Tales of 1001 Pipes. for Mendelssohn's
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Tales of 1001 Pipes. For Mendelssohn’s organ lessons: The Wagner Organ at St. Mary’s Church, Berlin Michael Gailit ′ Prologue 4Octava Example 1 3′ Quinta For some, musicology can offer cap- 2′ Super-Octava 3 tivating moments. What has happened 1⁄5′ Tertia at a certain place during a certain time? 8′ Cornet V (c1–c3) Changes in organs remind us sometimes 2′ Mixtur IV 1 of CSI. Who really knew what was go- 1⁄3′ Cimbeln III ing on? The pastor might be not the best 8′ Trompete guess, and the lead has intelligent ways 4′ Clarin to tell everybody how to look at things— Oberwerk (II; CD–c3; 13 stops) 2556 pipes in an organ it’s not worth it, 16′ Quintaden with 1001 pipes you get even more! 8′ Principal 8′ Gedackt Wagner and St. Mary 8′ Quintaden Let us imagine a visit to St. Mary’s 4′ Octava Church in Berlin at the beginning of the 4′ Spitzfl öte 19th century. Our reason is the celebra- 2′ Super-Octava 1′ Flaschfl öt tion last year of the 200th anniversary 1 1⁄3′ Mixtur III of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809– 1′ Cimbeln II 1847). During the period 1820–21, the ′ 8Krummhorn Example 2 ingenious multi-talent received organ 8′ Vox humana lessons at St. Mary’s and composed his 8′ Echo V (c1–c3) fi rst organ pieces. Mendelssohn’s organ teacher August Wilhelm Bach (1796– Brustwerk (III; CD–c3; 9 stops) 8′ Gedackt 1869)—not related to the Thuringian ′ family of musicians—had at his post in 4Principal 4′ Rohrfl öte St. Mary’s an organ by Joachim Wagner 3′ Nasat at his disposal. The instrument, Wagner’s 2′ Octava 3 fi rst masterpiece from 1719–23, estab- 1⁄5′ Tertia 1 lished his fame as the “Berlin Silber- 1⁄2′ Quinta mann.” As Uwe Pape has pointed out,1 1′ Siffl öt there are resemblances in the original 1′ Mixtur III stoplist of St. Mary’s Wagner organ to the Table 1 fi rst masterpiece of the famous Saxon or- Pedal (CD–c1; 10 stops) 32′ Untersatz gan builder Gottfried Silbermann at the 16′ PrincipalBaß Freiberg cathedral from 1714: 16′ OctavBaß 16′ SubBaß St. Mary’s Church, Berlin 8′ OctavBaß 4′ OctavBaß 2 Hauptmanual 2⁄3′ Pedalmixtur VI (I; CD–c3; 12 stops) 16′ PosaunenBaß 16′ Bordun ′ ′ 8TrompetenBaß 8Principal 4′ ClarinBaß 8′ Rohrfl öt ′ 8Viole di Gamba Accessories 4′ Octav ′ 2 tremulants 4Spitzfl öt 2 ventil stops (HW/BW, OW) 3′ Quinta ′ 2 manual couplers (OW/HW, BW/HW) 2Octav 1 pedal coupler (HW/P) [8′] Cornet V (c1–c3) 1 1⁄2′ Scharf V 1′ Cimbel [III] Simply Vogler 8′ Trompet When A. W. Bach was appointed to St. Mary’s, the organ was no longer in Oberwerk (II; CD–c3; 11 stops) its original state. The history also of this 16′ Quintadena organ was infl uenced by a man whose 8′ Principal ′ name has survived today mainly in trea- 8Gedackt tises on organ building. The priest Georg 4′ Octav ′ Joseph Vogler (1749–1814), often ad- 4Fugara 2 3′ Nassat dressed as “Abbé Vogler,” shouted at his 2′ Octav contemporaries: 2′ Tertie 1′ Sieffl öt Wake up, you parrots, you philistines of 1 Liliput, from your lethargic slumber! 1⁄2′ Mixtur IV ′ Listen (to the music)! Look (at scores)! 8Vox humana Feel (the effects)! And think!3 Hinterwerk (III; CD–c3; 9 stops) 8′ Gedackt Vogler sought to make the organ a 8′ Quintadena more vivid instrument, both by perfor- 4′ Octav mance style and through certain con- 4′ Rohrfl öt struction components. The sound was 2′ Octav to be based on lower registers, which he 2′ Waldfl öt achieved through the acoustic phenom- 1 ′ 1⁄2 Quinta enon of combination tones. The Italian 1′ Cimbel ′ violinist Giuseppe Tartini, when devel- [8 ] Echo V [c1–c3] oping the double-stop technique, had Pedal (CD–d1; 8 stops) found that if a consonant interval were 16′ Principal-Baß played as purely as possible, a third, low- 16′ Violon er tone could be heard as a result of the 8′ Gembßhorn addition of the vibrations. Describing 6′ Quinta the effect in his Trattato di musica secon- 4′ Octav ′ do la vera scienza dell’armonia of 1754, 2Mixtur VI Tartini was regarded as the discoverer of 16′ Posaune 8′ Trompet the combination tones, which were later even named Tartini tones. The German Accessories organist Andreas Sorge (1703–1778), 2 tremulants however, had already described the ef- Zimbelstern fect in his treatise Vorgemach der musik- 4 ventil stops (one for each division) alischen Komposition of 1745. He had spond to variable wind pressure without a speaking machine. The Cheng is also 2 manual couplers noticed that when a fi fth is played on a change of pitch, and through swell boxes regarded as the common ancestor of the 1 pedal coupler fl ute stop, the note of the lower octave that enclosed not only one division, but other free reed instruments, such as the can be heard. the entire organ. The fi rst musical in- accordion or the harmonium.4 Freiberg Cathedral Vogler used this phenomenon to build strument with free reeds seems to be the No matter where, in the Swedish a low-pitch stop from two ranks of small- Cheng, a Chinese pumpkin instrument capital Stockholm or the Austrian capital Hauptwerk (I; CD–c3; 13 stops) er pipes in the octave and the fi fth. His equipped with a mouthpiece and bam- Vienna, Vogler convinced authorities to 16′ Bourdon Simplifi kationssystem comprised also the boo tubes containing thin metal plates. improve the organs in their churches. In 8′ Principal removal of mutation stops and mixtures. This technical idea developed eventually the Prussian capital, Berlin, he arranged 8′ Rohrfl öte ′ He achieved dynamic fl exibility through into an organ pipe rank shortly before the conversion of the Wagner organ at St. 8Viola da Gamba the use of free reeds, which could re- 1800, with the exotic attempt to build Mary’s in 1800–01, carried out by local 24 THE DIAPASON Feb 2010 pp. 24-29 .indd 24 1/13/10 8:32:05 AM Table 2 Table 3 Table 4 Table 5 organ builder Johann Friedrich Falcken- There is only one God and Mahomed is gan at St. Hedwig’s. We can even read in another pitch, Vogler needed to take hagen (1752–1823). The 40 stops were his prophet, which is sung during funerals that he received money from the king out pipes from two ranks, one rank pro- reduced to 26, and reports tell that from alternately with 2 choirs in the front and in to build the organ at St. Hedwig’s, that viding the majority of pipes for the upper 2556 pipes only 1001 remained in the the back of the corpse, performed with an he completed it at his own expense, or octaves, and another rank at least for the 5 Adagio 8 organ. On November 28, 1801, at 5 pm, 5. The boat ride on the Rhine, inter- even donated the whole instrument. lowest octave. The conversions can be Vogler presented the converted organ to rupted by a thunder storm Time for CSI. described as follows. Sometimes there an obviously enthusiastic, but not com- 6. The Chorale: O Haupt voll Blut und is more than one solution—in this case, pletely converted, crowd in an inaugura- Wunden, with a Basso continuo, in contra- Questions and questioning only one is given. tion recital with a memorable program: puntal and canonic manner First: Are the numbers 2556 and NB. The terrace song, the Mahomeda- 1001 correct? Did the original Wagner Conversion 1 1st Part nian song, and the boat ride have been spe- ′ 6 organ have 2556 pipes, and did only To achieve a 32 sound, Vogler created cially requested by music lovers. 2 1. Prelude and fugue with full organ, us- 1001 really remain in the instrument? a new Groß-Nasat 10 ⁄3′ on the Haupt- ing 3 octave stops, 3 fi fths, 2 thirds and 4 Provided that in the Hinterwerk the werk. He took the bottom octave from the reeds, with a total of only 498 pipes 1 ′ 2. Terrace song of the Africans stamping In an extended review, the Leipziger Cimbel consisted of three ranks and the Pedal Quinte 5 ⁄3 and had it stopped to Allgemeine Zeitung preserved the terrace Echo Cornet had the same compass as transpose the pitch an octave lower. The limestone, to surface their terraces, always ′ one choir resting and singing, the other one song theme for posterity (Example 1). As the Hauptwerk Cornet, the total num- Hauptwerk Gamba 8 supplied the rest stamping seriously as possible, the author makes ber of 2556 Wagner pipes appears cor- of the rank. Since the lowest octave was 3. Double concerto of a fl ute and a bas- fun of the limestone stamping choirs, rect (Table 1). taken from the same range, the missing son, with clear distinction of four manuals: wondering if they are familiar with the The more diffi cult task is to find out C# did not cause a problem (Table 2). I. [manual] for the fl ute European canon form (Example 2). what happened in the course of the con- II. [manual] for the bassoon The pastor of the church later com- version. (An “after” stoplist is shown in Conversion 2 III. [manual] for the full orchestra IV. [manual] for the gentle instrumental plained that Vogler had taken out the Table 13.) After all these pipe reloca- For a new discant stop, it was suffi - accompaniment best pipes, selling them to St.