Combination
The Jeu de tierce
The combination of the foundation stops with the nazard, quarte and tierce: a compound timbre suited to duos, quick fugues and tierces en taille.
Combination
What it is
The jeu de tierce brings together foundation stops and mutations on a single keyboard: “Bourdon, Prestant, Nasard, Quarte and Tierce”, according to Boyvin in 1690. The quarte de nasard, a wide-scaled 2-foot stop, is preferred to the doublette, which is used only when there is no quarte.
Dom Bedos distinguishes three versions. The grand jeu de tierce of the great organ includes all the foundation stops, even the 32-foot if there is one, with the two nazards, the two tierces and the quarte. The jeu de tierce of the positive includes the open 8-foot, bourdon, prestant, nazard, quarte and tierce. The small jeu de tierce of the great organ is content with the open 8-foot, small bourdon, prestant, small nazard, quarte and tierce.
L'Art du facteur d'orgues
What Dom Bedos says
Comme on le fait toujours en étoffe, de grosse taille, & qu’il est destiné à être toujours mélangé avec les Nasards & les Tierces préférablement à la Doublette, il est regardé comme un Jeu de mutation.
TranslationAs it is always made of étoffe, of wide scale, and is intended always to be mixed with the Nasards and Tierces in preference to the Doublette, it is regarded as a mutation stop.
In practice
In the music of the Couperins and their contemporaries
The jeu de tierce carries the duo: Boyvin plays it “on the two Tierces”, those of the positive and of the great organ, to which he adds the sixteen-foot bourdon. Dom Bedos does the same, treble on the positive and bass on the great organ, noting that this combination suits the grave and noble, but cannot bear great speed in the bass.
It also serves for the quick fugue, for trios and, on the positive, for the tierce en taille. Dom Bedos never puts it into the plein jeu or the grand jeu. He notes that the grand jeu de tierce sounds poorly in the treble, where the 16-foot stops dominate too much.
The works
In the repertoire
One work in the project’s repertoire bears this name in its title.
François Couperin (1668–1733)
- Messe des Couvents - Dialogue sur les Tierces et la Basse sur la TrompetteListen
See also
- Tierce →Mutation stop
- Nazard →Mutation stop
- Duo →Registration
- Tierce en taille →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, « Tierce (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.