And then came my very special instrument in 2014. Buy me a coffee. Medieval Organ. 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. I wonder if the organ in particular is used because some in the church believed that only the organ should accompany the voice in the liturgy. Again,the principal difference lies in their function. 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. But there is a part that one as a musician, as an artist, as a performer, has to create. The four iron rods on the right side of the case are the stop pulls. This article includes three videos of Cristina playing: table organ, clavicytherium, and portative organ. With two drones you can play 60-70% of music. We do have treatises, like the Summa Musice [c. 1200] and from other sources of Europe which explain improvised polyphony with voices. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. The liquesence is a fantastic example that we can apply to the organ. It is next to a psaltery, above left. 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. In my view this is revealing and a good means of visually identifying the type of organ. These medieval proportions are preserved in art, in making, in poems, in music, and in music it includes not only the intervals but the making of the 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. Privacy Policy. Welcome to the family! And as no new name was assigned to them, the result has been a confusion of many diverse names even amongst players. Yes, you can buy this model of portative organ from the organ maker Walter Chinaglia. In this way, its so experimental: who knows what the result is. the returning note in modes around which the melody is based], so when you change mode can you change the note of the drone on the organ, or is it fixed on one note? I finished my Masters, I had the typical orthodox learning on piano with the Russian piano school, going to competitions, playing with orchestras. In this interview, Cristina discusses how she discovered medieval keyboards; her research into the portative organ and her commissioning of the only 13th century reconstruction; its playing techniques within the framework of medieval musical styles; its performance context in the middle ages; and performance presentation to a modern audience. http://www.organa.it They were the scholars of the time. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Sometimes the need for a compact and transportable instrumenthas an impact on certain characteristics of the instrumentsuch aslimiting the number of registers for example. 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. 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. Cristina with a chromatic portative organ of the 14th15th century. Yes and no. I encourage everyone to use the name portative organ consciously. The public cannot even imagine sometimes, maybe they have never seen your instrument, and I think this is a part of our presentation. In the case of this kind of music, some of it is a thousand years old, so some help to bring it closer to the public is very welcome. Note that modern transportable organs mightappear similar to historical organs and might imitate theirdecorative style. 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. If you work in an orchestra you can grow awareness among your colleagues. 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. 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. I wish someday I can do that. We absorbed it as a sponge. 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. With thanks to, Everything came very naturally. This table summarises the elements of the three organ models we are dealing with: Our modern transportable organs might recall older organs but there are two features that allow us to distinguish them fromhistorical ones: Theyrequire electricityto power their motors,something that was not in use before the 20thcentury. Some neumes are described by theoreticians like Guido, for example [, Italian music theorist, Guido dArezzo, who wrote. Maybe the biggest surprise is to realise, once you have the instrument and you play the repertory of the 13th century, is how well it fits with the sound aesthetic of the period and with other reconstructions of instruments of the same period. 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. I would need more information before saying it was a troubadour instrument. 1250.]. Christopher Stembridge, organ. He has my model and other models of portative organ, you will see them all in his website: This is the case with the oriscus, but others like the liquesence [singing a single consonant sound or diphthong over more than one note] we know. The drone in a mode should be on the tonic or the reciting note [i.e. Of course, people together, they party and talk and sing and dance, and in Montserrat the church wanted to control what they sang and danced, they could not accept certain topics, and thats why these dances were made, which were also probably created by the clerics, or maybe influenced by popular dances. Commonly these places were churches or the court where a large number of the pieces performed were for religious or ceremonial events, and leisure (such as dance music). Basel, Historical Museum, No. 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. Music has and needs this Bb in some pieces. If you make a statistic of melodies you would play, you will recall that there are at least two modes that are the most used and, knowing that, you know which drones you need. Its size is very convenient for transport and economy of space (it doesnt require human action on the bellows). Hillerd, Denmark, Frederiksborg Castle chapel. Renaissance table positif. Yes, because you cannot use the single larger pipes melodically. 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. In this link you will find a master research by Joan Boronat that includes the topic of instrument names and their function from the 16th to the 18th century in the Iberian Peninsula. There is a lot of historical evidence for medieval portative organs. The regal can be made very soft by placing its cover on, and by taking it off it can be made low enough to sound clearly in a full and well-appointed ensemble of singers and players. Im looking forward to finding some evidence because there is one iconography of one trouvre [the troubadours of northern France] who is holding a portative organ, but its not clear whether its because of the meaning of the text on this page representing a story about him or a symbolic relationship. So then I stayed with the portative organ and then I realised I needed an instrument that was not yet built by any maker. These images are copyright Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Most of the iconography is found in religious texts, like Bibles, Psalters, etc. What I mean is that any information we might have about dances of the 12, Some of the earliest information about dances is in the, Cristina Als Raurichs website, including her biography, upcoming events, ensembles, instruments, teaching and research, is, The website of Medieval Music Besal, the international course on medieval music performance in Besal, Catalonia, of which Cristina is assistant director and faculty member, is. What about the portative organ? I wonder about dance, because you showed two images yesterday [in Cristinas presentation] where a musician was clearly dancing playing the organ, but that was all we saw. For military clerk it's a thrill to capture hostile doctor, Nut from a southern US species of hickory tree, Scots secretly love to fill mugs up in turn, Indications of hesitation when catching first of repetitions or deviations, Member of a church under the jurisdiction of the Holy See, Sign of the zodiac depicted as an arachnid, Stab in bar certainly upset Tanzanian accustomed to grazing, Substance forming the main part of a tooth. They were the scholars of the time. 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 Early Music Muse. When you play I am so struck by how much like a human voice the portative organ is. Most people think about late medieval music or renaissance, 14th, 15th and 16th century, and I always wondered about the earlier music of the middle ages. So youre absolutely right, we need to see the whole context. 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]. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. And, I guess, when youd done all the research and had the organ made, you didnt expect to find that. Here are some examples in images. Some performers who have an aversion to playing on the most standardised models employ further satirical or amusing names. You can visually see two or three large pipes which have to be drones? We should differentiate this instrument from reconstructions of historical small organs such aschest organ (English), Truhenorgel (German), organo a cassapanca or organo ad ala (Italian), orgue coffre (French), realejo (Spanish). ), Two images from a late 13th century trouvre chansonnier, MS Reg. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Creative Commons License. Support Medieval Organ, contributions are always welcome. I see some performers of early music who are very serious and keep straight faces. I am glad that you are interested in the medieval organs! In returning characters framed by HL, don't mention a rebel. Since I was a child I was fascinated by medieval history, the medieval world. For some, the organ would also be a pedagogical instrument. In the 14th centurya bigger version of the portative organ appeared, also played with one hand on the bellow andthe other on the keyboard, but now placed on the lap of theseated performer. The family of clavicimbalum, harpsichord, virginal and spinet are essentially the same instrument in different shapes and sizes. 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. So why the portative organ? This fascination was not only the music but also for the culture, everything related to this period. Unfortunately, the other section of society didnt have the wealth to create sources that live nowadays. Lets see what the sources say, and what the result is. Most of these transportable organs offer a standardised sound for all historical repertoires. So there are many doors, and probably I could have had a different instrument made. 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. Is a portative and a positive organ essentially the same, except in size, and with buttons on the portative and slides on the positive? The website of Medieval Music Besal, the international course on medieval music performance in Besal, Catalonia, of which Cristina is assistant director and faculty member, is here. This website uses cookies so that you have the best user experience. This question has different answers. Everything came very naturally. 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. Often historical performance venues already owned an organ be it built-inor moveable (see images of table organ and regal). It hadnt been built for several reasons. The love and the enthusiasm I find it infectious. Probably, when they write about the organ in this period its any organ, it doesnt matter if its small, big or medium. air pressure provided by flowing water, but Im not entirely sure anyone has worked out quite how they worked. 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. Other names that I have seen used for modern transportable electric organs are: positive organ and basso continuo organ. 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? Proportions are very important in the middle ages. I think being aware of the difference among organ models is relevant. 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.