JULIAN RHODES' DREAM ORGANS
STOPLISTS FOR IDEAL ORGANS

There is much that could be written about Jean Guillou's ideals of musical performance and organ design. Suffice it for the moment to give a few translated extracts from his book 'L'Orgue: Souvenir et Avenir' (Paris 1978).

On musical performance:

The interpretation of any work should not be based on any extant tradition, whether true or false. The individual personality may well effect such a transformation in the message that there can be no question of having faith in a transmission, even from master to pupil.

Such is the destiny of a work: to become something else without its essence being altered. Without one knowing or suspecting it, it may have changed. It will live by its future interpretations, which will bring to the work successive significances sometimes quite opposed to each other...

An interpretation will always be a putting to death of all those which have preceded it.

And on organ design:

It is necessary to eliminate any historical criteria, which will by their very nature be arbitrary and stilted.

The usual method is to create ensembles: choruses of foundations, reeds, mixtures, assimilating them all together. An entirely different approach guides the design of this stoplist (an organ built in 1974 to Guillou's design). We choose each stop for its soloistic value, in the order in which it appears the most useful... all these personalities (the stops) we have distributed on the three manuals and pedal so that each of them may speak independently of the others and, in combination with certain other stops, may be played in dialogue with those of other manuals.

Guillou's organ designs such as that at the Chant d'Oiseau Church, Bruxelles, illustrate this principle. However, in his plan for an 'organ with variable structure' given in his book (vide supra), Guillou went a stage further and schemed an organ which offered "a constructivist or cubist picture of organ sound, reduced ab absurdo to its most representative units" (Stehen Bicknell).

The following organ with variable structure has nine independent and moveable divisions, each with its own wind supply and a keyboard on the rear side of its case. In addition there is a master console with four manuals and pedal; some divisions are available on two manuals and all pedal stops (division 6 to 9) are available both on pedal and on the fourth manual.

The action, necessarily, is electric with slider chests. There are different wind pressures to each division, according to their function and the stops they contain. Additionally, there are different pressures for bass and treble.

The interior of each division is partially visible; swell shades are made of plexiglass. The large pipes in divisions 6 to 9 are mounted horizontally, allowing the divisions to be physically stacked on top of each other.

Here is the stoplist:

DIVISION 1
     8       Principal
    VI       Fourniture 8 (breaking to 10 2/3ft. in the treble)        
 
DIVISION 2
     8       Rohrflöte
    1 1/3    Larigot
     1       Piccolo
    II       Sesquialtera
    IV       Plein Jeu
 
DIVISION 3
     8       Flûte Harmonique
     4       Flûte Octaviante
     2       Waldflöte
     V       Cornet
 
DIVISION 4 (enclosed)
     8       Gemshorn
    III      Cymbale
     4       Clairon
             Trémolo
 
DIVISION 5 (enclosed)
    IV       Aliquot
    16       Ranquette
     8       Cromorne
             Trémolo
 
DIVISION 6
   16-8      Flûte
 
DIVISION 7
   16-8      Flûte
     2       Flûte
 
DIVISION 8 (enclosed)
    16       Bombarde
 
DIVISION 9 (enclosed)
   10 2/3    Grosse Quinte
     8       Trompette
             Trémolo

Guillou explains that the organ is variable in several ways:

• Location: theatre, cinema, residence, church, concert hall etc.


• Position: all divisions grouped together, or surrounding the audience etc.


• Size: flexible, comprising from one to nine divisions.


• Style: a selection of appropriate divisions can be made to suit the occasion.


• Performers: one player at the main console, or several at the independent keyboards.

(Much of the above information is taken from posts to piporg-l, 1995-1997.)

For a large dream-organ proposal by Jean Guillou and Carlo Curley, click here.