A note on Jerome-Joseph de Momigny and French classical organ

A note on Jerome-Joseph de Momigny and
French classical organ registration
Alexei Panov
Journal of the Royal College of Organists
Volume 7 (2013) pp. 44-48
ALEXEI PANOV studied organ at the Saint Petersburg and Kazan
State Conservatories. He has published many articles and five
monographs, and his main topics are baroque treatises, baroque
and early classical performance practice, musical lexicography,
and history of the organ and organ music. Since 2006, he has
worked as Director of the Department of Organ, Harpsichord and
Carillon, and as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the Saint
Petersburg State University (Russia). He is a member
of the board of the Russian Society for Music Theory.
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A note on Jérôme-Joseph de Momigny and
French classical organ registration
Alexei Panov
Organists and historians of ‘organ art’ are well aware that the French organ school of the
classical period was, where registration was concerned, extremely stable, rather closed
to outside influences, and had a tendency to disallow significant discrepancies in stop
combinations. While German composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
gave instructions in their texts in rare and exceptional cases, relying on the experience
of performers and their knowledge of tradition, French authors from the middle of the
seventeenth century were meticulous in writing out types of registration. As a rule, detailed
transcripts of these combinations can be found in the prefaces to the Livres of the French
organ composer-performers of the period. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
such detailed descriptions of organ registration also start to appear in theoretical treatises
and practical manuals by French musicians.
At that time, Grand Jeu and (Grand) Plein Jeu formed some kind of ‘antipodes’ in terms
of stop combination and, accordingly, also in terms of timbre (the dynamics in both cases
being fortissimo). In this quotation, the first of a series of quotations from, or references to,
relevant sources (the numbers in square brackets refer to the sources listed in the Appendix),
Jesse E. Eschbach gives the following definition of Grand Jeu in the encyclopedia The Organ:
GRAND JEU. French Classic registration based on reed sonority. Although the individual
Livres d’orgue of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries vary in detail, the overall concept
is consistent: Grand Orgue: Trompette 8’, Clairon 4’, Grand Cornet, plus fonds stops such as
the Bourdon 8’ and Prestant 4’; the Grand Orgue is coupled to the Positif, which is registered
Cromorne 8’, Bourdon 8’, and Prestant 4’. Composers such as Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers
(1665), Nicolas-Antoine Lebègue (1675), André Raison (1688), Jacques Boyvin (1689), Lambert
Chaumont (1695), Gaspard Corrette (1703), and Michel Corrette (1737) sometimes include widescaled mutations as well. The Pedal is built upon a Trompette 8’ to which the Clairon 4’ could be
added. The Récit and Echo manuals were frequently registered with Cornets. [1, p. 228]
Further, in his article ‘Grand Plein Jeu’, Eschbach characterizes this type of registration
as an analogue of ‘organo pleno’ or ‘plenum’, and gives an example of the standard
composition of this combination for a French organ (with a 16’ Grand Orgue) of around
1700:
Most sources of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries double the 16’ and 8’ pitches with
corresponding Bourdon stops. The qualifying adjective [‘]the grand[’] usually denotes the Grand
Orgue and Positif coupled. On a ‘Grand 16 pieds’ organ of 1700, the registration would consist of
Grand Orgue: Montre 16’, Bourdon 16’, Montre 8’, Bourdon 8’, Prestant 4’, Doublette 2’; Positif:
Montre 8’, Bourdon 8’, Prestant 4’, Doublette 2’, Fourniture, Cymbale coupled to the Positif [sic].
A note on Jérôme-Joseph de Momigny and French classical organ registration
45
A separate 3’ (22/3’) medium-scaled register did not exist in the Parisian organ prior to the
nineteenth century. [1, p. 229]
It is quite obvious that in general these encyclopedia entries present a completely
adequate idea of the Grand Jeu and Plein Jeu of the French classical period. However,
Eschbach disregards some important details. For instance, in the article on Grand Jeu there
is not a word about the possibility of using Tremblant fort (Boyvin, 1690: ‘le tremblant a
vent perdu’) in this type of registration, though some French musicians insisted on that.1 In
this case, the reason is clear: the sound of the organ while following this recommendation
becomes completely unbearable to the modern ear. Modern organists—French organists
included—performing early music on period instruments never accept such a registration.
There is one further point. The French composers named by Eschbach quite often
added the Nazard 22/3’ and the Tierce 13/5’ to the Grand Jeu, though as the ranks of the
fifth and the third are components of the Cornet’s composition, such additions had no
significant effect on the timbral and dynamic characteristics of the Grand Jeu combination.
Among the French works of the eighteenth century with instructions to include the Nazard
and Tierce in the Grand Jeu, the following may be cited: the introduction to the Messe du
8e ton by Gaspard Corrette [4, p. B]; the anonymous ‘A very simple guide’ to the organ
(1746) [5; cited by 6, p. 218]; the introduction to the Premier livre d’orgue by Michel
Corrette [7, p. B]; and a manuscript by an unknown author of Tours [8; cited by 6, p. 215].
Johann Andreas Silbermann, in his MS manual on organ registration (the last quarter of the
eighteenth century) [9, p. 173], requests the introduction of the high third and Cornet into
the Grand Jeu. Dom Bedos, in his treatise on organ-building, when discussing the Grand Jeu,
makes no mention of the Nazard and Tierce, but the Cornet is present [10, pp. 523–4].
Thus, a brief analysis of historical documents and materials of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries gives every reason to conclude that in France the Nazard and Tierce
might or might not have been used as components of the Grand Jeu. No French author
of that period advises on introducing the Nazard and Tierce into the (Grand) Plein Jeu
combination. Accordingly, contemporary performers and theoreticians do not suggest such
a possibility, and with good reason.
However, one can find certain materials which force us once again to analyze
attentively seemingly indisputable dogmas—materials not considered by such prominent
and competent researchers as Barbara Owen [11], Fenner Douglass [6], Jean Saint-Arroman
[12], Peter Williams [13], and Jon Laukvik [14]. In 1818, a second volume (‘Music’) of the
authoritative and widely known Encyclopédie methodique was published; the first volume
was published in 1791 and the great gap between the publication of the two volumes can be
explained by the Napoleonic Wars and the resulting and significant reduction in publishing
activities in Paris. The Plein Jeu article in this encyclopedia was signed by the Belgian-born
Jérôme-Joseph de Momigny (1762–1842), then the most prominent French theoretician.
Momigny’s creative activities greatly influenced the views and thinking of later WesternEuropean pillars of musical-theoretical thought such as Hugo Riemann. The following
comments should perhaps be seen in the light of two important facts about Momigny: he
was a practising organist and in his theoretical work he advocated far-reaching concepts
about tonality.2
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In Momigny’s article, one is surprised to find the Jeux de Tierce in the Plein Jeu: that
is, the same Nazard and Tierce, and in the plural as well! Momigny points out that it is
impossible to use all the organ registers in the Plein Jeu, especially ‘jeux d’anche’ (‘les
trompettes, les clairons, les cromornes & le hautbois’). According to Momigny, the Plein Jeu
composition should be the following: ‘les bourdons, les prestans, les flûtes, les doublettes,
les tierces, les nasards, les fournitures & les cymbales’ (the present author’s emphasis). Here
is the original text in French, again with the present author’s emphasis [15, p. 273]:
PLEIN-JEU ne ce dit pas de tous les registres tirés de l’orgue,3 puisqu’il n’entre dans le pleinjeu aucun des jeux d’anche, tels que les trompettes, les clairons, les cromornes & le hautbois.
Ce qui compose le plein-jeu, ce sont uniquement les jeux de fond, tels que les bourdons, les
prestans, les flûtes, les doublettes, les tierces, les nasards, les fournitures & les cymbales.
What is it: an accident, an oversight, a typo? No, arguably not. This appears to be an obvious
concept. Read the following paragraph (ibid.): ‘Grand-jeu, on the contrary, consists of all the
reed stops, bourdon 16’, montre and prestans’.4
Let us turn to the French reference literature of the period. In the widely known
musical dictionary by J. J. Rousseau, an article on Grand Jeu does not exist; Plein Jeu is
briefly characterized in the general context of timbre, without any deconstruction of its
composition [16, p. 378]. Abbe P. Jaubert [21, p. 173], in his dictionary, gives quite a
standard explanation of Plein Jeu for the time.5 This explanation is reproduced word for
word in Vol. 24 of the Encyclopédie by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond D’Alembert [17, p.
14]. In the musical dictionary by F. H. J. Castil-Blaze, the explanation of the terms Grand
Jeu [22, p. 108]6 and Plein Jeu [22, p. 189]7 correspond completely to the standards of the
eighteenth century. Note the title of the work by Castil-Blaze: ‘The Dictionary of Modern
Music’ (author’s emphasis). Moreover, in 1806 [23, p. 692] Momigny himself stated that
the Plein Jeu consists of all the stops except ‘cornets, nazards and jeux d’anches’!8
Where Grand Jeu and Plein Jeu are concerned, it is impossible to find in specialized
works by early-nineteenth-century French organists any significant discrepancies with the
viewpoints expressed by eighteenth-century French musicians. For instance, Jean SaintArroman in his preface to the facsimile edition of the collection of the organ pieces by
Guillaume Lasceux [24, p. VI], basing his comments on a theoretical treatise by the latter
[25], offers descriptions of Grand Jeu and Plein Jeu that fully reflect the relevant French
organ tradition of the eighteenth century.
Thus, for the time being, it is impossible to find any documents and materials directly or
indirectly supporting Momigny’s viewpoint. Other than through a speculative consideration
of this singular and progressive musician’s ideas about expanded tonality and chord
construction, we are perhaps faced here with one of the many intriguing ‘artefacts’ of past
musical art, the mystery of its origin having no obvious solution.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
For instance, Nicolas-Antoine Lebègue [2], Jacques Boyvin [3], and others.
See Jean Mongrédien’s entry on Momigny in The New Grove (2/2001).
Here Momigny contradicts J. J. Rousseau [16, p. 378] (‘PLEIN-JEU, se dit du Jeu de A note on Jérôme-Joseph de Momigny and French classical organ registration
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
47
l’Orgue, lorsqu’on a mis tous les registers, ...’) and some other authoritative authors of French encyclopedic publications of the time, including Diderot and D’Alembert [17, p. 14], de Meude-Monpas [18, p. 232], Gattel [19, p. 284], and others. An interesting description can be found in J. F. Danneley’s Dictionary of Music [20, without pagination]: ‘Plein-Jeu, full organ; loud and sustained performance on the piano forte’.
‘Le grand-jeu, au contraire, se compose de tous les jeux d’anches & des bourdons & prestans.’
‘Les bourdons, prestants, doublettes, cymbales & fournitures mis ensemble, forment ce qu’on appelle le plein jeu.’
‘Le grand jeu de l’orgue se compose de jeux d’anches, tels que les trompettes, clairons, hautbois, etc., et des bourdons et prestans.’
‘Plein-jeu. C’est dans l’orgue, la réunion des jeux de cymbale et de fourniture. Pour que le plein-jeu produise un effet satisfaisant, il faut qu’il soit soutenu par de bons fonds, c’est-à-dire, par le bourdon de seize pieds, la montre et les prestans.’
‘PLEIN-JEU. Le Plein-jeu se compose, sur l’Orgue, de tous les jeux ou genres de tuyaux, hors de ceux qu’on nomme cornets, nazards et jeux d’anches.’
Appendix: Sources
1. The Organ. An Encyclopedia. Edited by Douglas E. Bush and Richard Kassel. New York and London: Routledge, 2006.
2. Lebègue, Nicolas-Antoine. ‘Voicy un petit Avis tant pour le mélange des Jeux que pour le mouvement du toucher sur chaque espece de pieces’, Les Pieces d’orgues, Paris: Baillon, [1676].
3. Boyvin, Jacques. ‘Auis au Public, Concernant, le meslange des Jeux de l’Orgue, les mouvements, agréments, et le toucher’, Premiere livre d’orgue, Paris: l’Auteur, 1690.
4. Corrette, Gaspard. Messe du 8e ton pour l’orgue a l’usage des dames religieuses, et utile a ceux qui touchent l’orgue, Paris: H. Foucalt et Rouen, 1703.
5. La Manière très facile pour apprendre la facture d’orgue. Manuscrit anonyme de Caen, 1746.
6. Douglass, Fenner. The Language of the Classical French Organ. A Musical Tradition Before 1800. New and expanded edition. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995.
7. Corrette, Michel. Premier livre d’orgue contenant quatre Magnificat, Paris: Castagnery, 1737.
8. Manuscrit: ‘Anonyme de Tours’ (1710–1720?).
9. Silbermann, Jean-André. Manuscrit autographe sans date. Fin XVIIIe siécle. Fac-similé Jean-
Marc Fuzeau. Méthodes & Traités. Collection dirigée par Jean Saint-Arroman. Série I. France 1600–1800. Orgue. Volume V, pp. 173–6.
10. Dom Bedos de Celles, François. L’Art du facteur d’orgues, Paris: L. F. Delatour, 1766–78. Troisième Partie.
11. Owen, Barbara. The Registration of Baroque Organ Music, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997.
12. Saint-Arroman, Jean. L’Interprétation de la musique française: 1661–1789. 1: Dictionnaire d’interprétation, Paris: H. Champion, 1983.
13. Williams, Peter. The European Organ, 1450–1850, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2/c.1978.
14. Laukvik, Jon. Orgelschule zur historischen Aufführungspraxis: eine Einführung in die ‘alte Spielweise’ anhand ausgewählter Orgelwerke des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart [u.a.]: Carus [u.a.], 1990. Translated by Brigitte and Michael Harris as Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing: An Introduction Based on Selected Organ Works of the 16th–18th Centuries, Stuttgart: Carus, 1996.
15. Encyclopédie methodique. Musique, publiée par MM. Framery, Ginguené et De Momigny. Tome Second. Paris: Agasse, 1818.
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16. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Dictionnaire de musique, Paris: Duchesne, 1768.
17. Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une société de gens de lettres. Nouvelle édition. Tome vingt-quatrième. Geneve, 1778.
18. Meude-Monpas, Jean J. Olivier de (Chevalier). Dictionnaire de musique, Paris: Knapen et Fils, 1787.
19. Gattel, Claude Marie. Dictionnaire universel portatif de la langue française, Seconde Édition, Tome Second. Paris: Lefèvre/Lyon: Buynand, 1813.
20. Danneley, John Feltham. An Encyclopædia, or Dictionary of Music, London: Preston, 1825.
21. Jaubert, Pierre (l’Abbé). Dictionnaire raisonnée universel des arts et metiers, nouvelle édition. Tome second. Paris: P. Fr. Didot, 1773.
22. Blaze, François Henri Joseph (dit Castil-Blaze). Dictionnaire de musique moderne, Bruxelles: L’Académie de Musique, 1828.
23. Momigny, Jérôme-Joseph de. Cours complet d’harmonie et de composition, d’après une théorie neuve et générale de la musique, Tome II. Paris: l’Auteur, 1806.
24. Saint-Arroman, Jean. Présentation. Registrations pour l’annuaire de l’organiste. Fac-Similé Jean-
Marc Fuzeau. Collection Dominantes/Guillaume Lasceux. Annuaire de l’organiste, 1819.
25. Lasceux, Guillaume. Essai théorique et pratique sur l’art de l’orgue. Enumération des jeux don’t ce grand Instrument est compose, manière de les mélanger et de composer les morceaux qui lui sont propres, Paris: Exaversier, 1809.
Plate 1: Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, c.1860.
Photograph from the family archives.