Registrations for the Freiberg and similar organs.

[micdev]

In the book "The registration of Baroque organ music" from Barbara Owen, there is a whole section about the Central Germany's organs, and more specifically about the Silbermann organs.

There is some talk about the Freiberg Cathedral organ (the big brother of the Freiberg sample set).

Despite the lenght of his organ building carrer - over 40 years - Silbermann's organs changed little. All his smaller organ, especially the many two-manual instruments, had similar stoplists....

He is of particular interest beaucse in 2 instances he wrote out some registration for his organs. In 1741 he completed a fairly typical two-manual organ for the church in Grosshartmannsdorf and the following year he finished a similar instrument in Fraureuth. For both of them he left similar sets of registration, most of them solo combinations and accompaniments, presumably for chorale-prelude use.

The Freiberg sample set's stoplist is almost identical to these 2 organs, so we can easily recreate Silbermann's registrations.

Pure plenum
Hauptwerk: Principale 8' Rohrflöte 8', Octave 4' Quinta 2 2/3', Octave 2', Mixture IV
Oberwerk: Gedackt 8', Rohrflöte 4', Octave 2', Quinta 1 1/3', Cymbel II, Sifflöte 1'

Flute registration
Hauptwerk: Rohrflöte 8' Spitzflöte 4'
Oberwerk: Gedackt 8', Rohrflöte 4'

Sifflöte registration:
Oberwerk: Gedackt 8', Rohrflöte 4', Siffloöte 1'

Lieblich (elegant) flute registration
Hauptwerk: Quintadena 8' with Spitzflöte 4' or Rohrflöte, or Haupwerk Principal 8' and Spitzflöte 4'
Oberwerk: Gedackt 8' Rohrflöte 4' Gemshorn 2'

Cornet registration
Hauptwerk: Principal 8' Rohrflöte 8' Octave 4' Cornet III to be use d as a solo with
Lute registration:
Oberwerk: Gedackt 8', Rohrflöte 4' or Gemshorn 2' as an accompaniment

Oberwerk Cornet registration:
Oberwerk: Gedackt 8' Nassat 2 2/3', Tertia 1 3/5' as solo

Nassat registration:
Oberwerk: Gedackt 8' Rohrflöte 4' Nassat 2 2/3' as solo
Hauptwerk: Rohrflöte 8' Spitzflöte 4' as accompaniment

Tertien registration:
Oberwerk: Gedackt 8' Rohrflöte 4' Nassat 2 2/3', Octave 2', Tertia 1 3/5' as a "Canto solo"

Stahlspiel registration
Oberwerk: Gedackt 8', Nassat 2 2/3', Tertia 1 3/5', Quinta 1 1/3' as solo
Hauptwerk: Rohrflöte 8' and Spitzflöte 4' as accompaniment

For all the pros, there is nothing new for you I guess, but for an amateur like me, it does help to get the most out of sample set.

Hope this will also help some of you

François

[positive]

..
Hope this will also help some of you

François

François,

I very appreciate this guidance, thanks.

David

[Jim Reid]

And, also thank you, Francois, for this lead; I do have a copy of
Barbara Owens book and have had another read of the section you
have found.

I have not ordered Jiri's organ as yet because I already have three
similar Silbermans: two by Milan Digital the other by OrganARTMedia.
The Milan St. Georgenkirche is closer to the Zurek set while I feel the
OrgamART Media 1731 Reinhardtsgrimma Silberman is actially closer
to providing the "sound" suggested by the Silberman registrations
Owens found. The most obvious feature similarity is the inclusion of
the 16' Sub Bass in the Maier organ, while both the Milan and Zurek
organs feature the 16' Principal in the Pedal. When I play Bach,
for example, I notice a great difference in the resulting sound between
these two Silberman sets I have. Of these two, the Reinhardtsgrimma
organ sound sampled by Prof. Maier, is to me more appealing.

My third Silberman is the Milan St. Marienkirche organ, Rotha Germany.
This organ, in the original, is only a single manual, with a single
16" Sub Bass for the pedal. However, Milan provides an extended
version with two manuals and with added coupler to bring both
manuals together and a pedal coupler; combination action is also added.
This Milan sample set recording use long 8 -10 second samples
which include up to 3 or 4 seconds of natural church reverb. Silberman's
suggested registration can also be closely obtained with this instrument.

But as many have said, how an organ sounds is very much a matter
of personal "taste". One feature of the OrganART sample set is that
nearly all of the Silberman pipes in Reinhardtsgrimma are the orginal
pipes; many of the others lost pipes to military metal use during
the two World Wars. The Milan St. Georgenkirche Silberman lost
many of the facade Principal pipes to World War I, and many wooden
and reed pipes to water and other damage during World War 2 when
the roof was lost to bombs. These pipes were replaced with new
pipes built as close as possible to original.

The Zurek Freiberg Silbereman sample set is significanly larger in ranks
as it includes many 16‘ voices, and a „French“ register Vox Humana,
among others; none of these were mentioned in the list of registrations
Silberman has written down. In the Freiberg organ history Jiri writes,
he notes many modifications to the specification and pipe ranks made.
Several attempts to "go back" toward the original spec have been
done, as Jiri writes, but many of the more "romantic" ranks remain.
Whether useful or not, is for you to determine.

Obviously both Silberman and Owens interest was in the playing of the
typical baroque sound of the Bach sort!

I have not yet determined whether I will order the Feiberg Silberman
sample set. Will have to spend more time listening to the demos. But,
we do have a rich selections among Silbermans's organ from which to
choose!

[imcg110]

Owens book is a great resource - but must not be taken as a gospel text. Bach's works spanned many many years and styles changed. His death marked the end of the baroque era, but innovations started and tastes had changed long before his death. Some of the later Silberman organs as well as Trost, Herbst etc begin to herald the more orchestral age of organ building - with fewer manuals as the contrapuntal model was becoming less important, and gravitas to carry big orchestral style pieces. As has always been the case, the music comes first and the organs begin to change to suit needs and tastes. Look at some of the big Bach preludes - the Gmin, the Eb, the organ concertos and some of the big fugues. They are much more at home on a later organ. Compare this to the exclusively contrapuntal trio sonatas. The OAM and Milan Silberman represent the off the shelf standard issue organs that Owens book refers to. The SP Silberman is more of a transition organ, putting 3 manuals worth of pipes on 2 with viols, a 16 foot principal chorus and a 32 foot bass - All built in a single case. This is not an off the shelf organ and although off the shelf registrations will work, there is so much more to explore here.

Owens gives a good historic basis to start from, but we all have ears!! Listen to how organists register these organs (there is a plethora of CD's) some you will like, some you won't. Try to analyse what they do and transfer it to your own Silberman (There's a phrase I thought I would never hear "your own Silberman!!!")

Again I would guide readers to the text of Mr Bicknell who puts it more eloquently than I could ever hope to do myself!!

http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/JSB&organ.html

[zurek]

Dear Jim,
what you wrote about the Freiberg organ seems to be misunderstanding of the Silbermann work unfortunately. If you compare the stoplist of the organ after the recent restoration with the original stoplist as found in the contract with Silbermann (which is to be found in the Weimar Staatsarchive), you can see that all the stops Silbermann intended are there! There is no remnant of any "romanticising" alteration now! The only stop, which is not found in the original contract, is the Trumpet 8,but it was Silbermann himself who added this stop to the Hauptwerk! As you can read on my pages, Silbermann attitude to Petrikirche was very pious and he built this organ partly also as a gratitude for sparing his workshop from the fire. So, it might be also the reason why he was somewhat "generous" when building the organ and that the stoplist is so rich compared to other smaller instruments. Also, this organ is a surviving wittness of Silbermann last manner and as you can see, it is really a big shift from the earlier works towards the "gravity" which was asked for by the time. So, this organ is really different from other Silbermann works and for this reason I thought it might be very important virtual organ, since it shows this organbuilder in a bit different light than he is known "usually". But it would be complete misunderstanding to state that many of the more "romantic" ranks remain as you do, regardless of the taste individual organist may have!

[honza]

Hi Jim

Please, read once more the text from Jiri´s pages, concerning Petrikirche Silbermann reconstrution. Those several romantic stops, added in the past ( and yet in the past removed), had their own manual and windchest. It did not interfere with conception of instrument and so it was easy to remove them. Otherwise, the instrument was largely preserved including the prospect pipes. So present disposition is the same as it was before 2007 reconstruction and the same as with Silbermann.
To comparison of Silbermann organ samplesets: Despite Silbermann´s sound is very specific and in many organs little bit uniform, still we can recognize at leas 2 groups of his organs. For first, these are smaller 20 or 21 stop instruments, usually in smaller village chruches ( Rötha, Crostau, Reinhardtsgrimma, Grosshartmannsdorf, Fraureuth etc). They usually sound clearly, without so huge 8 or 16´basement. In majority cases, the churches have specific dry ambience. The other group are larger instruments, unfortunatelly very often changed or lost in 1945 (Sophienkirche and Frauenkirche in Dresden, Zittau). Freiberg Dom is exception and Kath Hofkirche in Dresden as well (in fact only pipes and smaller mechanical parts were seved..not windchest etc). So, in contrast to those smaller instruments, here we can only guess, what was the sound of organ in Sophienkirche or Frauenkirche). And it is just the new Sonusparadisisampleset, which can give us the answer. Personally I have OAM Reinhardtsgrimma and SP Freiberg and I am happy with both. For me it is not "either-or". In contrast to Reinhardtsgrimma, I know Freiberg personally and I think now, with ODF 1.03 version it is very realistic and precisely reflects the original.

[Jim Reid]

Thanks to Jiri Zurek and also to honza for their complete explanation
and views. Very useful to me. I had, indeed, mis-read some of Jiri's
writing about the instrument he offers. Certainly a larger organ at a
later time did some evolving toward the ever changing musical scene.

I think I am stuck in the more early baroque! Most of the music I was
taught in the years I actually did take some organ lessons (late 60's
early 70's) only got me to Buxtehude and Bach of the earlier time.
Then the lessons seemed to skip to the later music of the late 19th
century, thus my interest in the Cavaille'-Coll organs, Franck, Brahms, etc.

So much to learn and to come to know and, yes, to underestand. Thank
you again,......

[Gert]

Hi François,
Thanks for the registration suggestions.

I used some of them (Pure Plenum, Flute, Sifflote, Nassat) for new recordings of the nice Freiberg sample set ( http://www.pcorgan.com/SampleSets1735FreibergEN.html ) on my site.

Because of the 'high frequency boost defect' makes a relative big difference, I made new recordings (also available on download page: http://www.pcorgan.com/DownloadsEN.html ).
Last Saturday afternoon I re-record all pieces for the Diffuse version with ODF version 1.03.
You can hear that it was a bit a 'rush job', but the sound quality is more important than the play quality.
I placed the mp3s on my site just now 1 December because of the bandwidth (30 GB) of my site was full so I must pay extra money.

Some pieces have a little different registration (e.g. the nice clear plenum registration in the Fughetta of Psalm 43, after a tip of François).

Best regards,
Gert
www.PCorgan.com

[micdev]

Very nice recordings Gert, they perfectly illustrate what this organ sounds like. Btw Gert, what is the % setting for the wind model on your system?

I just love the web... an amateur like me post infos from a book; a pro like Ian add information, historics facts and cautions, provides an additional link. A discussion is engaged about some historical facts, and my "virtual friend" Gert translate the "recipes" to something you can listen to.... all of this from a simple "cut and paste" from a book.

Thanks to all of you, I learning something new every day.... too bad the web wasn't there while in school.

[Gert]

Thanks,
I like to record with 'most standard/default as possible', so too for windmodel: 100%.
Only the 'Plein Jeu' is recorded with 20% else the organ is 'half way the piece' out of wind.

[micdev]

Gert, that confirms my setting; to be able to play full organ anything above 20% will result with the organ running out of wind.

[polikimre]

Thanks,
I like to record with 'most standard/default as possible', so too for windmodel: 100%.
Only the 'Plein Jeu' is recorded with 20% else the organ is 'half way the piece' out of wind.

Actually, I think it still does that for the direct version. It happens at 0:40.

[micdev]

Polikimre,

I rechecked my setting and it is set at 12%; 20% was still to much for some "heavy registrations" and fast passages.

One thing about this sample set; when the organ reset (after loading a temperament, combination, did some adjustments in the General or organ setting), it will that a few seconds before it can emit some sounds, the time required for the bellows to fill.