Casson positive - ideal as house organ

[David Pinnegar]

Hi!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Casson-Positive-Church-Chapel-Pipe-Organ-/251337570128

For anyone playing at Hauptwerk on a large scale then
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Massive-Pair-of-VITAVOX-Vintage-Cinema-speakers-7-Foot-Tall-5-Foot-Wide-/261284731863
is interesting!

Best wishes

David P

[David Drinkell]

The thing to notice about this organ is that it isn't as Casson left it.  If it were, it would be very little use for serious practice because the compass is too small.  These little jobs are often perfect for small churches with simple musical requirements, but you need to resort to various expedients (i.e. cheat) to play organ music on them.  I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing - Peter Williams has pointed out that in Bach's day organists were well used to doing this.  I've given recitals on several (including Ferns Cathedral in the Church of Ireland) and also transplanted one from a house in Essex to a church in Orkney.  I like the little fellas.....

However, this one has been rebuilt with a normal compass, enlightened specification and a proper pedal-board, so it should do someone very well.

[David Wyld]

Casson Positives can be a delight: when they are fully working, with all of the 'couplers' operative. The pipework is always nicely made and the voicing is gentle and quite refined.

As DD says, rebuilt with longer compass and a more suitable spec. A Casson could be very useful for home 'practice' (hate the word!).  HOWEVER, it appears that this particular example has been molested by Slater, so even if anything useable survives it would need another complete rebuilding: the very memory of the last Slater job I saw still gives me the creeps.

It is certainly not worth the starting bid of £500.  Possibly £50, on a good day given that one would have to dismantle, transport and re-erect.

[David Pinnegar]

Thanks for these opinions! Certainly interesting food for thought and exciting curiosity  . . .

To some extent it's a matter of repertoire. And a little organ does give exciting possibilities for experiment in tuning as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU2r2X4-dpc demonstrates without a blower, without pedals, and providing right foot exercise into the bargain.

Best wishes

David P

[David Drinkell]

Casson Positives can be a delight: when they are fully working, with all of the 'couplers' operative. The pipework is always nicely made and the voicing is gentle and quite refined.

As DD says, rebuilt with longer compass and a more suitable spec. A Casson could be very useful for home 'practice' (hate the word!).  HOWEVER, it appears that this particular example has been molested by Slater, so even if anything useable survives it would need another complete rebuilding: the very memory of the last Slater job I saw still gives me the creeps.

It is certainly not worth the starting bid of £500.  Possibly £50, on a good day given that one would have to dismantle, transport and re-erect.

I don't know many Slater jobs - a couple in Hertfordshire are all that come to mind - but I think it may depend on when the job was done.  The Casson I moved to Orkney had been very nicely modified by Martin Cross of Grays, who replaced the Open Diapason with a Fifteenth and removed the pneumatic bits (which tend to be temperamental on these jobs because they're so dinky) apart from the automatic 16' bass.  It made a very impressive sound in the colourfully named Twatt Kirk.  Another, at Thompson in Norfolk, was rebuilt by Richard Bower in 1995 ( NPOR N06717 became D03251), but it's been replaced by another instrument since.  It would be nice to know what happened to it.  Apart from sounding good (in both incarnations), it had the distinction of having its case ascribed by Pevsner as "Pugin?"!  In fact, it was a standard Casson design and similar ones can be found elsewhere (Boxted, Suffolk and Berechurch, Essex had them, both now gone), but Thompson is not far from West Tofts so I guess we can forgive Pevsner his error.

My last encounter was at Bradfield St. George in Suffolk, last July - Gedact, Salicional and Double Bass, small but nice.

[diapason]

There was (last time I was there - about 2 years ago) a Casson in the little church at Countisbury on Exmoor.  It looked complete but was unplayable and had been replaced by a one-manual electrone.  The church were keen to sell it, but I don't know how much they were asking.  The pipework looked very nice - I wouldn't have minded it for my house organ at the time.

[David Drinkell]

It may well have been suffering from tribulation in the pneumatics and been relatively sound as far as the main (tracker) chest was concerned.  Quite often, a bit of drying out and patching of the leathers can work wonders - as it can with a lot of organs but especially Cassons.