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The Duo

A piece in two voices, one for each hand, played on two keyboards of different colours.

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What it is

The duo is a piece in two parts: a treble in the right hand and a bass in the left, each on its own keyboard. The difference of colour between the two keyboards lets the two voices be heard separately. Dom Bedos lists eight possible combinations, depending on how the piece is to be treated.

L'Art du facteur d'orgues

What Dom Bedos says

Un plein jeu peut se jouer non-seulement sur ce qu’on appelle le plein jeu proprement dit, mais encore sur les fonds de l’Orgue, ou sur les jeux d’anche. [...] Un duo peut se jouer sur un nombre de différents mélanges.

TranslationA plein jeu may be played not only on what is properly called the plein jeu, but also on the foundation stops of the Organ, or on the reeds. [...] A duo may be played on a number of different combinations.

Dom Bedos de Celles, L’Art du facteur d’orgues, Part IV (1778), ch. III, § 1363, p. 555.

In practice

In the music of the Couperins and their contemporaries

“The Duo is played on the two Tierces,” wrote Boyvin in 1690: the small tierce (bourdon, prestant, nazard and tierce) on one side, the same on the great organ on the other, with the sixteen-foot bourdon and the quarte.

Dom Bedos keeps two combinations as the most used. The first, for the grave and noble, puts the treble on the jeu de tierce of the positive and the bass on the grand jeu de tierce of the great organ; the bass should move no faster than moderate quavers, and not rise too high. The second, for virtuoso playing, puts the treble on the cornet de récit and the bass on the prestant and cromorne of the positive.

The works