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Subject:
From:
Jo Huddleston <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 8 Aug 2001 14:35:08 +0100
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Trying to solve a puzzle.   The essential bits are these.

(1) Tudor church organ best thought of as based on a Principal rank for
singing to.  (2) Keyboard had 26 or 27 naturals, 19 accidentals, for this
rank.  (3) Best guess is that 46-note keyboard was same as 47-note one
except bottom C# missed out to make it cheaper.  (4) Principal rank started
from a 5ft pipe.  (5) Mock a 5ft pipe up, you get a 100Hz sound (plus or
minus 1Hz).  (6) No handy book gives a list of all the notes used in the
ORIGINAL (not re-edited) music manuscripts, alongside a list of the notes
NEVER used.  (7) English notation (eg Sternhold Psalter) seems to have gone
c cc ccc and so on.  (8) Point six means you can't specify pipe names
(which pipes gave note e, g#, aa, ff#, ccc ddd# etc) for dead certain.
Tomkins letter says 1614 Worcester C key gave F sound for the choir.
(8) When Tudor organs being rebuilt (1660s/1670s) they were described
as giving Gamut in D sol re.  (9) So best guess is that lowest Principal
notes included C/F (press C, get F) and D/G (press D, get G).  (10)
English described as being preoccupied with singing, as being excellent at
it, etc.  (11) When Schlick, Praetorius etc were advocating standards for
three-manual organs, England was doggedly hanging on to the 'voices first'
approach, would have nothing to do with mutations (eg 2-2/3) or mixtures
(eg II-rank ffourniture) or reeds, or pedals.  (12) Points ten and eleven
encourage on to think England went its own way, so organ relics on the
mainland are utterly irrelevant.  (13) In support of point twelve, "Fog in
Channel, Europe marooned" is a genuine newspaper headline from the second
part of last Century, the refusal to join the Euro prevails now.  Im Westen
nichts neues, mon cher ami, sapristi?

Glad of erudition.

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