Melotone Audio Demos

Good Omens (Opening Titles)

Good Omens is a 2019 BBC/Amazon television series based on the book by Terry Pratchet and Neil Gaiman, with music by David Arnold. This is the music for the opening titles and it illustrates that the theatre organ can tackle contemporary music as well as music from the heyday of the theatre organ. Arnold's imaginative score features diverse resources, including an orchestra, choir and solo singer, East End piano/fiddle band and even a fairground calliope. All this gives plenty of scope for the organist to enjoy himself! Played for us by Stephen Ades.

Contrabombarde: Good Omens (Opening Titles)

Lara's Theme from Dr Zhivago

"Lara's Theme" is the name given to a leitmotif written for the film Doctor Zhivago (1965) by composer Maurice Jarre. The melotone produces a very pure note and so Compton used it to provide not only four differently pitched stops but also a number of more complex synthesized voices, by combining between 3 and 6 pitches - very innovative in the 1930s. The synthesized voices include the Chimes stop heard at the beginning of this recording. The melotone also has a 'echo control' which makes notes gradually fade out over about 10 seconds after the key is released. This effect can be heard at the end of the recording. Played for us by Stephen Ades.

Contrabombarde: Lara's Theme from Dr Zhivago

Somewhere

"Somewhere" is a song from the 1957 Broadway musical West Side Story that was made into a film in 1961. The music is composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and takes a phrase from the slow movement of Beethoven's 'Emperor' Piano Concerto, which forms the start of the melody, and also a longer phrase from the main theme of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

The melotone can be played with or without vibrato. This recording uses vibrato, which is generated using a mechanical eccentric-and-rod mechanism and so is much more regular than a tremulant. As in this demo, the Melotone can be used as a solo voice and in ensemble, so Compton specified that the vibrato frequency should match the tremulant rate of the Tibia tremulant. Despite many years of separation, their two frequencies still match. Played for us by Stephen Ades.

Contrabombarde: Somewhere - Melotone Demo