The Voix celeste (french: Voix céleste, lit=heavenly voice) is an

organ stop An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air (known as ''wind'') to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; each can be "on" (admitting the passage of air ...

consisting of either one or two ranks of pipes slightly out of tune. The term ''celeste'' refers to a rank of pipes detuned slightly so as to produce a

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effect when combined with a normally tuned rank. It is also used to refer to a compound stop of two or more ranks in which all the ranks are detuned relative to each other. The Voix celeste is located in the swell organ on British and American organs and in the ''Récit expressif'' on French organs. It is designed to be used in conjunction with a stop of similar tonal quality of its own, normally a

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or Salicional. When both stops are played together an undulant, warm sounding string effect is generated. When proper organ terminology is used, "Voix Celeste" will always use string-voiced pipes. Frequently, both ranks of pipes required are placed on the same stop knob, and it is labeled as "Voix Celeste II". The celeste concept is extended to other types of organ voices (notably flutes) but they will be called by the name of the primary sound (e.g. "Spitzflöte Celeste"). A similar stop is the ''Unda maris'', which is similar to the Voix celeste except that it typically uses a Dulciana or a softer-scale string (or even flutes), as opposed to the Voix Celeste which almost always refers to a brighter-scaled string celeste. The ''Voce Umana'' is an Italian variant of the celeste employing Principal pipes.

References

String type organ stops {{FreeReed-instrument-stub

See also

References