Boardwalk Hall: Grand Cornet XI
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- A big video for a big stop! Work started a the end of March 2023 and the largest compound stop in the organ is now up and running. And for those who are interested in such things, now we know much better what stops Robert Elmore used in the 1956 recording.
803 pipes. Lol that's about the size of the instrument I play every Sunday.
Wow, she's sounding fantastic!! "Bach on the Biggest" was also what got me interested in organs. This then led me to the Midmer-Losh. I love the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C. I can't wait to hear every piece from the album played again. Thank you for sharing, Chris!
Thanks for the explanation of the harmonics! I find this restoration very exciting. The in depth videos offer a person like me ( I didn't have the opportunity to be around or work on pipe organs) a chance to understand how they are designed and how they work. I never would have imagined that one compound stop would include 11 ranks and so many pipes. It's mind boggling. The hard working, passionate people involved are so inspiring. Thank you all ! I will probably never get to see or hear it in person living on the West Coast now but the videos are just great.
I sure hope you and the HORC are documenting these crazy details of these ranks for the future! Every pipe is so bespoke - it must be very complicated to work on.
Phenomenal, in so many ways! And what an incredible sound! It must have been the most intense thrill to bring this alive.
'Bach on the Biggest' set me alight many years ago too, BTW.
Thank you for restoring this invaluable instrument. The discussion of all the mixtures and harmonics is WAY above my pay grade. Por moi c'est magic!!
If the Cornet by itself and some stopps does sound like a tutti on regular small organs out there, imagine the tutti one day of the Boardwalk Organ.
This is a really clear explanation which will help a lot of people, especially as you have the harmonic series shown on a card. (Nice, subtle Nigel Tufnel reference too!) I usually say "first partial" meaning fundamental, "second partial" meaning "first overtone", etc. to avoid the genericity of "harmonic" and the off-by-one maths of "overtone." I guess on balance this is primarily a 16' Cornet with a bit of extra growl from that 32' quint, but it sounds better in chorus than on a solo line (where the 7ths make it a bit gritty to my ears, though admittedly just on the basis of a very few RUclips videos). I'm not sure if that makes the Grand Cornet more a kind of 'corroborating mixture' for use with smoother chorus reeds or not. In the end, it's fascinating, and like 100% of all stops ever built, to be used when your ears say it sounds good.
Some larger Walcker and other German Romantic organs had cornet-like stops that ended up generating 32’ resultants in the treble - it’s not unheard-of for there to be 32’ resultants in a manual compound stop. Even some big French Classical organs had Fourniture stops that broke back to 10-2/3’ in the highest octave. But for there to be a continuous 10-2/3’ over the entire manual compass? Now that’s quite strange, IMO.
You're absolutely right. And this stop is really very unbalanced in that the bass is so loud in comparison to the treble, if you couple it to the pedal you really don't need anything else on down there.
When I first read that paper card on the chest, I thought it said "Grand Cornet II ranks" as in Roman numeral II, which of course is how rank counts are usually given on mixtures. I was going to say, how on earth did they make a two rank Cornet, or have the nerve to call it a Grand Cornet, especially on an organ such as this?
My next thought was maybe the II indicates each pipe in the mixture has a double, for greater volume in an organ and room of this size, which might make sense.
Of course I soon realized it actually said 11 (eleven) ranks. Silly me!
You can't take take anything for granted on this organ!
welcome to your new home guys! (well, same as the old place i guess). They look happy there.
It's almost as if the Senator was trying to summon Gozer. Does this building have girders with cores of pure selenium?
I don’t know but I do know a guy I could ask. 😉
that’s so cool you were able to recreate the registration from that album. had you known all these years that he used that stop on that piece?
No, but I'd suspected it...because, no matter what we did, that grainy sound just couldn't be produced by anything playing up to this point. When I tried it this morning, it was the "Aha!" moment. It also explains the very percussive "whomp!" of the pedal notes, as the low end of this stop is very prompt and VERY powerful.
Perhaps it will be cool with the Reed chorus if it is reinforcing 32 16 8 and 4 probably
I'd be interested to hear it as a solo stop, perhaps paired with a couple of 16'-8' stops, against an accompaniment consisting of a rather 'fatty' foundation sound.
I love it! Thanks so much for taking the time to explain the harmonic series and the composition of the Grand Cornet XI. I loved the demonstration recordings at the end too - thank you for sharing!
"now we know much better what stops Robert Elmore used in the 1956 recording."
It may not sound like it on the video but in person, adding the Cornet, especially on those first measures, sounded identical to the recording- it had that strange, grainy sound which is so distinctive.
This is nothing more than a 32' stack of harmonics. I'm not sure why you're saying "It's X in the 16' or 8' series" (even if true!) If you take your chart, transpose it down 2 octaves (to 32' C), build up the harmonic series from there, go all the way to the 32nd harmonic, the 11 pipe lengths form very important parts of the 32' C Harmonic Series, with lots of octaves and 5ths (#s 3,4,6,8,12,16,24,32), some major 3rd (#10 and #20...he left out the muddy #5), and a colorful Septième (14)!
32 (1)
16 (2)
---cornet starts here
10 2/3 (3)
8 (4)
5 1/3 (6)
4 (8)
3 1/5 (10)
2 2/3 (12)
2 2/7 (14)
2 (16)
1 3/5 (20)
1 1/3 (24)
1 (32)
---cornet end
Now imagine playing the end of Franck's a minor Chorale, 10 or so bars from the end, left hand, and pulling that stop with the Great Principal 32, 16, along with a suitable Tuba, and BAM! Magic!
It's flexible enough to be used for serious "double-sub-octave solo" (as in the Franck), and/or coupled to pedal to add strong articulation to the pedal register when the 32' reeds are engaged, let alone that 64' Diaphone!
IOW, it's designed for engaging 32' registers for whatever purpose. Probably not useful without them.
PS: Thank you for taking such an active role in bringing this stop back to life!
0:40 interesting that those original cards are still in such good condition. M-L must have spent the extra money for acid-free paper.
Pipe organ tuning tool as classroom pointer... 👍
Glad you noticed that detail
The idea of mixing different families of pipes in one and the same Mixture originated not with Audsley, but with Eberhard Friedrich Walcker in the 19th century. The organ he built for Boston (now in Methuen) certainly did have such Mixtures before it was rebuilt by A-S.
Fair enough but I'm sure that Richards took it more from the Audsley book, since it's right there in an easy to find form.
@@cnagorka We can take for granted Audsley himself got the idea elsewhere, from any of the numerous german organ-builders who immigrated in the US maybe. But of course Audsley rarely quote his sources so we shall probably never know. Any way, in Europe today such stops begin to be carefully preserved or even reconstituted. Very, very precious stuff.
There are a couple of likely reasons for this stop being what it is: (1) The Senator was just a bit nuts, and/or (2) The Senator was using the city’s money to play an expensive game of “What would happen if we…”
Really interesting presentation; but maybe consider using a lapel mic for your next video.
I wonder if the grand cornet was meant to go with the 32’ sub principal and/or the 16’ double diapasons in the Great
Maybe but if that was the case then why does it have four harmonics of the 8' series?
@@cnagorka crazy theory of mine but perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the sub principal has an 8’ extension and skips a 16’? Either way I’d be curious to hear how the grand cornet sounds with the sub principal or its 8’ extension
@@cnagorka The 2', 1 3/5', 1 1/3', 1' are also the 8th, 10th, 12th and 15th partials of the 16' series. :)
@@Mrmikeytheaccountant If you base your registration on 16' the 10 2/3' will create a 32' 'shadow' tone, which I assume could be cool?
@@HenrikBergpianorganist True.
How long will it be until the fanfare/brass chorus divisions get kinda working?
No telling, probably five or six years away
I made a comment yesterday about it breaking back early. But looking at the pipe work it doesn't appear to break back at all am missing something or are my ears deceiving me.
The bottom octaves of the 10 2/3' and 8' weren't hooked up yet when Nick played that scale, so you heard a jump when it got to Tenor C.
@@cnagorka thanks.
do you know if they are ever going to go back to live streams of the daily concerts?
They didn't do livestreams over the summer because they want people to see the shows in person...having said that they do plan to resume them in the future.
Chris, I know you mentioned it somewhere, but what pressy?
Could you restate the question?
@@cnagorka oops, meant pressure lol.
20"
sound quality is horrible can not hardly understand much what is being said about this rank
Respectfully you should pay attention to the microphone as your voice sometimes is not loud enough. Thank you.