Magical worlds - a 6 min. organ concerto.

• Oct 18, 2011 - 20:08

An organ concerto for organ and chamber orchestra with 
3 piccolos, 4 horns, 4 trombones, 4 violins 1,
4 violins 2, 4 violoncellos, 2 contrabasses and timpani.

Attachment Size
organ concerto.mscz 32.42 KB

Comments

• Oct 23, 2011 - 15:07

Recheck your instrument ranges.
The organ pedals are impossible and impractical. The range of a pedalboard is only 2 1/2 octave starting with C (first C below the bass clef) and ending with f1 and g1 (Above the bass clef) in later models. Registration (stops) are needed to create a deeper sound measured in feet. (8' [normal tone sounding as played], 16' sounding an octave lower, 32' two octaves lower and some concert organs have 64' that sounds three octave lower than played. Most organs only go as low as 16' which sounds as the lowest C on a piano) Thick chords in the pedals are not advisable. One foot alone can play an interval up to a third on a straight-line pedal board and up to a fourth (with difficulty) on a radiating pedal board but are only common on models way down South.
The idea is quite good but in a concerto the solo instrument had the most difficult part. The rest of the orchestra just supports the soloist by playing chords and/or the main theme (before the soloist enters in concerto first movement form) or by mere accompaniment.

Reply

• Oct 23, 2011 - 19:48

You should just rearrange this piece.
Let the organ play the difficult runs and the rest of the orchestra just play chords. With the repeats alter the organ part a bit. If you have knowledge of piano playing you should know that each part per hand does not exceed an octave. Same with the organ. You will notice that there are three staffs with organ music. From top to bottom it is right hand, left hand and the feet on the pedals. There are many ways to write for organ. A good organ has at least two manuals (keyboards) so it makes it possible to have an accompaniment on one manual (flute) and a solo voice on another (trumpet). It does not matter where the solo (C.F. cantus furmas) is. It can be in either hand and in some cases the feet. A good example it to examen Mendelssohn's 6th organ sonata first movement (or any of JS Bach's Coralle preludes). It is in the form of theme and variations. The theme is written in Koraale (Hymn) style with the melody in the top voice. The variations that follow each have a turn in each hand and the final variation the melody occurs in the feet.

Dynamics (pp, p, mp, etc.) are measured in certain stops (registers, sounds) that are selected to be played alone or in combination.
If you do not have any knowledge of organ stops it is best to just use dynamics and the organist will use the appropriate stops. Some schools of organ playing believe that to use the word "cresc." or its counterpart within a musical piece will call for the "crescendo pedal" (looks like the volume pedal on a hammond) no matter what keyboard you are playing on. This pedal automatically adds stops from the softest to the loudest. When using hairpins (graphical dynamic variance) it calls for the pedal for which the keyboard's pipes are enclosed in a box such as the swell manual. The pedal situated next to the 'cresc. pedal' operates shutters that will make the sound variate in dynamics without any stops being added or taken off.

Reply

• Oct 23, 2011 - 23:13

Here is an edited version. More practical organ technique.
I rearranged the instruments to where they should be and also changed a bit of the orchestration to give you an idea of what are the possibilities of having 3 piccolos at bar 9. (Playing on harmonics, technique used many times by Ravel)

These adjustments are however just an idea. At the end of the day you as the composer have full authority of what you want where and how.

I put up the Adagio movement of my organ concerto at http://musescore.org/en/node/7991

Attachment Size
organ concerto edited.mscz 34.17 KB

Reply

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.