Author: James Wyly

Publisher:

Published: 1964

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13:

Spanish organ music of the period 1500-1800 demands a knowledge of old Spanish organ building and traditions of organ playing. Otherwise authentic performances are not possible. Before 1500, Spanish organs differed only slightly from those in the rest of Europe. During the sixteenth century, SPainish flue choruses began to take on characteristic forms. The invention and universal application of the medio registro (1570-1600) brought about unique styles of organ building and playing. The seventeenth-century Spanish ideal of small, extremely flexible organs encouraged the development of mechanical subtleties such as swell-boxes, celestes, devices for instantaneous changing of stops, etc. The SPanish liking for extreme colors was responsible for more and more refinement of the solo cornetas and reed stops. This resulted in the invention of the facade trompetas, which developed into the great eighteenth-century reed choruses. These were supplemented by enormous cornetas and llenos. After 1800, Spanish organ building entered a long decline from which it has only begun to recover. A knowledge of registrational practices on these organs can be gained by studying certain old documents. From these and from examples of Spanish music, we find that sixteenth-century registration was probably closely related to that practiced in the Low Countries. With the coming of the medio registro, registration became more and more based upon contrast of extreme colors, with clarity of line the universal common denominator. Seventeenth-century documents show a marked perference for bizarre colors, often made by openly violating the rules of registration then observed in other countries. The large eighteenth-century organs permitted the organists to reach new heights of ingenuity in their combinations of stops. The content of their music, however, seems to have declined proportionately as its outward dress became more elaborate. The Spanish continued to elaborate the Gothic systems of mensuration signs long after they had fallen into disuse elsewhere. An understanding of the SPanish signs is necessary, as they often indicate rather exactly the pace of given pieces and the relationships between their subsidiary sections. Spanish ornamentation was characteristically individualistic. Ornaments are seldom indicated in the music; nevertheless, they were expected to be extensively employed. Several old Spanish authors describe the expected ornaments in sufficient detail for modern players to approximate their style. Many of the expected semitones were not indicated in the sixteenth-century music. Apparently, every organist had his own system for supplying them. Descriptions of some of these systems have been preserved. From them, modern organists can learn to add semitones to the music in reasonable approximation of the style of some of the old masters.