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The Récit

A piece in which a single voice sings on a solo stop, accompanied on another keyboard by soft foundation stops.

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What it is

The récit sets a melody singing on a solo stop; the title often says which: récit de cromorne, de nazard, de tierce, de cornet, de trompette. A treble récit is played by the right hand at the top of the keyboard; a récit “en taille” by the left hand, in the tenor range.

Large organs had a keyboard of their own for this, the récit keyboard, which has no bass: the cornet de récit and the trompette de récit are played on it. In every case, the accompaniment is played on another keyboard, with soft foundation stops.

L'Art du facteur d'orgues

What Dom Bedos says

On se sert encore de la Trompette pour les Récits, & on la joue par le Clavier de Récit. On l’appelle alors Trompette de Récit. On lui donne l’étendue du Clavier de Récit, qui n’a jamais de basses.

TranslationThe Trompette is also used for Récits, and it is played from the Récit keyboard. It is then called the Trompette de Récit. It is given the compass of the Récit keyboard, which never has any bass.

Dom Bedos de Celles, L’Art du facteur d’orgues, Part I (1766), ch. IV, sect. II, § 198, p. 56.

In practice

In the music of the Couperins and their contemporaries

“Récits are played in various ways; their accompaniment on the great organ is always the Bourdon and the Prestant; for the Cromorne, its accompaniment on the great organ is the open eight-foot alone,” wrote Boyvin in 1690. He lists the possible stops: the small tierce, the nazard without tierce, the trompette de récit, the cromorne alone, the separate cornet.

Dom Bedos, in 1770, accompanies every treble récit with two 8-foot stops: the cromorne with the prestant, the trompette de récit alone, the cornet de récit or, failing it, the grand cornet alone, the whole jeu de tierce of the positive. Each, he says, is treated according to its character: fast for the tierces and the cornet, at a more moderate pace for the trompettes, which imitate fanfares.

The works