Received Bosch-Schnitger, Vollenhove

Aloha,

The Vollenhove Bosch-Frans C. Schnitger has come to Hawaii;
yesterday's mail. Thank you for the speedy shipment Prof. Maier!

Took awhile to install, about an hour to read the initial .rar file
onto my hard drive; then maybe another 1/2 hour to load the
organ in full detail. With XP64, 1212m audio drivers, all sample loops,
tails, etc. seems to occupy something over 5GB of RAM.

Played through all the stops, one by one. Wonderful sounds,
but only have taken about 1/2 hour to play a bit of Bach and
Buxtehude. More tomorrow.

Going to really enjoy this organ!

Would have ever thought that a Dutch organ would make it all the way to Hawaii?

I got mine, but I need a bit more RAM before I can run this gigantic program.

Please post samples of your enjoyment on www.organmusicians.com (files have be below 5MB and mp3 to load; which is going to deteriorate the quality just a bit, but is still good enough for us to enjoy).

Please post samples of your enjoyment on www.organmusicians.com (files have be below 5MB and mp3 to load; which is going to deteriorate the quality just a bit, but is still good enough for us to enjoy).

Here are some of my demos. Many slips (as usual!) but I think they show off this rather wonderful sample set.

JSB: Komm, Gott Schoepfer, Heiliger Geist (the short version):
http://www.organmusicians.com/Play.asp?id=127

Walther: Allein Gott in der Hoh Sei Ehr
http://www.organmusicians.com/Play.asp?id=299

Wesley: 'Air' from '12 short pieces for organ with full voluntary added' (an English piece)
http://www.organmusicians.com/Play.asp?id=300

Wesley: 'Gavotte' from '12 short pieces for organ with full voluntary added' (an English piece). The staccato chords show off the multiple release handling in this sample set.
http://www.organmusicians.com/Play.asp?id=301

David.

Thank you very much for posting these samples. It shows off the sample set rather nicely, but I cannot help escape the feeling that there seems to an ever so slight delay between your playing and the sound coming through, so I am am wondering what kind of PC (speed, RAM, etc.) and MIDI keyboard setup you have. With what initial settings were the samples loaded into RAM?

The sound quality itself, despite the enormous reduction/compression to mp3 coems through still amazingly well to my ears.

Again thanks so much; keep up the good work! I hope to be able to play my set pretty soon. Need more RAM!

For me, today was a holiday (MLK day), and due to limited RAM (only 2GB presently) I had time to load limited stops at 16-bit and single loop, but even so, the organ sounds fantastic. I only played with the stops of the Great and Pedal and tried all kinds of music from Sweelinck, Bach, JKF- Fischer, Hurlebusch, Hassler, Telemann, Staden, and Nieuwenhijsen, and if I had a million dollars and didn't have to work anymore, you would know where to find me...

This instrument is a Dutch dream come true, and living abroad in the US, I don't have access to really good organs nearby here in the city, and so, this sampled organ is it!

To say it like an American: WOW !

I will post samples soon.

Thank you very much for posting these samples. It shows off the sample set rather nicely, but I cannot help escape the feeling that there seems to an ever so slight delay between your playing and the sound coming through, so I am am wondering what kind of PC (speed, RAM, etc.) and MIDI keyboard setup you have. With what initial settings were the samples loaded into RAM?

I think it' s just my lousy playing! :D I've got an athlon dual core processor (4400 or 4800, forget which), 4 Gb ram, an asus a8n-sli deluxe motherboard and the emu 1212m soundcard.

I think my buffer size is set to about 15 ms right now and I find it's a good tradeoff between polyphony and response. I quite like a bit of delay as I feel it's good training for playing real organs where the pipes can easily be 5m or even more away.

David.

I fully share the enthusiasm. It seems that "dream organs" do become reality.
I also posted a few MP3 (3 Schübler and "O Mensch") at
http://orgue.pierrejacquet.net/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=16
Pierre

Very nice :-)

Thanks a lot for the really great feedback and the wonderful customer recordings at

http://www.organmusicians.com/


Here are some more live recordings from Fabio Mancini, Milano:
http://www.organartmedia.com/Vollenhove-Demos.html

I usually don't comment on organ playing as it is not my field, but I happily make an exception for Pierre Jacquet. Excellent playing and great registrations.

Thanks.

I am thrilled by the new Fabio Mancini tracks, enchanted by what Pierre has recorded, and more than a little humbled to hear some of my MIDI files on this magnificent instrument.

James Pressler

In the Netherlands, in the late 17th and 18th centuries very little written organ music survives, and it was only in the 19th century that a revival of organ literature playing became in vogue again. But do not think for a moment that organ culture in my native country stood still between Sweelinck and let's say a published Friedrich Ruppe (a contemporary of Beethoven, living in Leiden) or the time of Mendelssohn. Organ culture actually blossomed profusely in the 18th century, but the name of the game was improvisation, and that's why many organs, especially the smaller ones, have divided stops, so you can emulate a two-manual approach with a single manual instrument. It was also ustomary to play little interludes between the lines of a Psalm from the Genevan Psalter which the Dutch have sung for centuries now.

Now to the Vollenhove organ: Keeping this improvisation history in mind, this organ can actually act as a 3-manual instrument, by having separate stops in treble and bass on the Hoofdwerk and alternate stops on the Rugwerk. The Cornet IV can be empowered by adding the trebles of the Bourdon 8', Flute 4' and 2', and even add the Trompet 8' treble. You can even play the Hoofdwerk in the lower region while only drawing 4' and 2' stops.

The Dutch loved accompanying singing with the Cornet, whereby the Trompet would be added. And the pedal would be the bass-Posaun pedal, and in this example not coupled. The Posaun on this organ is oh so nice. Just playing a scale on it is exciting.

Once I get my new keyboards, I hope to demonstrate some 18th century exampels of how an organ like this may have been used. You will be pleasantly surprised!

At any rate, the instrument makes a lot of historical sense to me and will help me better understand Dutch organ playing history as well.

The instrument has also retained its 17th century character in the mild Principal, and the very powerful Cimbaal! When I played some Sweelinck on it, I was so happy!

Thanks for your explanation Adri. A number of 18th century Dutch Psalm books including preludes, interludes and postludes have survived and are still used today.

As I mentioned earlier, I live about 15 minutes from the Vollenhove organ and have played and heard it played several times. Because much of the old documentation has been lost, it is not entirely clear what Schnitger did to the organ. I visited the organ several times and have come to the conclusion that Schnitger left the Renaissance sound of the Hoofdwerk completely in tact. As you mentioned Adri, the Prestant is quite mild. This is true of all of the Hoofdwerk stops except for the Trompet which was made new by Schnitger. The Bourdon is also very mild. The organ was too mild to be able to function properly during the accompaniament of a robust singing congregation which is the reason the organ was revised by Schnitger. The Rugwerk stops are much brighter and more powerful than the Hoofdwerk ones and sound more Schnitgerian and I have heard all existing Arp and Frans Caspar Schnitger organs in Holland. In the church the tutti of the much smaller Rugwerk equals that of the Hoofdwerk. The Hauptwerk is less brilliant.

Schintger always dealt with older organs with great respect. This is also true of his rebuilds in Alkmaar and Deventer, where he used many parts unaltered.

The Pedal is an amazing addition to the Vollenhove organ. Seeing as it was built between 1860 and 1863, one would expect a much different sound. Organists do tend to add the Holfluit-8 to the Prestant-8, something which would not be done in a true Schnitger organ. Otherwise, the Pedal fits in very well as far as sound and balance is concerned.

The pipework of the Hoofdwerk is well organised: neat, proper and extremely spacious. The Rugwerk is also very well organised but the Pedal has been jammed into the side towers making it almost impossible to get at the pipes.

All in all, this is a terrific example of two of the types of instruments - Renaissance and Baroque - for which Holland is famous. The recording by Prof. Maier is also sublime. People who know the real organs tend to be more critical of any recordings of those instruments, but as far as I am concerned, this recording of Vollenhove surpasses any I have ever heard.

The Pedal is an amazing addition to the Vollenhove organ. Seeing as it was built between 1860 and 1863, one would expect a much different sound. Organists do tend to add the Holfluit-8 to the Prestant-8, something which would not be done in a true Schnitger organ. Otherwise, the Pedal fits in very well as far as sound and balance is concerned.

Thanks for adding that. I feel that the Holfluit 8' in the Pedal should be used cautiously as it can bemuddle the calrity of the sound; the same hodls true for the trombone 8': I would not use it when I ahve the Hoofdwerk's Trompet already engaged and my epdals are coupled to the HW. E.g. If you play Bach's passacaglia or some other pedal solo, my experience so far is to lea eth trombone disengaged, unless I don't use the Trompet of the HW.

My rule for registration is this: Within what I know about historically accurate and proper stop use, I nevertheless use the rule of the ear: if it doesn't sound good, even though I used that registration on another organ succesfully, I look for alternative methods that sound good. I am totally convinced that this is the historically accurate method. Every organ has to be treated uniquely and individually, not legalistically.

I find that Classical music from the time of Ruppe sounds very good here as well.

The samples are excellent, bar none, and I feel I am there, in the building, even though right now I am playing the instrument single loop, compressed, with just 2Gigs of RAM. Should get a lot bvetter with mroe RAM.

Good news; I found out my motherboard can take up to 16Gigs of RAM.
Bad news: that's sooooooooooo expensive! :D

This is no cheap hobby, but still beats the price of a bad digital organ by far!

My rule for registration is this: Within what I know about historically accurate and proper stop use, I nevertheless use the rule of the ear: if it doesn't sound good, even though I used that registration on another organ succesfully, I look for alternative methods that sound good. I am totally convinced that this is the historically accurate method. Every organ has to be treated uniquely and individually, not legalistically.

I know Ton Koopman doesn't list his registrations on Southern German organs like the Riepp organ in Ottobeuren because they don't fit standard North German rules. The combination of stops he uses there would cause the critics to explode.