Gedackt-Pommer German Gedecktpommer German Pommer German Gedackt-Bommer German Gedact-Pommer German Gedecktbommer German Pommer Gedackt German Gedaktpommer German

These names refer to a variety of Quintaten, made of stopped wood or metal, found at 16', 8' and 4' pitch. According to Irwin, this stop is voiced so that the 2nd harmonic (twelfth) is prominent, to the point of being as loud as the fundamental. Audsley takes this even further, maintaining that the 2nd harmonic is more prominent than the fundamental, which may even be absent. Wedgwood calls it “virtually a harmonic stopped twelfth”. Maclean, on the other hand, claims that the twelfth is less prominent in the Gedeckt Pommer than it is in the Quintaton, and cites Smets as saying that the Gedeckt Pommer is practically identical with Cavaillé-Coll's Cor de Nuit. Williams dates the name Gedacktpommer from at least as early as 1695.

According to Grove[1], Pommer is a synonym for Bombarde or Bombardon. Pommer was a German name for a family of renaissance double-reed instruments also known as shawm or bombarde. The name Pommer Gedackt does not appear in the literature; we assume it to be a synonym.

Variants

Examples

Osiris contains 83 examples of Pommer, 4 examples of Pommer Gedackt, and 65 examples of Gedackt-Bommer and its variants. Over half are at 16', about a third are at 8', and the rest are at 4'. The spelling "pommer" is considerably more common than "bommer". Only two examples of the reed form of Pommer are known; see Bombarde.

Bibliography