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Smallish 4-manual organs

Started by AnOrganCornucopia, February 21, 2012, 10:47:14 AM

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AnOrganCornucopia

Hello all. I read with interest that the DofM job at St Peter's Ruthin is up for grabs: anyone not intimately acquainted with the organ should have a listen to this: http://www.willis-organs.com/music/audio/bach.mp3. The organ is by Wadsworth of Manchester and has thirty-two speaking stops spread over four manuals and pedals. Its specification can be found at http://www.willis-organs.com/ruthin_general.html.

This has given me an idea for a perhaps slightly pointless stoplist-based competition for an as yet undecided prize. I won't restrict you to an organ quite so small as Ruthin but it can't be too huge. Who's going to judge this? I want this to be fair, so if I end up as the judge (which would seem daft considering my playing of the organ is confined to inexpert nurdling, I'm not an organist), my spec will be ineligible to win. If anyone else wishes to come up with a very similar one, that's for them to decide.

Given the opportunity to design an organ of up to fifty-five ranks (and let us assume four manuals, though a particularly good 3- or even 5-manual specification should also be given the praise deserved), for liturgical and concert use in a large parish church or small cathedral/collegiate foundation, what would you design? I'll allow any amount of extension on the Pedal department, and duplexing of stops from the manuals to the pedals (or even between manuals) is permitted. Such duplexing must be obviously useful and not just a case of theatre-organ style 'let's have everything everywhere' (which is fine for theatre organs, just not here). Don't take it as an opportunity to design a huge Compton-style unit organ either! The manuals must be almost entirely straight. I assume that the home for this putative organ will not have space for a full-length 32', but feel free to include one if you are thinking of a specific place which does have the space. Make as much or as little of it as you want enclosed.

Here's my scheme FWIW. It's actually got five manuals, though one only has one stop. The high-pressure chorus reeds (and the Tuba) can be imagined to be in Father Willis style (once described to me as being able to "scorch through solid steel at a hundred yards"): the diapason choruses and flutes after Norman & Beard, 1902 (the year they had Thomas Lewis on the staff), so quite Schulzian. The Swell and Solo strings would be quite American in style, reflecting Hope-Jones' influence: those on the Choir more gentle and English. Enclosures abound, including a double enclosure for the Swell and the Bombarde, controlled by one designated expression pedal : there's quite a bit of duplexing too, as much as I feel comfortable with. Electro-pneumatic action is a given. The music desk could be folded away (on to the top of the console) to reveal a big touchscreen interface with full Sibelius and MIDI compatibility: you could load a MIDI file onto the system, convert it in Sibelius in moments and, through the organ's MIDI record + playback facility, have it do your page-turns automatically, or on the pressing of the right hand end of the screen by the player or pageturner. It could, potentially, even interact with the stop action to perform all your registration changes. The technology is all there, I just need someone to get the various parts of it all together!


Pedal:
Contra Bass 32' (independent quint rank in Choir box for bottom 8, from Bourdon otherwise)
Open Wood 16' (in Solo box)
Open Metal 16' (Great)
Violone 16' (Solo)
Bourdon 16' (in Choir box)
Quintaton 16' (Choir)
Octave (from Open Metal)
Violoncello (from Violone)
Bass Flute 8' (ext. Bourdon)
Octave Flute 4' (ditto)
Contra Bombarde 32' (ext.16', half-length bottom 8)
Contra Bassoon 32' (Swell)
Bombarde 16' (whole rank on 10" wind, in Solo box)
Bassoon 16' (Swell)
Trumpet 8' (ext. Bombarde)
Clarion 4' (ditto)

Choir (enclosed)
Quintaton 16'
Open Diapason 8'
Dulciana 8'
Vox Angelica 8'
Lieblich Gedact 8'
Principal 4'
Rohr Flute 4'
Nasard 2 2/3
Gemshorn 2
Tierce 1 3/5
Bass Clarinet 16' (Solo)
Corno di Bassetto 8' (Solo)
Orchestral Oboe 8' (Solo)

Great
Contra Bass 32' (resultant, quint rank from Pedal, rest from DOD)
Double Open Diapason 16'
Open Diapason I 8' (Solo)
Open Diapason II 8'
Wald Flute 8'
Principal 4'
Wald Flute 4'
Fifteenth 2'
Mixture IV (19.22.26.29)
Contra Tromba 16' (Solo)
Tromba 8' (Solo)
Clarion 4' (Solo)
Tuba Magna 8' (Bombarde)

Swell
Double Claribel Flute 16'
Open Diapason 8'
Claribel Flute 8'
Viole de Gambe 8' *
Voix Celeste 8' *
Principal 4'
Hohl Flute 4'
Flageolet 2'
Quint Mixture III 15.19.22
Tierce Mixture IV 15.17.19.22 (from Quint mixture)
Contra Bassoon 32' (Ext.16', half length bottom 8)
Bassoon 16'
Oboe 8'
Vox Humana 8' *
Contra Posaune 16' (7" w.p.) *
Harmonic Trumpet 8' (7" w.p.) *
Harmonic Clarion 4' (7" w.p.) *
* = in second enclosure inside main enclosure

Solo
Contre Viole 16'
Open Diapason 8' (leathered, 6" wind)
Viole d'Orchestre 8'
Viole Celeste 8'
Harmonic Flute 8'
Harmonic Flute 4'
Harmonic Piccolo 2'
Bass Clarinet 16' (ext.8')
Corno di Bassetto 8'
Orchestral Oboe 8'
Contra Tromba 16' (10" w.p.)
Tromba 8' (10" w.p.)
Clarion 4' (10" w.p.)

Bombarde (enclosed in own box inside Solo box)
Tuba Magna 8' (15" w.p.)

The manual 32s' are placed in the scheme to give a certain gravitas (in the case of the Great) and extra growl (in the Swell) without resorting to sub-octave couplers, with the muddying they can bring. Superoctave couplers are taken as read, as are tremulants to the Choir, Swell and Solo. Would it be cheating in my own competition to add a set of chimes and/or a glockenspiel? Ruthin, while much smaller than this, has its Clochettes...

So, a remarkably generous 73-stop specification for 50 straight ranks and five extended ones, giving a wide range of tonal colours, immense power and almost endless expressive capability. I can think of a home for it, in a church of my acquaintance whose current organ, of similar size, looks and sounds (purely in my personal opinion, unless anyone happens to share it) like it came from IKEA. I'll say no more!

revtonynewnham

Hi

I'm not offering any "paper" designs. not least because it's a waste of time without an idea of budget and building!  But I would say that the Ruthin organ is a very interesting beast.  The spec is somewhat idiosyncratic (to say the least) - no thumb pistons (there's not enough space between the manuals), and very few inter-manual couplers!  It was designed by Kendrick Pyne as a concert organ, based on some French ideas, but heavily filtered through a provincial English organ builder!  I was able to spend a morning playing the organ shortly after Willis installed it at Ruthin, and I have to say that, despite it's somewhat strange spec, it works, and it's one of my all-time favourite organs.  I'd happily live with it!  I revisited it in 2010, when it was one of 3 very diverse instruments visited by the Bradford Organists' Association on our annual trip - the others being a neo-baroque job by, interestingly, Rushworth & Dreaper in Mold, and the 3 man Binns is St Werberger's Chester (which for me personally, although a pleasant enough instrument, was the least interesting of the three - but then I HATE detached consoles!)  I played all 3 - Ruthin came over well with the famous Daquin Noel (in tribute to its French inspiration).

Ruthin is well worth a visit.  (There's also a nice Harmonium in the church, that has been used with the Willis for French works for choir & 2 organs).

Every Blessing

Tony

AnOrganCornucopia

Well, let's assume you get a very generous sponsor for a specific building which could do with an organ of this sort of size...

ComptonNewbie

I think your example demonstrates there is no such thing as a 'smallish' 4 manual organ.

Much more satisfying is a sensitively restored historic instrument, whether a straightforward transplant or something as drastic as Tony's example.  I see nothing wrong with 'idiosyncratic'.  Blandness is certainly a worse option.  It looks as if the result at Ruthin has conserved all that was considered conservable whilst at the same time functioning as an attractive and interesting instrument.


Simon.


pcnd5584

#4
Quote from: ComptonNewbie on February 22, 2012, 09:49:58 PM
I think your example demonstrates there is no such thing as a 'smallish' 4 manual organ.

Much more satisfying is a sensitively restored historic instrument, whether a straightforward transplant or something as drastic as Tony's example.  I see nothing wrong with 'idiosyncratic'.  Blandness is certainly a worse option.  It looks as if the result at Ruthin has conserved all that was considered conservable whilst at the same time functioning as an attractive and interesting instrument.


Simon.

I beg to differ.

Tony makes a valid point: without knowing something of the size, acoustic properties and other details of an instrument's proposed home, any scheme is, in a sense, meaningless.

However, it can be both amusing and a good exercise to draw up a basic stop-list.

My own scheme is rather smaller, but contains most of the 'must-have' stops, together with one or two 'desirables'. At thirty-five speaking stops, it is considerably smaller than the FHW at Truro Cathedral.

PEDAL ORGAN

Contra Bourdon 32
Open Diapason Metal 16
Sub Bass 16
Violoncello (W+M) 8
Grand Bombarde (W) 16
Choir to Pedal
Great to Pedal
Swell to Pedal
Solo to Pedal


Pedal and Great Pistons Coupled


CHOIR ORGAN
(Unenclosed)
Viola 8
Rohr Flöte 8
Suabe Flöte 4
Cor Anglais 8
Swell to Choir
Solo to Choir


GREAT ORGAN

Double Diapason (W+M) 16
Open Diapason 8
Stopped Diapason 8
Harmonic Flute 8
Cone Gamba 8
Octave 4
Wald Flöte 4
Super Octave 2
Mixture (19-22-26-29) IV
Contra Posaune 16
Trumpet 8
Great Reeds on Choir
Choir to Great
Swell to Great
Solo to Great


SWELL ORGAN

Quintatön 16
Open Diapason 8
Flauto Traverso 8
Viole de Gambe 8
Voix Célestes (CC) 8
Geigen Principal 4
Mixture (15-19-22) III
Hautboy 8
Tremulant
Contra Fagotto 16
Cornopean 8
Clarion 4
Sub Octave
Unison Off
Octave


SOLO ORGAN
(Enclosed)
Concert Flute 4
Flageolet 2
Corno di Bassetto 8
Tremulant
(Unenclosed)
Grand Ophicleide 8
Sub Octave
Octave
Pierre Cochereau rocked, man

AnOrganCornucopia

#5
Which, Sean, is exactly the scheme you posted on the Mander forum a little while ago! I'd take issue with it for two reasons - one, no Great Clarion? Two, no Swell Vox Humana? Both are surely essential for a large amount of repertoire... Also, no mutation? That Quintaton needs a Nazard and a Doublette to go with it for quite a bit of Messiaen - but then you'd need a string and an undulant on a separate manual.

Pedal
Contra Bourdon 32
Open Diapason Metal 16
Sub Bass 16
Violoncello (W+M) 8
Grand Bombarde (W) 16

Choir
Quintatön 16
Salicional 8
Vox Angelica 8
Rohr Flöte 8
Suabe Flöte 4
Nasard 2 2/3
Flageolet 2
Cor Anglais 8

Great
Double Diapason 16
Large Open Diapason 8
Small Open Diapason 8
Violoncello 8
Stopped Diapason 8
Flauto Traverso 8
Octave 4
Wald Flöte 4
Super Octave 2
Mixture (19-22-26-29) IV
Contra Posaune 16
Posaune 8
Clarion 4

Swell
Lieblich Bourdon 16
Open Diapason 8
Viole de Gambe 8
Voix Célestes 8
Lieblich Gedact
Principal 4
Lieblich Flute 4
Flageolet 2
Mixture (19-22-26-29) IV
Hautboy 8
Vox Humana 8
Contra Fagotto 16
Cornopean 8
Clarion 4

Solo
Harmonic Flute 8
Harmonic Flute 4
Harmonic Piccolo 2
Corno di Bassetto 8
Grand Ophicleide 8

That addresses, I think, a few of the weaknesses of PCND's scheme, and one of my own: now there are independent 2fts on all four manuals of PCND's organ, and the Swell Mixture is identical to the Great one (a weakness with both of them). Also, I demand more than one O.D. on the Great!  ;D

It is, however, bigger than PCND's organ by some ten speaking stops and eleven ranks...

pcnd5584

These extra ranks which you mention may well be desirable - but the idea was surely to produce a useful design, but with a limited size. Your second scheme is still quite large.

Incidentally, I was aware I had posted this before, elsewhere.
Pierre Cochereau rocked, man

revtonynewnham

Hi

4 Manuals 26 speaking stops - and another very nice instrument that I've played - although not for as long as Ruthin.  And it's tracker action - and a very light action at that.

Every Blessing

Tony

AnOrganCornucopia

Tony, I don't see a spec or link - or is that just because I'm on my phone?

I recall that there was once a 4/20 Hope-Jones (built by Hele in 1900) in the old vicarage at Ewell, but the vicarage is now part of a school and I don't think the organ is still there. It shared the house with an Italian Baroque organ which later shared house-room with Hampton School's Collins under Sheila Lawrence's ownership. Regular readers will also recall me mentioning the parish church's magnificent 3/39 Father Willis...amongst Mum's predecessors there were William Harris (on the previous Willis, destroyed by fire in 1973) and William Tansor (spelling?), writer of the hymn tune 'Epsom' (the town next to Ewell), who worked in the old pre-1848 church (of whose musicmaking/possible organ possession nothing is known, and of which only the tower remains, a new church having been built on a new site adjacent). I digress!

I do remember reading on the NPOR of a four-manual organ in an academic establishment with about seven speaking stops - it was Victorian but I'm sure it survives somewhere. I cannot, however, recall where it was!

revtonynewnham

Hi

The spec for Girton College is definitely on NPOR - or at least it was this morning when I looked it up to post the link!

I doubt that the Compton house organ is still in situ - house organs seem to rarely survive the death/removal/loss of interest (delete as appropriate) of their owners - but it may well have gone somewhere else - I don't know, and have no easy way of checking unless there's an NPOR survey - it would take too long to wade through all my organ books and magazines - and still maybe not come up with an answer.

Every Blessing

Tony

Barrie Davis

Hi

Girton College is certainly on NPOR, what a complete scheme it is, I would very much like to hear and see it one day.
I agree with you Tony house organs rarely survive when the houses are sold on. I can remember a 3rank Compton in Lapal House Halesowen, it was a typical example of their small extension organs but it made a nice sound, it was scrapped as far as I know when the house became a Nursing Home.

Best wishes

Barrie

revtonynewnham

Hi

A visit to hear & play the Girton organ was the "bait" to tempt NPOR editors to our first group meeting a few years back.

It's a fascinating instrument - well worth a visit if you can arrange it.  It shows just how light tracker action can be - I gather that the organ scholars that use it for practise for performances elsewhere often end up coupling manuals together to increase the key resistance a bit!  I(t needs a bit of concentration in that the manuals are arranged French style, with the "Great" on the lowest keyboard, unlike Ruthin, which despite the French influences on the design, has the normal English keyboard layout.

Every Blessing

Tony

AnOrganCornucopia

The organ to which I referred was not by Compton, but by Robert Hope-Jones in collaboration with Hele. The other organ to which I referred was definitely not Girton either, but a Victorian organ of a mere seven or so speaking stops.

David Drinkell

Are you perhaps thinking of the very small three manual organ which Bonavia Hunt designed and Smith & Foskett built for the Victoria College of Music and which now resides at Worth Matravers on Dorset?

http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N10170

AnOrganCornucopia

I don't know, maybe I was, but I remember a B&W/sepia photograph of something which looked rather different to that. I seem to recall two pipe-rack fronts fitted into a corner of a room.

David Drinkell

Then, of course, there was Arthur Harrison's clever enlargement of the 'Sutton' organ at Jesus College, Cambridge.

http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N05211

The old Great and Choir became Choir and Echo respectively and Harrison added a new Great, Swell and Pedal.  I've often thought that this was interesting enough to have been retained, especially if the old console could have been reinstated with its tracker action and the Harrison console electrified to control both parts of the organ.

AnOrganCornucopia

And it would have been nice if Kuhn had been bothered for one moment to actually do some research on Victorian Gothic organ-cases, especially those of Revd. Sutton and AWN Pugin, instead of producing that asymmetric IKEA pastiche of the old organ's case... it's a lovely organ otherwise but I wish it didn't look like it did. Also, 2/33 is too small for that building - my 4/55 scheme would have been by no means too large!

What happened to the rather short-lived 4-manual Norman & Beard at Jesus, by the way? No-one has ever been able to explain to me why it had such a short life, or what became of it. I've a feeling I once read an organ spec which attributed some secondhand pipework to that organ, but cannot for the life of me remember where said organ was... though that may be down to the fact that I am a little the worse for wear. My forefathers called what is now known as whisky uisge beatha, meaning water of life. Personally, I don't believe them - a wee dram of Talisker (admittedly on top of a mealtime pint of strong cider) has been doing peculiar things to my head for the last three hours...

revtonynewnham

Hi

I wouldn't be too quick to blame the organ builder - there are often architects and others involved in case design!

As to the 4 man at Jesus College, we were told (on a Cambridge Organists' Assoc visit some years ago) that it was in totally the wrong place to accompany the choir.

Every Blessing

Tony

AnOrganCornucopia

As one who originally planned to study architecture, just don't get me going on architects (or the Cambridge school of architecture) these days! Suffice to say, I wish Le Corbusier, Richard Rogers, Norman Foster et al had all chosen far less influential careers...

As for the Norman & Beard, it was quite an early one (1888) according to NPOR, with five manuals and 43 speaking stops (smallest 5-manual ever?), sat on a West gallery (what of the Echo Swell department?) and was removed in 1927, being merged with a large Forster & Andrews in the City Temple, London by Rutt (the organ then destroyed in WW2, and whose Walker successor has been discussed here recently). I'd have thought it would have made sense to rebuild it in the chancel, rather than getting Harrison to produce the oddity that was the rebuilt Sutton organ, leaving that instrument alone. Perhaps, being a rather early N&B, it did not fit in with the fashions of the time, but then neither could the Sutton organ have fitted in with such fashions...

David Drinkell

#19
Quote from: revtonynewnham on February 28, 2012, 09:41:24 AM
Hi

I wouldn't be too quick to blame the organ builder - there are often architects and others involved in case design!

As to the 4 man at Jesus College, we were told (on a Cambridge Organists' Assoc visit some years ago) that it was in totally the wrong place to accompany the choir.

Every Blessing

Tony
The removal of the 4m Norman and Beard organ which at one time stood at the west end was the catalyst for the Harrison enlargement of the Sutton Organ.  There must be a number of people around who remember the Harrison (it lasted until about 1971), although possibly not with much sympathy, unless their tastes have changed since those neo-classical days.

Another small 4m was the much travelled job which, after about seven previous homes ended up at Paston Grammar School (now College) in Norfolk (subsequently rebuilt with three manuals but the same number of speaking stops -19).

http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=A00059