ward on the keyboard to create a fugue subject spanning an octave and a half. Several years ago, when preparing a program of Iberian music to play on Southern Methodist University’s Portuguese organ (a single-manual instrument built in 1762 by Caetano Oldovini for Portugal’s Evora Cathedral), I turned to the Alfred Edition print of this sonata, which incorporates some of the quite useful (and interesting) minor corrections offered in a second edition from the year 1739, also published in London by the English organist and Scarlatti-enthusiast Thomas Roseingrave. 

Finally, should one become entranced by Scarlatti’s delightful catwalk, there is a rarely encountered piece by the Bohemian composer Antonín Rejcha (1770–1836) from his 36 Fugues, op. 36, published in Vienna (1805). Fugue Nine is subtitled “On a Theme from Domenico Scarlatti.” In it our musical cat, elderly and more reserved, is heard ranging a keyboard that extends to top F, before settling down, finally, with quiet cadential chords. The score, published by Universal Edition, is found in Bohemian Piano Music from the Classical Period, volume 2 (UE18583), edited by Peter Roggenkamp.

 

Some contemporary components

It will come as no surprise to our loyal readers that, during my lengthy tenure at the Meadows School, Southern Methodist University, I required at least one 20th- or 21st-century composition to fulfill repertoire requirements during each semester of harpsichord study. Among the most admired of these pieces were the twelve individual movements of Lambert’s Clavichord by Herbert Howells. These, the first published 20th-century works for the clavichord, are true gems, and equally delightful both to play and to hear. Issued by Oxford University Press in 1928, they are not widely available now, but I have been told that they may be obtained as an “on-demand print” from the publisher. Howells’s own favorite of the set was De la Mare’s Pavane, named for his friend, the distinguished poet Walter de la Mare. Indeed, it was a question about one chord in this piece that precipitated my first visit with the composer in 1974. Dr. Howells did not answer me immediately, but before we parted he took a pen in hand and drew in the missing sharp sign before the middle C on the second half of beat two in measure 24. That had been my concern, that missing sharp! Thus, I was relieved to have a correction from the only person who could not be doubted, the great man himself.

Other works recommended for investigative forays into this literature (works offering a great deal of good examples for the development of dynamic, articulate, and musical playing) include Rudy Davenport’s Seven Innocent Dances (which I have dubbed the “With It” suite): With Casualness, With Resolve, With Playfulness, With Excitement, With Fire, With Pomposity, With Steadiness­—available in the Aliénor Harpsichord Competition 2000 Winners volume published by Wayne Leupold (WL600233); Glenn Spring’s Trifles: Suite Music for Harpsichord comprising the miniatures A Start, Blues for Two, Burlesque, Cantilena, Habañerita, Recitative, and Introspection, lovely pieces indeed, as are Spring’s more recent Bartókian miniatures: Béla Bagatelles (2011). Both sets are available from the composer ([email protected]). Finally, from the late British composer Stephen Dodgson, three movements of his Suite 1 in C for Clavichord: Second Air, Tambourin, and Last Fanfare (published by Cadenza Music in 2008) form a delightful group of pieces. Equally effective at the harpsichord, they have proven to be very audience-friendly.

 

A May reminder

Do not forget Lou Harrison’s centenary (May 2017), the perfect month in which to investigate the American composer’s Six Sonatas, as detailed in Harpsichord News, The Diapason, October 2016, page 10.

 

Baroque Iberian Battle Music for the Organ

Tan A Summers
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One of the most interesting genres of music to arise during the 17th century was that of Portuguese and Spanish battle music written specifically for the organ. Iberian organs, highly versatile for their size and often equipped with formidable banks of horizontal reeds, were an inseparable factor in the development of this musical category, and still inform us how to play it. This article will examine the repertoire of Iberian battle music, its origins, and the impact of the villancico, ensalada, and the Iberian organ.

 

The repertoire

In an environment where composers wrote tientos and versets by the hundreds, the battle music repertoire seems quite small. Only about twenty pieces survive from the 17th century (Table 1), even if the list expands to include battle-like works with more generic names, or which appear to contain material borrowed from non-Iberian composers. Yet, perhaps because their unique battle-related content makes them fun to play, this small body of works appears on modern concert programs far more often than do the many tientos and versets that surround them in the manuscripts of the period. Mary Ellen Sutton1 recommends in particular the battles marked in Table 1 with an asterisk as being of interest to modern audiences. Pieces marked + are nearly identical. The selection marked § has been attributed to both composers, or neither, as will be discussed later.

Most of the manuscripts containing battles (batalla in Spanish, batalha in Portuguese) came originally from monastery or cathedral libraries, no doubt because their composers were cathedral organists, some of them in holy orders. All of the manuscripts are now held in central libraries in or near Oporto and Braga, Portugal, and Madrid and Barcelona, Spain. Most of these works are available in modern transcription, but because so many of the anonymous pieces have similar names, I have included the original manuscript and folio numbers in Table 1.2 

In fact, almost all are described simply as a battle in a given mode. Mode designations imply that the compositions were intended for liturgical use. Fifth and sixth modes are the most common. The seven pieces in sixth mode have key signatures of F major. The four in the fifth tone are in C major. Although fifth mode is generally thought of as an F-based mode, its tenor is C. Sutton suggests that the use of C major here accompanies a general shift towards tonality. Three fifth-mode batallas, which are for all practical purposes written in the key of C, appear in Madrid MS 1357 in volumes indexed by mode. All of the fifth-mode versets in the first two volumes of MS 1357 were transposed to C.3 One of the two eighth-mode works, both thought to be by Aguilera de Heredía, is also in C major. The choice of key signature could be, of course, editorial. However, after playing the battles, I would agree with the editorial decisions. 

Most of the composers of battle music (Table 2) were famous musicians of their time and place. Pablo Bruna was considered one of the best organists and teachers in Spain. Blind since birth, he was known as “el ciego de Daroca” (the blind man of Daroca). Juan Batista Cabanilles was a master of the Spanish Baroque style, which enlarged on Renaissance practices and does not resemble the styles composers preferred in other parts of Europe during this era. A colleague said, “The world will crumble before a second Cabanilles appears.”

Some of the composers are less well known. The name of Diego (or Diogo) da Conceição appears in only one manuscript, where his few compositions are the best in the collection. Others remain unidentified, although stylistic similarities suggest that some of the anonymous pieces could be copies or variations on works by known composers. All of the known composers of battle music worked in Portugal or the Castilian region of Spain, where Iberian organ builders made improvements to the organs that facilitated this genre.

Borrowing from other composers was more acceptable in the Baroque era than it is today, and several of the battles demonstrate this procedure. The most notable is Cabanilles’s Batalla Imperial, which is identical, other than the ordering of the sections, to that of Johann Caspar Kerll, a slightly older German composer who worked in Austria. Who borrowed from whom is questionable, Mary Jane Corry positing a third composer entirely.5 In his article on Cabanilles in Grove Online, Barton Hudson attributes the battle to Kerll. In another example, two batalhas in Porto MS 1607 are quite similar to each other; Doderer suggests that based on their style, these might be different versions of a work by Cabanilles. In a third case, measures 58–159 of the Batalha de 6º Tom by Torrelhas are virtually identical to a section of one of José Ximénez’s Batallas.

 

Origins of the organ batalla/batalha

In approaching this topic, a person might ask what actually makes a composition a battle. The most basic consideration is the title. It is a battle if the composer says it is. However, battle pieces generally imitate the commotion of war with busy voicing, ostinato figures, lively rhythms, and percussive chords that simulate musket or cannon fire. They also often imitate the music of battle in the form of trumpet signals or fanfares. It is perhaps this trait that makes the music sound warlike in the 21st century. Trumpet signals are still in limited use in today’s military and are familiar to most listeners from ceremonies and the entertainment media.

The earliest music with these characteristics is the 14th-century caccia, which imitates the hunt with fanfares and rallying cries. A 15th-century battaglia by Heinrich Isaac for instruments with keyboard accompaniment has several characteristics that appear in most later battle music, such as ostinato figures and alternating duple and triple meter. It is interesting to note that Isaac also may have written his work for voices first, since Bianca Becherini found a poem whose text matches the music.

The music that began the battle craze in earnest, perhaps because it so cleverly captured the sounds of battle despite being written for unaccompanied voice, was Clément Janequin’s chanson La guerre. It immortalized a French victory over Swiss and Italian forces at the Battle of Marignano in 1515. Written in two large sections, this is a four-voice vocal work filled with a variety of techniques for making it sound warlike. Melodies imitate the calls of war trumpets, using actual tunes employed in battlefield communication. The onomatopoeic text that accompanies these may have come directly from the syllables players used when learning their music. Triadic figures in a simple harmonic background reflect the ensemble formation trumpeters of the time used, and quick notes simulate both the action of battle and more of the ceremonial trumpet sound.

La guerre was wildly popular and quickly spread across Europe, not only in its original form but also in imitations and transcriptions. Fifteen years later Matthias Werrecore wrote a retort, La battaglia taliana, commemorating an Italian victory over the French. Published in Germany, it was known everywhere as Die Kleine Schlacht, with Janequin’s chanson now being called Die Große Schlacht. Werrecore borrowed not only Janequin’s key (F Ionian) but copied the beginning motive from La guerre’s Secunda pars. This opening gesture, or variants of it, as well as the F-based mode, appear in a number of battles and tientos. I believe that Janequin’s motive was so widely admired because it was more than just a clever compositional device: it also accurately captured the sound of battle trumpets, both harmonically and melodically. 

 

The trumpet

To understand just what this battle sound was like, it is helpful to know a little about the trumpets that created it. From ancient times until the modern invention of radio, the trumpet was the primary means of battlefield communication. Art from ancient Egypt shows trumpet-playing soldiers on the march. After a hiatus following the fall of Rome, the trumpet appeared again in Europe as war booty collected from the Saracens. As the art of trumpet making progressed, the instruments developed from examples that could play only one low note to models that could play more than an octave above middle C and had a few diatonic notes. The trumpet ensemble became a symbol of power in the Renaissance court, and trumpet players were valued more highly than other performers.

Prior to 1975, scholars knew much about the Renaissance trumpet through two books published during the 17th century. These were Marin Mersenne’s Harmonie Universelle (1635), and Girolamo Fantini’s Modo para Imparare a sonare di Tromba (1638). Both books contain examples of battle trumpet calls, with syllables written under the notes, possibly to indicate tonguing but apparently also to aid the instrumentalist in learning the music. Scholars were able to see by studying the trumpet tunes that Janequin and his imitators had used real battle music in their compositions. While the syllables Mersenne and Fantini indicated were not the same as those Janequin used, that did not mean Janequin’s were not accurate for his time and location.

In 1970 historian Edward Tarr published a facsimile and translation of a third manuscript, Cesare Bendinelli’s Tutta l’arte della Trombetta. In 1614, Bendinelli had donated to a library his instrument and a manuscript containing a wealth of music and pedagogical material, and there they had lain for the next three and a half centuries. Bendinelli had gone a step further than Mersenne and Fantini. He described not only the notes but also the system by which Renaissance trumpeters played:

Here all the trumpeters begin to play, in the field, at princely courts, or in other places. I point out that a single [player] begins and the others follow in order, as is the custom . . . First the grosso; second the vulgano; third, alto e basso, that is, he who imitates the sonata with his notes, only lower, and who has to be quite expert; fourth the one who leads; and fifth, the clarino, who avoids octaves since they clash and are not used by those who understand music.

We can understand now why a Renaissance sovereign might have required twenty-four trumpeters. A chart of the harmonic series shows what notes each of the performers named by Bendinelli would have played (Example 1).

Understanding that Renaissance trumpeters played as an ensemble rather than as soloists now clarifies why composers so often imitated the opening gesture of La guerre’s Secunda pars. It represented not only the notes but also the harmony of the war trumpet sound of Janequin’s time. James South implies that even Janequin’s key of F may have been taken from practical example. Bendinelli’s own trumpet sounds close to our modern key of E, which may have been the F of his time and place.9 Bendinelli labeled the chart describing his own trumpet’s range as Trombetta Antigua, perhaps referring to the older war trumpet as contrasted with the newer C trumpet that had replaced it.

Example 2 shows how Bendinelli’s battle trumpet formation appears in Janequin’s much-imitated second section. In the first measure, all voices simulate trumpet harmony; then the bass and tenor sing the lines that the grosso and vulgano trumpets normally would have played. The rhythm of the short notes with the syllables “Fre re le le lan fan” is that of the rotta, a flourish with which both military and ceremonial trumpet music might end. I have discovered that the rotta figure features in many organ battles (Example 3). 

Perhaps the most imitated trumpet motive Janequin uses is the Boutez selle (“put on the saddle”) (Example 4). Distinctive and easily heard through the busy texture of the chanson, this figure appears in all of the Renaissance trumpet methods. In Bendinelli’s it is entitled Buta sella and includes an example of mnemonic syllables like those Janequin may have had in mind when he wrote La guerre. The Boutez selle figure appears repeatedly in the organ battles, and I have observed that it is often accompanied by battle trumpet harmony (Example 4).

The organ battles of Iberia do not simply copy Janequin’s chanson, however. They use fanfares and other trumpet-like figures that the composers no doubt heard as part of ceremonies, or perhaps even composed for trumpet as well (Example 5). Because these figures are still used today for similar purposes, we recognize them immediately.

Portuguese and Spanish organ battles also depart from Janequin in their overall structure. The actual battle depiction in La guerre, Secunda Pars, falls into roughly two parts. The first uses trumpet motives, and the second drum and gunfire sounds. The texture remains quite consistently in four voices. There are some meter changes, but the listener does not perceive discrete sections. 

Iberian organ battles, on the other hand, are distinctly sectional. The texture varies between full block chords and the battle ensemble depiction of solo voice over triads (on the organ these can also appear under the chords). Meter changes often delimit the sections. The unique shape and style of Iberian battle music developed due to the influence of three musical elements exclusive to Spain and Portugal and their colonies in the western hemisphere. These are the villancico, the ensalada, and the particular direction Iberian organ builders took with their creations.

 

The impact of the villancico, ensalada, and Iberian organ developments

The first of these influences, the villancico, vilancete in Portuguese, is a song form. Villancicos had vernacular text, folk melodies, and an energetic rhythmic style replete with syncopation, hemiola, and meter changes. The villancico was strophic with a refrain (estribillo) and sometimes many verses (coplas). Villancico-like characteristics in the organ battles may include changing meters, hemiola, and a dance-like 3+3+2 rhythm that often appears at cadences (Example 6).

At first a secular form, the villancico moved into the realm of liturgy as devotional coplas were created to accompany estribillos that often remained secular. It became customary to perform these following each lesson at Vespers and during the elevation of the Host during the Mass.12 Buelow suggests that battle pieces, closely related to the villancicos as they were, would also have been performed at the same points in the Mass.13 Phillip II of Spain banned the performance of villancicos in his chapel in 1596, but his complaint apparently was that they were sung in Spanish rather than Latin, and not that they were too spirited. The rest of the Iberian peninsula ignored this prohibition, and the villancico remained popular in Spanish and Latin American churches until the 19th century.

A popular theme for villancicos was the battle between good and evil. A song might depict a battle between the Virgin or the newborn Christ Child and Lucifer. Often the battle image might become more worldly. One example from mid-17th century Coimbra begins with a symbolic battle between divine and worldly love, but then turns into a skirmish between Portuguese and Spanish troops. Amid the repeated cries of “Long live divine love!” comes the text:

 

Viva el Amor divino 

Que nos ha quitado 

la prisión esquiva

De un ciego traidor.   

 

Praise the divine Love

Who has rid us

Of the unreachable prison

Of a blind traitor.

 

It is not surprising that some images of actual war might creep into the texts of sacred music. During the 17th century, Portugal was often at war, both battling for political separation from Spain and sparring with Spain in the western hemisphere, as they divided up the Americas between them.

A second factor in the development of organ battle music was the ensalada. The word means “salad,” and in fact the ensalada was a hodge-podge, a kind of musical revue made up of hymns and villancicos, sometimes acted out. These were performed on feast days and were especially popular at Christmas, New Year, and Epiphany. Ensaladas were sung and accompanied by an interesting variety of wind instruments, all of them loud. A composition might specify two trumpets and a schalmei, although the oboe and organ were also popular. 

Because the ensalada was made up of a variety of individual pieces, it was by definition a sectional music form. Spanish keyboard music already had a sectional genre, the tiento, one based on imitation similar to the Italian ricercar. Organists had simply to move from accompanying an ensalada to writing one for the organ alone. Ricercar-like imitation, usually at the octave, appears in some battles (Example 7), and authors often include battles in discussions of the tiento.

The third factor to influence the development of Iberian organ battle music was the instrument itself. At the beginning of the 16th century, Spanish and Portuguese organs were constructed by Flemish organ builders and were the same as those in other parts of Europe. Flemish practices continued in the Catalonian region of Spain, but in Castile and Portugal local organ builders took the instrument in a new direction. 

One difference was the divided manual, or medio registro. Each half of the manual, from middle C down and from middle C# up, could have its own registration. This allowed a small instrument much more variety than it might have with just one setting for the entire manual. Composers wrote pieces for medio registro with one hand soloing and the other playing an accompaniment. On a medio registro instrument, an organist could use different registrations to create an echo effect with this type of imitation. In the battles we often see paired imitation with a figure played first in one octave and then in another (Example 8).

Another improvement was the swell box, which appears to have been developed in Spain before anywhere else in Europe.15 Some of the enclosed pipes included reeds. The swell could potentially create echo effects without changes of octave or registration (Example 9). Some Spanish organs of the 17th century even had devices that allowed quick change of registration, although this was by no means universal. 

Organs became more versatile as organ makers learned to build pipes that imitated the sounds of other instruments. Pipes might do a credible job of mimicking the bassoon, the oboe, buzzing reed instruments such as the crumhorn, schalmei, and dulzian, and trumpets in all registers. The organ could play these sounds with more volume and a greater range than could performers on the actual instruments, sounding a death knell for these players who until that time had been highly valued. 

During the 17th century organ builders began to place trumpet-shaped reed pipes horizontally for more brilliant tonal effect and visual beauty. Almost every battle has at least one solo that might have been played on horizontal reeds against a background of a quieter reed chorus (Example 10). However, Doderer believes that organists would also have used horizontal reeds for dense chordal passages, creating a truly immense volume of sound (Example 11).

Not all Iberian organs were equipped with accessory stops to simulate percussion instruments as was the one at Lérida Cathedral (it also had bells and six different birdsongs). However, composers definitely assumed that performers would imitate this effect through articulation. Batalha famoza includes an instruction to play the left hand quickly in order to imitate musket fire (Example 12). Possibly this could be turned into a special effect, since the full sound of a pipe might not speak when played with a very short stroke.

These organs had fewer pedals than do modern ones. Organs surviving from the 17th century generally have from one to three pedals that might play C, F, and/or G, depending on the organ’s basic pitch (some were based on 24 F stops rather than the 16 C stops common in Germany).

 

Performance considerations

Developing insight into the trumpet sounds Iberian organists were emulating in their compositions throws new light on how this music should be played. The triadic accompaniment to a solo line should not hide in the background, but sound like a trumpet chorus. The organist can phrase a fanfare or battle call so that it sounds as if an actual trumpeter were playing it.

Understanding the organ of the time provides additional clues to bringing this music to life. Sutton suggests using an organ with at least two manuals to create the contrast that one medio registro keyboard could generate.17 Use pedals sparingly, since the organs for which the battles were written could only play sustained notes in common cadence pitches. One registration possibility would be a strong solo reed and bright reed chorus contrasted with full organ at sectional divisions. Barbara Owen suggests avoiding gaps in the registration or allowing it to become too foundational or too top-heavy.

Battle music remains a satisfying part of the organ literature today. Because their trumpet fanfares and battle signal motives persist as part of our aural culture, modern audiences still respond to this sound. Today we use battle music in concert rather than as liturgical repertoire, since tastes in church music have changed. However, battle music might make a satisfying postlude on a festive occasion, much as this music was used four centuries ago. 

 

Notes

1. Mary Ellen Sutton, A study of the 17th-century Iberian organ batalla (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1978), 142–143.

2. Gerhard Doderer, Orgelmusik und Orgelbau im Portugal des 17. Jahrhunderts: Unteruchungen an Hand des MS 964 d. Biblioteca Pública in Braga (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1978), 198–199.

3. Sutton, Iberian organ batalla, 92.

4. Josep Elías wrote on the title page of a collection of the master’s works, “Ante ruet mundus quam surget Cabanilles secundus.” George J. Buelow, A History of Baroque Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 382.

5. Mary Jane Corry, “A Spanish-Austrian Battle.” Music/The AGO and RCCO Magazine (March 1970), 35.

6. Sutton, Iberian organ batalla, 65.

7. Cesare Bendinelli, The Entire Art of Trumpet Playing (1614), trans. Edward H. Tarr (Nashville: The Brass Press, 1975), 12.

8. Monteverdi provides a written-out example of the trumpet ensemble in the Toccata that opens his opera, Orfeo, 1607. See Example 13.

9. James South, “References to trumpet music in the battle chansons of Clément Janequin.” DMA diss., University of North Texas, 1990. RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, EBSCOhost.

10. Renaissance trumpets were generally pitched between modern B and F.

11. Walton, Clifford, History of the British Standing Army, A.D. 1660–1700 (London: Harrison and Sons, 1894), p. 467.

12. Buelow, History of Baroque Music, 371.

13. Ibid., 380.

14. Manuel Carlos De Brito, “A Little-Known Collection of Portuguese Baroque Villancicos and Romances,” Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, No. 15 (1979), 17–37. Translation by Dr. Miguel Chuaqui, Professor of Composition at the University of Utah.

15. Douglas Earl Bush and Richard Kassel, eds., The Organ: An Encyclopedia (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2005), 548.

16. Doderer, Orgelmusik und Orgelbau, 203.

17. Sutton, Iberian organ batalla, 123.

18. Barbara Owen, The Registration of Baroque Organ Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 130–134. 

University of Michigan Historic Tour XXXII

by Michael Price
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Marilyn Mason led a group of aficionados on the University of Michigan Historic Organ Tour XXXII of the Iberian Peninsula June 12-23. The tour gave everyone an opportunity to hear and play many unusual organs. We had been invited to present concerts in four of the cities; seven organists played: Rick Berg, Marilyn Mason, Karen Phipps, Michael Price, Dorothy Scott, Dale Shoemaker, and Hugh Young. One of the tour members, Rick Berg, a former student of Montserrat Torrent, graciously shared his knowledge of registration and ornamentation in early Spanish organ literature.

The first concert was presented on the two-manual organ of the Augustinian monastery of Sao Vicente de Fora in Lisbon. The instrument was built by Joao Fontanes de Maqueisa in 1765; its most recent restoration was in 1994.The tonal variety offered by the fifty-nine stops was amazing.

We continued to the village of Obidos to hear two organs. The organ in the Sancta Maria Church was in good condition. The other, in Sao Petrus, was hand pumped and in need of restoration. We found six organs in the Convent/Palace in Mafra. Although all were not playable, one could imagine how six organs would sound all at once. The six cases were similar as they had been built in 1807 by the same builder. Further treasures in Portugal were in Coimbra where we played the organ in the University Chapel. The chapel, richly decorated with azulejo tiles, was beautifully colorful. It was a perfect setting for the highly decorated organ.

At Braga, we found two beautifully restored and maintained organs in the Cathedral. They offered an opportunity for the organists to play two-organ works of Soler and Blanco. The horizontal trumpet ranks of these organs, located on opposite walls of the choir, came within several feet of touching each other.

Continuing into Spain, we visited Santiago de Compostela, the destination of millions of pilgrims through the centuries. Organists had the opportunity of playing the organ in the Cathedral: here, two organs are now combined into one console. On Sunday, the nuns at the nearby convent had invited tour members to play and listen to the organ in the choir, where clouds of incense from the morning service were still hanging in the air. Our two nights in the Parador Hostal de los Reyes Catolicos were enjoyed--the oldest hotel in the world, built by Ferdinand and Isabel for pilgrims to Santiago.

In Medina de Rioseco, at the church of Santa Maria, the organists presented a concert on the colorful 17th-century instrument which is decorated with gold leaf and red faux-maubre. In Valladolid the same program was heard again in concert at the Convent of Las Huelgas Real. Visually, the organ and its surroundings provide a sharp contrast from the other colorfully decorated churches, with an almost stark background of white plastered walls for the organ in its case of natural wood. The overall effect is striking, and the acoustics of the room were perfect for this vibrant instrument.

We arrived in Segovia, where we were impressed by its ancient aqueduct and imposing cathedral. The two organs in the Cathedral were available to us for the entire day so that we could prepare for the evening concert. The larger of the two instruments has horizontal trumpets, which open into the ambulatory of the Cathedral. The dialogue effects created by alternating the en Chamade reeds is dramatic.

In Madrid, the tour had a special opportunity: we had been invited to see and play the restored organ in the Chapel of the Royal Palace. To actually see the organ close up is a privilege, since it is not visible below. The balcony where the organ is housed gives, in turn, a choice spot from which to view the magnificent chapel.

The final organ of the tour was a modern, four-manual installation by Gerhard Grenzing in the Auditorio Nacional, Madrid. The instrument is designed to play music of all periods; there are also divided registers needed for the authentic performance of early Spanish music. We were allowed unlimited time at this impressive  instrument.

During the 10-day tour we played 21 instruments, and enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about the organs and organ music of the Iberian Peninsula.

The University of Michigan Historic Organ Tour 52

Marilyn Mason

Marilyn Mason is University Organist, Professor of Music, and Chairman of the Organ Department at the University of Michigan. She has led more than 50 historic organ tours abroad.

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For the University of Michigan Historic Organ Tour 52, we were invited by the World Congress on the New Evangelization to perform concerts in Portugal during the congress November 5–15, 2005. Seven artists took part in the tour: Donald and Lucy Baber, Donald Fishel, Joan McKay, Andrew Meagher, David Troiano, and Marilyn Mason.
Portugal covers 36,000 square miles. The population of Lisbon is 600,000 in the center and 1 million in the surrounding area. Historically, Portugal was a pioneer in exploration. The Great Earthquake of November 1, 1755, virtually destroyed the city of Lisbon and surrounding areas. Approximately 60,000 died. Voltaire describes this horrific destruction in his Candide. Today the country offers its own richness in variety of landscapes, churches, museums, and cuisine.

Dia á Dia

In Lisbon we played historic organs including one built in 1791. None of them were in very good condition except for a small Cavaillé-Coll in the French parish church. It was in tune and in good playing condition. The operative word here is unchanged. Except for the addition of electricity, the organs remain virtually as they were created. Many organs reveal the original windings: pumps remain that had been operated by hand before the addition of electricity.
The Breath of the Spirit is a multi-media work: two narrators read the poetry of Ken Gaertner, and the nine poems are interspersed with music for flute and organ by Gregory Hamilton. The music was played by Duo Pneuma: Donald Fishel, flutist, and Marilyn Mason, organist.
We played three performances of The Breath of the Spirit on three different organs to very receptive audiences. The first concert took place on November 7 at the Basilica de Estrela, a beautiful cathedral that was consecrated in 1790. As with almost all churches, it was built after the 1755 earthquake. The organ has one manual, seven stops, divided between b and c1. Andrew Meagher assisted.

Left side

Del de Caino
Clarao
Compuesta de 29
Quincena
Fl de 6
Fl de 6
Fl de 19
Ventils
Reeds on
Mixture on

Right side

Clarin
Cornetta
Vinte dozena
Pifaro
Vox humana
Flauto
Fl de 19
Ventils
Reeds on
Mixture on
Nameplate: Estrela Antonio Xavier, Muchado Cin. 1791 no. 2
On November 8, the opening Mass of the congress took place in the Cathedral of St. Jerónimos. In a grand procession, 11 bishops followed by Cardinal Polycarpo processed into the packed cathedral. Included in prayers was a petition to St. Theresa for the opening of the congress. We heard a large modern organ with a full pedal; the music included Bach’s Fantasy in G Minor, BWV 542. The second concert took place November 8 at the Igreja Maddalena. The organ has two manuals and pedals and 19 registers; the builder is unknown.

Positive

Fagote
Baixao-Zinho
Vox Humana
Fl 2' Fl 4'
Fl 8'
Tapadillo 8'
Viola 8'

Haupt

Oboe
Clarin

Corneta Real
Cheio
19th E 22
15th
12th
Fl Trav 4'
Fl 8'
O Real

Ped

I–Ped
II–Ped

Manual keys: 4 octaves plus C-sharp to F
Pedal keys: 2 octaves plus C-sharp, D

The morning of November 9 we attended a Rosary in Fatima, and our performers were invited to participate. David Troiano sang Durante’s Vergin tutto Amor with Andrew Meagher as accompanist. Donald Baber was accompanist for Joan McKay’s singing of the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria. The third concert, on November 9, was held at the Igreja Paroquia da Ajuda. The organ, of one manual and 11 registers, is by an unknown builder.

Left side

Trombeta magna
Clarao 4'
Cheio 3F
Cimbala 4F
Comp. 22
Quinzena
Dozena
Fl 6 Tap
Octava Real
Fl 12 Tap
Fl 12 AB
 

Right side

Clarim
Corneta 4F
Cimbala 3F
Cheio 4F
Comp. Quinzena
Oitava Real
Voz. humana
Fl. Travessa
Pifano
Fl. 12 AB
Fl. 12 Tap
One manual, 4 octaves, plus high c#, d, d#,e

On November 10, we drove to Sintra. In the mountains there are over 350 varieties of trees, including umbrella pine, olive, palm, oak, and pine, and also more exotic: camellia, hibiscus, and bougainvillea. At Sintra we visited the Palacio Nacional, a residence of kings, which has been well preserved. Long before the arrival of the Crusaders, this was a summer palace of Moorish sultans. The furnishings are in fine condition, and the glazed earthenware tiles lining many of the rooms are among the most beautiful in Portugal.
At the Ingreja de S. Luis dos Franceses, we experienced a serendipity—one of the surprises of the tour in the form of a Cavaillé-Coll organ.
On November 11, we took a two-mile walk on the beach to enjoy the astounding Atlantic. The concert was at the Igreja Paroquial da Pena. This beautiful parish church is situated on the top of a high hill. We spurned the electric tram and we climbed 180 steps (I counted) at nine different levels of 20 each to attain the summit. In the church we met a gracious priest, Father Nicolau Poelman, so proud of his church and of the organ. The group of Troiano, Meagher, McKay, Don and Lucy Baber played the recital to a most appreciative priest and audience. David Troiano’s second language is Spanish, so he addressed the audience in Spanish. He had them in the palm of his hand: they found an American who not only played, but sang, and could introduce the music to them in a language they understood. His introductions, the music, and the players made friends for America.
On November 13, we visited the main Cathedral or “Se” on the square. It is an architectural wedding of Romanesque and Gothic styles. Some think that at one time it was a mosque. The earthquakes of 1344 and 1755 damaged the structure. During Mass we heard the cabinet organ, which was placed to the left of the chancel. The sound of this lovely instrument filled the room attesting to Cavaillé-Coll’s dictum, “Acoustics are the most important stop on the organ.”
On November 14, we enjoyed a two-mile walk from Estoril to Cascais along the sea. The mouth of the Tagus River makes a natural harbor for Lisbon. We must not neglect to mention the food: pork, chicken, sausages, beef and many boiled dishes, often served in imaginative ways and with many interesting sauces. The many small restaurants all serve good food, especially fish that were in the sea that morning.
All of the organs have mechanical action. In general, they are free-standing, and there are three types:
1. One manual without pedal, with divided keyboard
2. One manual with pedal
3. Two manual with pedal
The two manual instruments have pedal couplers and a I–II coupler. The tones are usually mild, and also rich. One stop can fill the room. The color variety is within the flues and reeds. The 4¢ flutes are especially charming: clear and bright. The reeds, as in Spain, are en chamade. One instrument, at Igreja de Pena, had reeds en chamade on all four sides of the free-standing case.
What needs attention: tuning, keys that stick, notes that are dead, unevenness of touch, and a general regulation of the touch. Finally, it remains for a catalogue of these charming organs to be prepared by a scholar or aficionado.

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