Reed stop · 4 ft
The Clairon
The 4-foot reed stop, built like the trompette but an octave higher: it clarifies and brightens the sound of the trompettes.
Reed stop
What it is
The clairon is a 4-foot reed of fine tin with conical resonators like the trompette, which it resembles in every respect; it simply speaks an octave higher. In the top octave, where the reeds would become too small, it is usually given a “break”: some of its last pipes are set in unison with the trompette.
It is used on the great organ, very often on the positive, and almost always in the pedal. In the largest organs there are two when there are three trompettes. With the bombarde and trompette it is the third member of the batterie d’anches.
L'Art du facteur d'orgues
What Dom Bedos says
Le Clairon est un Jeu d’Anche de 4 pieds. On le fait en étain fin & de figure conique comme la Trompette à laquelle il ressemble entiérement ; mais il parle une octave plus haut. Il porte le nom de Clairon, parce qu’étant à l’octave de la Trompette, il en rend le son plus clair & plus brillant.
TranslationThe Clairon is a 4-foot reed stop. It is made of fine tin and of conical shape like the Trompette, which it entirely resembles; but it speaks an octave higher. It bears the name Clairon because, being at the octave of the Trompette, it makes its sound clearer and more brilliant.
In practice
In the music of the Couperins and their contemporaries
The clairon is rarely used without the trompette. Dom Bedos puts it in the grand jeu and the fugue grave with all the trompettes, in the basse de trompette with the prestant, and in the pedal, with the trompette, to carry the plainchant beneath the plein jeu. Boyvin, in 1690, adds it to the trompette and cornet for the small dialogues.
Dom Bedos also describes a less expected use: in a duo, a bass played on the two 16-foot stops and the clairon of the great organ, a combination he calls irregular and which should not be taken too low.
See also
- Trompette →Reed stop
- Grand jeu →Combination
- Basse de trompette →Registration
- All the stops →
Sources
- Dom Bedos de Celles, L’Art du facteur d’orgues, Ire partie, Paris, 1766 (texte de l’exemplaire BnF, IMSLP)
- Dom Bedos de Celles, L’Art du facteur d’orgues, IIIe partie, chap. IV, « Les principaux mêlanges ordinaires des Jeux de l’Orgue », Paris, 1770 (transcription Wikisource)
- Jacques Boyvin, Premier livre d’orgue, Paris, 1690, « Avis au public concernant le mélange des jeux de l’orgue » (transcription Wikisource)
- Wikipédia, « Clairon (orgue) »
The musical programme of the Chaumes-en-Brie organ aims to serve this repertoire; its specification will be defined with the selected organ builder.