portable organ renaissance

Are the Bb and F# part of the run of buttons or are they offset? Probably the most outstanding difference is the possibility of moving the instrument and the way they are performed: a portative can be played by one person, one hand on the bellow and another on the keyboard, and especially it can be carried while playing, while a positive needs at least two people, one for the bellows and another for the keyboard, and cant be carried while playing it. And that is very natural and consequent: if you want to play repertory, you need to have the notes of that repertory. You may also have a first contact with his instruments coming to one of my courses where student may rent different models of portative organs for the course length. The position was that the organ is a whole instrument and it is divine its the best to deliver the voice of the doctors of the church. Performer of medieval and Renaissance keyboards, pedagogue, musicologist. Some neumes are described by theoreticians like Guido, for example [Italian music theorist, Guido dArezzo, who wrote Micrologus, c. 1025], but there are some neumes that we dont know exactly what they are. I am fascinated! As youll have read, Cristina had hers made to her specifications. Those of you who are used to early music concerts have probably listened to Renaissance and Baroque ensembles that use a little organ which is transportable and works with electricity. Youve looked at a great deal of iconography, looked at the evidence from the development of the larger and static positive organ with slides to the smaller and portable portative organ with buttons. , but there are some neumes that we dont know exactly what they are. By choosing the names properly we will be helpingto understand better which instrument is which. Whenthe need arose for example on processions it would have been placed on a carriage and moved around with the performer and the person(s) who actioned the bellows. Passionate about communication and obsessed with the question: what is medieval music to us? In Catalonia, where I lived as a child, we have many buildings and much history available, so a wish of my brother and me as a child on our birthdays was to visit a castle or a museum, and it was mostly about medieval or ancient civilisations. Theophilus is a cleric of the beginning of the 12th century, and he explains what the positive organ is made of: pipes; a box; slides; the conflatorium, which brings the air of the bellows to the box; and bellows. However, weshould always be aware of their function. Did medieval writers mention this? The medieval portative organ is also called organetto (Italian), Portativ (German), orgue de coll (Catalan/Occitan). Switzerland (late 16th century). So we start with low demand on earlier instruments. Here are 7 Tips to Help you! If I would need an instrument for the 14, I was surprised by the diversification of possibilities, and I had to make choices because several possibilities were plausible according to the sources, like the option of making conical or cylindrical pipes; the option of making pure copper pipes or with just a tiny amount of another metal with it; options about the range, etc. I had so many questions, I really wanted to learn about it, and the more I knew about this period, 12th-13th century, the more I wanted to play this music. Yes and no. I wonder, if we saw the rest of the page, if there is any evidence for what sort of dance? Trk 8 Toccata seconda del none tono naturale (excerpt). We see the instrument also in dance: there are iconographies of portative players who are dancing at the same time. So youre absolutely right, we need to see the whole context. everything. I passed from piano to renaissance keyboards like clavisimbalum [see picture above], clavicytherium [see video below], and renaissance portative organs, and when you go backwards in time you realise the clavisimbalum and clavicytherium are late medieval instruments. What I mean is that any information we might have about dances of the 12th and 13th century is thanks to this part of the society, so probably there were dances that were transmitted orally but the traces of these dances are very hard to reconstruct. Not to be reproduced in any form without permission. On the other hand, you also have literary texts that describe, for example, how one church has an organ and another doesnt have it, and one church is criticising the other for having it, or the other way, they should have it. It is a little organ which is played with one hand on the keyboard andthe other on the bellow. We do have treatises, like the Summa Musice [c. 1200] and from other sources of Europe which explain improvised polyphony with voices. Its not mandatory for makers to be scholars or researchers. Several medieval sources say that the ambitus of the voice has three distinct colours and I recall, after this instrument was made, actually it fits this idea perfectly, because the different diameters of pipes used mean that the instrument is not homogeneous with one sound-colour. I believe we can imitate the vocal ornamentations that are described in the 12th13th century by, for example, Jerome of Moravia [Dominican friar and music theorist who wrote Tractatus de Musica, Paris, c. 1280]. This interest brought me to different people again, this time to Dr. Mauricio Molina in Barcelona. Good question. Once your instrument was made, did you make any discoveries that you didnt expect? ), Two images from a late 13th century trouvre chansonnier, MS Reg. Exactly. Music has and needs this Bb in some pieces. Origin of psyche quickly arising in this collective consciousness? It hadnt been built for several reasons. Maybe the biggest surprise is to realise, once you have the instrument and you play the repertory of the 13, I dont think there are any. Of course, what I learn by using the instrument is phrasing, because I try to take everything from the sources, even about rhetoric or the use of text and pronunciation, the use of consonants and vowels I apply everything to the instrument. Medieval Organ. The earliest sources I have found until now for the portative are in the 13th century, when we find iconography for very small organs that are hung by a strap on a person who is standing, sometimes dancing, which means it has to be really portative thats why the name, so you can carry it. So why the portative organ, and why medieval music? One of these stories is the legend of Merlin and on the side we have this image. If you work in an orchestra you can grow awareness among your colleagues. That means they need help, then with the knowledge they have of making, and scholars and musicians with the knowledge of sources, together its possible, and thats what I did with Walter Chinaglia. French Renaissance organ case by Nicholas Dabenest (1573). These images are copyright Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. We are glad you chose to visit the site and we will be happy to see you in the future! Keep Your Brain Healthy And Younger By Solving 1 Crossword Puzzle Daily. Welcome to the family! There are a series of pipes, alleged to be dated to the 12th century, displayed in the order as if they were on an organ for the visitors of the museum. Before the advent of square notation, there are neumes that we can guess what the shape means, but we dont know. So we find this parallel between the organ and the voice. Christopher Stembridge, organ. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. And suddenly, while I was in The Netherlands, I met a teacher of medieval music, Corina Marti, and thats when I went to Basel [Schola Cantorum Basiliensis] to study with her. Its a lovely effect, and I was wondering, was this something you discovered was possible in the playing, or is there evidence that this was used? Yes, the organ is especially related to liturgical music, as you say, since it was considered the voice of the doctors of the church the whole instrument was to praise God. Some neumes are described by theoreticians like Guido, for example [, Italian music theorist, Guido dArezzo, who wrote. Other names that I have seen used for modern transportable electric organs are: positive organ and basso continuo organ. Transportable organs contain the same elementsas any other organ,but confined within a little boxallowing easy transportation from one place to another, such as concert venues and rehearsal rooms. In my case, I have chosen also to have F# because in the 13th century you find it in many sources. The earliest image of a portative organ, the main subject of this article, is a miniature in ms. 17333, British Museum, dated c. 1320-1330. Is a portative and a positive organ essentially the same, except in size, and with buttons on the portative and slides on the positive? I finished my Masters, I had the typical orthodox learning on piano with the Russian piano school, going to competitions, playing with orchestras. I think most people would know that one context for playing the portative organ was sacred music. Anonymous, 16th century. In churches where there is already a large organ, the organist may be asked to perform on it alongside other musicians in order to be seen by the public. Thats why I found it was very important that I didnt want to impose on the maker, I want an organ that sounds like this. In principle the basic elements are the same, except for the keyboard that in a portative organ are buttons and in a positive, depending on the period, it will be slides or buttons. If yougive a concert you can write the suitable name in theprogramme notes. Its essential to better understand the middle ages. Here are some examples in images. These names have often been used to name the modern portable electric organ. In relation to the modern transportable electric organ, we should agree on a name that is clear for everyone. it radiates from you. Offset, behind the main row, we can see the B, And that is very natural and consequent: if you want to play repertory, you need to have the notes of that repertory. Do we know? Lets summarise then how many different instruments have we considered until here: first, the medieval portative organ, a historical phenomenon of the late middle ages; secondly, themodern transportable electric organwhich solves the modern need of having to supply an organ in a venue where there is none (mostly used for basso continuo); and third, little historical organs that work with human action on the bellows and no electricity. From the evidence youve found, were there other contexts in which the portative organ was played? However, their function and origin are quite different from each other. So then I stayed with the portative organ and then I realised I needed an instrument that was not yet built by any maker. Before electricity, bellows occupied a certain physical space andrequired people to action them. I would suggest using it only for theinstrument thatwas historically first referred to as a portative organ the medievalportative organ. Unfortunately, the other section of society didnt have the wealth to create sources that live nowadays. I think you mentioned F# and Bb. I like this question, because when we analyse an image we tend to cut and take only the fragment, and we forget the context. In order to play ornaments, we researched the sources to learn about vocal ornamentation. Cristina with a chromatic portative organ of the 14th15th century. Yes, because you cannot use the single larger pipes melodically. Want to Solve Crossword Puzzles? I believe we can imitate the vocal ornamentations that are described in the 12, Exactly. Are there any surviving portative organs, medieval or renaissance? One is that the interest of most people is the late medieval ages and makers know this interest. And then came my very special instrument in 2014. The CROSSWORD BUZZ team are experts in CROSSWORDS solutions! It was typical, because pilgrims went to the church, they arrived, they stayed there in the evening, and at night they had to leave the church and they passed all night in front of the church in special places. Cristina performs internationally solo and with medieval music groups Magister Petrus, La Douce Semblance, Le Souvenir, Carmina Harmonica, Sonus Hyspaniae and Hamelin Consort; and gives courses and master classes on medieval music and medieval keyboards around Europe. Not only is Cristina a musician of consummate skill, her love for her instruments and specialism is obvious and infectious: rarely have I seen anyone play and talk about music with such transparent joy. This website uses cookies so that you have the best user experience. Of these, he says: Organ (1605-10). The public cannot even imagine sometimes, maybe they have never seen your instrument, and I think this is a part of our presentation. Modern electric transportable organs therefore saveon both space and manpower. Praetorius was by profession himself an organist and he naturally gives considerable attention to organs in his treatise. They believed that God, as creator, was a mathematician, and he used proportions to create everything, so numbers are everywhere and these proportions are divine because they come from God. Although there were many national differences, the average Renaissance church organ had one or two manuals (rarely three), sometimes a pedalboard, and about ten stops, occasionally including the earliest metal reeds. If I would need an instrument for the 14th century, maybe I would check for the notes, in order to meet other kinds of aesthetic needs. which explain improvised polyphony with voices. In classical music its hard to change nowadays. Thank you, James. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Because we live in the 21st century, we have a lot of ideas in our head, a lot of sounds, we listen to a lot of music, but we have so many of these prejudices in our head, and its fundamental for studying a period that we dont know about, that we havent lived, to try to get ideas like a baby learning how the world is. Support Medieval Organ, contributions are always welcome. This applies not only to liturgical and para-liturgical music, but Latin poetry, erotic music, song and dance, so all these different registers were connected to clerics because they were the educated people, people who could write and read, create, study, make philosophy and talk about aesthetics and theology etc. But I was not aware that one could study this music, so I made my whole career as a pianist. In other words, only a few models actually correspond to concrete historical models and their repertoires. In my research I have not found the word portative in such an early period, 11th or 12th century. For music of this period there is evidence that some harps and psalteries had a B and a Bb. Regal. If you continue browsing, you are consenting to its use. This is an aesthetic difference compared to later instruments in consorts in the renaissance, a whole family of instruments that, from the smallest to the largest, all have a similar quality of sound. Note that modern transportable organs mightappear similar to historical organs and might imitate theirdecorative style. If you want to go backwards then you need another instrument, maybe symphonia [or simfonie or other spellings], or other types of instrument. So dance music and court music. Renaissance table positif. At some point in the 20th century a new model developed: a small transportable organ which can adapt to a variety of repertoires from Renaissance to contemporary, and which works with an electric motor. Thinking of the voice-like quality of the organ, something else you did when playing was the rise and fall of a note by changing the air pressure on the bellows, not to change the note, but the same note rising and falling. http://www.organa.it An example just to get out of the framework we sometimes have. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. In this way, its so experimental: who knows what the result is. Usually, in the renaissance, you look for each note of an instrument to sound with the same quality as each other but, as in medieval sources, the human voice doesnt have this quality because it changes through the ambitus. So one part is very strongly based on this study of text, and study of the neumes, and rhetoric, etc., and then there is this artistic part where you decide how to use the air, as you said, how to create the phrase, the movement, and to make the line alive. Ars Musici AM 1207-2 (1997). The quality of the notes is also very human: the high notes are purest, the middle notes are more full and mellow, and the bottom notes have a throaty growl, just like the human voice. 1250.]. Some musicians prefer not to speak on the stage. The only thing we have are some positive organ pipes which are in Jerusalem, in the Convent of the Flagellation. In this case it really matches the sources, and it also matches other instruments of the period which have exactly the same aspect, like medieval fiddles. This improvised polyphony is in parallel fourths, fifths and octaves, but this tradition develops into what we understand as organum [polyphonic accompaniment], and one of the options in organum is to keep the basic note all the time while the tune is sung. Sharing this information is beautiful, I enjoy it so much, I would love to help people by doing that, sharing the research and knowledge, to reflect and create awareness. We dont have the choreographies, we know they danced outside the church. Lets see what the sources say, and what the result is. Thats how I came to play this repertory. We do have treatises, like the. These rarely imitate concrete historical organ models. This more fully justifies the use of the word portative (to carry in Latin). Is there contemporaneous writing about the portative organ? Itwould be unreasonable to simplify here the number of models: some were placed on a table, others weredesigned and builtas part of a set of furniture in an architectural project, others were little foldable regals. In this case, its other types of narrative, like jongleurs [medieval entertainers who were singers, instrumentalists, jugglers and acrobats], which means its an instrument of entertainment to the court. It needs some research, but if that were to be proven to be right, that would be the oldest pipes, as Jeremy Montagu says in the title of his article, The oldest organ in Christendom [available here]. Next time you encounter someone with doubts about the two portative organs you will be able to identify the models and distinguish the differences. Cristina Als Raurich is a historical musician and researcher who specialises in keyboards of the middle ages and early renaissance: portative organ, positive organ, clavicimbalum, and clavicytherium. But at that point, when I started in Basel, I realised the period I was most interested in was the hard core of medieval music. Is there any evidence that the portative organ drone, or any other drone, comes from a vocal model, that church or secular singers were singing the drone on which another person sang the melody? The earliest are 10th-11th-12th century. But this term is also used in royal chapels to designate an instrument in the shape of a small and longish chest containing one or more ranks of reeds, with two sets of bellows attached in back. In the late medieval period and the renaissance, both may have keys instead of buttons. In some treatises on music theory they discuss proportions. Sometimes the need for a compact and transportable instrumenthas an impact on certain characteristics of the instrumentsuch aslimiting the number of registers for example. All rights reserved. everything. Organ. We all are responsible for making nomenclature clearer and communication better every time we name instruments. You have this view by Gregory the Great [pope from 590 to 604], the Venerable Bede [English saint, 672/3735], and all through the middle ages. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. It is essentially a mechanical psaltery: a quill plucking a wire, with a jack action and wooden keys as on an organ to activate the jacks. One of the ideas that for me was very important in principle is to avoid any prejudice about how the organ should sound. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window), Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window), The medieval portative organ: an interview with Cristina Als Raurich, Surprising songs of sentient statues: the Virgin, Venus, and Jason and the Argonauts (Cantigas de Santa Maria article 6/6). I think being aware of the difference among organ models is relevant. Observe how these organs are different from the modern portable organs we are used to see in concert venues. This I discovered when we met at Bolton Castle, Wensleydale, England, in 2017, where she gave a presentation on the history of the portative organ; performed in the duo, Sonus Hyspaniae, on portative organ and percussion, with Ral Lacilla on musa (medieval bagpipe) and frestel (medieval Pan pipe); and kindly agreed to the following interview for, In this interview, Cristina discusses how she discovered medieval keyboards; her research into the portative organ and her commissioning of the only 13, The earliest image of a clavicimbalum (clavicembalum, clavicymbalum, clavisymbalum, or other variant spellings), the earliest member of the harpsichord family, above right, from an altarpiece in Minden, Lower Saxony, Germany, dated 1425, now in the Bodemuseum, Berlin.