Hey Simon, would you happen to have any CD recommendations for great Church music?  (Anything from Gregorian chants to Rachmoninov's Vespers...but since your forte is early music, I figure you'll talk about that most. :) )

Much obliged,

A the P

Oh, wow, I haven't been on this site for a while!  sorry!

"great church..."  do you mean music?  I'll have to think about that, but personally, I love the Bach cantatas and especially the b minor mass.  John Eliot Gardiner's CD is probably the best recording of the b minor mass...it's absolutely stunning.  The oboe d'amores are so great, and the solo singers and instrumentalists are good too...the horn player is cool.  It's on "historical" instruments at Baroque pitch.

Giovanni Gabrieli wrote a lot of very cool church music for use in St. Mark's in Venice...

A range of two octaves and a second? A good baroque tenor can play two octaves and a fifth (will bell stopping).

Actually, I have been trying to get someone to put a simplified oboe key system on an alto. Something akin to the classical 12-key system (my Conrad Mollenhauer oboe uses this system and I love it). Triple key for F-F#-G#, a B-Bb key like the oboe's forked F-F# key, with a trill key for A-Bb (the other F key on the oboe, to be usedalso for sustained notes). A C-Db trill key (pinky LH, it could also be used for long tones), a double D-Eb and E-F trill key (operated by the knuckle, first finger, RH; could also be used for long tones) and a resonance/octave key. This would retain normal baroque fingerings, but would eliminate badly tuned trills and allow for weak notes (forked fingerings) to be played with a  strong (unforked) fingering.

Now if I could jut get someone to make it....