CharlesW

1. The 1960s Flentrop aesthetic, once again, is not representative of what a Baroque organ is. If you want to look at new 'Baroque' instruments, then have a look at Eastman and Cornell, which have very fine replica instruments built by people who have studied the originals in depth. The new Flentrop in Hamburg is quite a different creature to the copies I have seen elsewhere.
2. Trent did not call for the 'simplification' of polyphony. Trent has very little to say about polyphony at all. The reception of Trent is another matter altogether...
3. There is no 'problem' with an instrument being German. By all means, say you don't like the sound of them, but really, that's where your argument begins and ends. The rest of the things that you add around it are just inflammatory and don't add anything to your argument. According to your argument, perhaps French organs are passable too - when's the last time France won a war?

The kind of organ Sweelinck played is nothing like what would be found in an American church - or university either. According to Barbara Owen, in The Registration of Baroque Organ Music, "The three manual organ played by Sweelinck in Amsterdam's Old Church built by Jan Van Kovelen in 1539-42 and rebuilt in 1567 to a stoplist closely resembling that of Morlet's 1644 Zwolle organ, had in its pedal division only a Trumpet 8' and a Nachthorn, the latter probably of 2' pitch, although presumably the pedal keys could be coupled to one of the manuals." She maintains that such pedal divisions were common in Protestant Holland until well into the 18th-century. She also goes on to say that, "the Northern Netherlands organ of this period was a curious amalgam of contiguous styles." One manual could contain principal stops, while another contained flutes, mutations and reeds as were found on French and German organs.

Given that modern organs are more reliable and constructed of more stable materials with more responsive actions, yes it is likely that Sweelinck and a host of others would have much enjoyed the sheer playability of these modern instruments.

I played pieces by Raison and Michel Corrette during a program last year. John Brock, who wrote a very good book on French performance practice of the period, was in the audience and we talked afterwards about performing those works. Schantz has never built an instrument either of those composers would recognize. All those bass ornaments were played by my feet, unlike the composers who would have had an easier time playing them on manuals. The point being that we can't duplicate the registrations and voicing on the early organs with the instruments we have.

So, what is your suggestion? Should we never play those works because we can't duplicate the organs familiar to the composers? Even if we could do so, it wouldn't make economic sense to build impractical instruments for today's use. Let's see...I need a Cavaille-Coll to play Vierne and Widor, a Skinner to play Sowerby, a Flentrop to play Bach... Wonderful in theory, but no one has THAT kind of money. LOL.

,,,when's the last time France won a war?

Neither Germany nor France have won wars in quite some time. That was humor, a concept foreign to more than would be imagined. LOL.

Again, authentic instruments may be great, but where do you find them on Sunday morning? The instruments are not constant over time, and instruments in Catholic churches did not stay in the "Sweelinck" state, but evolved. Builders passed on, new ones came on the scene, music changed, styles changed, and so forth. Sweelinck could be considered more Renaissance than Baroque, or at least transitional between the two styles. Sweelinck played in Dutch Protestant churches. Given their Calvinist bent, there probably wasn't much liturgy in those churches to begin with. The Calvinists rejected all that, and removed organs in many countries. I have read that the Dutch exhibited their independent streak and didn't remove them, despite clerical demands to the contrary.

I have never been a genuine tracker fan, although I will play what is available where I happen to be, regardless of what it sounds like. I did play a large Wilhelm and nearly changed my mind on the trackers. Nice instrument, responsive, and could adequately play about any type of literature. I don't dismiss the construction of earlier instruments, but think todays builders have improved on them through better engineering and design. A great deal of thought and engineering went into that Wilhelm.

CharlesW, it's interesting that you use the term 'evolved'. If you look at the North German organ concept (which extends into the Netherlands), 'grew' is probably a much more accurate verb: the original instruments were augmented. Thus, strictly speaking, a Schnitger is not really a Schnitger at all: it is an earlier instrument with a number of additions. It is therefore quite possible to understand what Sweelinck knew and heard because unlike the South German phenomenon under Silbermann of throwing out and replacing instruments, the North Germans and their friends merely added to what was already there!

If you have never been a geniune tracker fan, then how can you speak about the quality of tracker actions? The expression that comes with mechanical action is something that you're obviously not interested in, nor the techniques of attacks and releases that manipulate the pallet.

So what are the improvements in 'engineering and design'? Tracker action is actually quite a simple thing - Where were the preceding 600 years of accumulated knowledge wrong? There is not a huge difference between a mid 19th-century mechanical action and an action built 200 years earlier!

The number of modern 'token' tracker instruments out there is quite depressing - They "say" tracker, but actually, you have no control over the pallet in either direction! My idea of a good playing action (of ANY period), is where I am in perfect control of the pallet in both directions and can develop pipe speech properly.

CharlesW, I feel as though I am repeating this same argument until I am blue in the face, and you are either ignoring me or not hearing it: that an organ builder claims to be building a Schnitger copy does not make it so. How many such builders have actually done the research? Restoration of originals? There's a handful of them in the world. I mean PROPER, scientific-based research. GoArt in Sweden has had an entire team of scientists studying everything from pipe alloys, to action physics, to voicing techniques to whatever else you can think of. Anyone associated with that project can claim to understand what a Schnitger is. Merely taking a few pipe scales and copying bits of a case doesn't make an organ a proper Schnitger replica any more than the Daprato plaster pietas are copies of Michelangelo's masterpiece!

Yes, there are authentic instruments. They're worth finding. And yes, we can know what they sounded like 'new' when we follow the same construction techniques. GoArt's done a great job of it!

Bach was evidently aware of the capabilities of Schnitger's instruments - some of his works are so obviously written with a North German instrument in mind. To continue pointing to the central and southern German instruments as 'ideal' is to miss the point badly: there is no single, ideal instrument for Bach's repertoire. His musical pedigree, his influences, his own stylistic development reflect a myriad of influences. The Hildebrandts and Silbermanns are lovely. But they're not the whole story.

What do you mean by a 'tedious' action? If you mean that it's predictable, that's a quality that I like - the ability to know what it's going to do, so that I have complete control over my music. And no, tracker action wasn't 'almost completely abandoned' - the number of surviving mechanical action organs from the early twentieth century attests to that. I honestly cannot see why anyone would enjoy playing an electric action organ - I would never want to give up control in exchange for more pipes!

You may be setting up an 'either/or' argument for styles of organs in the Catholic Church but I am not. Enjoy your English/American instrument. Just have the courtesy to recognise that your instrument is a matter of preference, not dogma, aesthetic imperatives or liturgical necessity!

Admittedly, we can't be 100% sure, but we can get almost certain. The Principal 8' and 4' at Cappel are from 1680 and have never been touched! There are some ranks in these fine old instruments that are precisely as Schnitger left them. Unbelievable!

GoArt has done specific research on blowing mechanisms and also provides full bellows. Some of the research has involved cameras and all sorts of scientific tools. Very, very interesting.

GoArt's work has always used the original techniques, even where this has necessitated reconstructing them. When you look over their research publications, your jaw drops by default! :)