Press of Atlantic City- Midmer-Losh will play for Pageant!!!!!!!

[KB7DQH]

Posted: Saturday, September 7, 2013 12:11 am

By DIANE D'AMICO Education Writer

As audiences arrive for the Miss America Competition preliminaries and finals next week, they will be greeted by a sound that has not been heard live in decades.

The partially restored Midmer-Losh organ, the largest pipe organ in the world, will be played during the 10-minute preshow by Steven Ball, the hall's new official organist and a self-proclaimed "guardian and spokesman" for the massive instrument.

The first piece he performs will be appropriate: a march written in 1927 by John Philip Sousa titled "The Atlantic City Pageant March."

"The march, the organ and the pageant are all being reunited this year in Atlantic City," Ball said. "It's just outstanding."

Although it is only about 30 percent restored, Ball promises the organ's sound will be impressive.

"It's heart-stopping," he said. "It is the most remarkable instrument."

What may be most remarkable is that the organ still exists at all. Built between 1929 and 1932 by the Midmer-Losh Organ Co. of Long Island, the 150-ton instrument was literally built into Boardwalk Hall, concealed behind gilded grillwork to create the original version of surround-sound.

The organ was damaged by flooding during the 1944 hurricane and became a victim of benign neglect as the hall deteriorated. It was further damaged during the restoration of Boardwalk Hall in 2000 but has since been under the care of the nonprofit Historic Organs Restoration Committee.

Curator Carl Loeser has managed the restoration of the Midmer-Losh and the smaller Kimball pipe organ. With the first part of the restoration complete, the Restoration Committee is preparing for the next phase of fund-raising, a 10-year, $16 million campaign to fully restore both organs.

Ball, a Fulbright scholar and renowned organist, said he had to do his own transcription to convert the Sousa march from a piece for a full marching band to one for the organ, but he promises it was worth the effort.

"The organ has a strong personality," he said. "We've been waking it up for the last month or so. It is a national treasure."

The organ was used during Miss America pageants in the 1930s. Sharon Pearce, president of the Miss America Organization, said they are excited to have it be part of this year's events.

"It is fitting that the return of Miss America to its original home in Atlantic City will correspond with the rebirth of another vital symbol of the destination," she said.

For those who can't make it to Miss America, free concerts and half-hour tours of the organ will be held at Boardwalk Hall at noon weekdays starting in May 2014.

Contact Diane D'Amico:

609-272-7241

DDamico@pressofac.com

Generally the pageant makes an appearance on television... but will the organ be heard in the "final cut"?????? I guess we shall "see"...

Eric
KB7DQH

[Ian van Deurne]

This has to be the greatest musical white elephant of all time.
Even after spending squillions of dollars on getting it all working again, who is going to provide the money to maintain it?
Far better than to rip it all out and start again, and build an organ with some artistic and musical integrity,
with properly designed divisions, standardised manual compasses and sensible wind pressures.

[mf2701]

Yes, you are quite right; spot on.

And whilst we are about it, that Acropolis thing should be taken down. It's old and dilapidated, it doesn't keep out the rain, you can't store anything in it as there are no doors. I guess that it's dangerous too judging by the state of it. Suppose a falling bit killed somebody, then we'd hear a thing or two! If something is needed up there, a couple of portacabins should do the job. They can do wonders these days and it wouldn't take long to arrange.

I'm still thinking about the pyramids

MF

[David Pinnegar]

This has to be the greatest musical white elephant of all time.

You might have hit a point here. Is it musical :-) !!!

However, it is a tool of entertainment which is also part of the heritage of the confidence of a former age. 1927 represents a strange period, one of the depression in which music particularly of a light nature was an important alleviation, together with an optimism looking forward to better times and the greatness of the USA within the world. This instrument sums up the period in this way and therefore is, whether "musical" or not, part of the historical record, the narrative of the time and part of the heritage thereby.

As we experience more and more the news and records of our history on screen, which can be changed at the stroke of a keyboard, we move ever towards the Orwellian setting of Nineteen Eighty Four. The heritage, which is immutable, is our future generations last bastion of tools of the foundations for independent thought.

Best wishes

David P

[KB7DQH]

I absolutely couldn't believe I was actually inspired to smite a post to this forum in all the years I have been involved with it (essentially a month after its birth to the present)  :o  That is a first ;) 

As to its "musicality" it as the article states hasn't been heard in even its current, limited "glory" in nearly half a century,  so one must rely on the fading memories of those who have actually experienced it "live and direct" and these are few and far between these days...  and the publicly available recordings even more scant, but one in particular snagged off of Youtube (along with one or two from our forum administrator ;) inspired me to blast four holes into a door to a bedroom in the house here to create an adequate reproducer for the Hi-Fi system in order to determine if it was possible to electronically reproduce the frequencies required ;)

The ink was still drying on the contract to build the instrument when the stock market crashed in October of 1929 but it was decided to continue with its construction anyway and thus providing a livelihood for some 80 craftsmen whose creative abilities would likely have gone under or un-utilized.

Where else on the planet is an instrument built so comprehensively that an entire division is devoted to the realization of the works of a single composer???

The specifications for this instrument exist for a reason. Few outside the USA understand how big  the convention hall is... If the main floor is equipped for seating it holds nearly a quarter million people :o 8)
It has even been used as a venue for Auto racing... (midget sprint cars) as well as Billy Graham crusades early in his evangelical career and thus sacred music as it is intended to be heard, presented in a "public space". Where else can you do THAT ??? ??? ???

A helicopter was even flown INSIDE THE BUILDING! (I have spotted pictures of that stunt made well before photoshop;)   

Back in the late 1960's  "The Who" at the time was considered to be the "loudest" band out there, and so a demonstration of the Midmer-Losh was in order, and easily drowned out the band by one account.

The Manual compass is as it is because there were at one time Grand Pianos in the various chambers which were played via the master console, plus a "pianist" playing the organ would thus have familiarity and could make use of it without too much thought...

As to the "strangeness of the time" Is our present no less "strange" ??? ???  Could the restoration prove likewise an optimism about our future so desperately needed, especially within the "organ community" ??? ??? ???

Ripping it out and starting over would likely cost several more "squillions" than putting what has already been created "right"...   I would have to come up with an accurate "rank count" but duplicating this instrument based on $20,000 per rank (current cost of new pipe organs) we are looking at around $9 BILLION... A full restoration at current estimates thus become "cheap at several times the price", chump change really.

Eric
KB7DQH

[Barrie Davis]

I agree with you Eric, this organ is worthy of preservation, it has to be gigantic to fill the auditorium.
Do you know where I can find the picture of the helicopter flying inside the building?

Barrie

[David Drinkell]

From what I've read, virtually everyone who has played the Atlantic City organ has been tremendously impressed - albeit sometimes surprised! - at how fine it is.  I can't recall much adverse criticism from those who have actually experienced it, and one would expect that those qualified to damn it would do so loudly.  E.M. Skinner did so, but apparently without having heard it.

In any case, it is such a monumental achievement that it ought, on those grounds alone, to be fully restored.

[David Pinnegar]

Hi!

It's vital that we provide a forum for such opinions or questions to be posed and posited, to be answered and expanded because doing so really advances our understanding. So I applauded the post that perhaps Eric reportedly might have smote . . .

So often we hear the question "is it musical"? But for what?

The other evening I had the pleasure to go to All Saint's Carshalton where Willis are rebuilding the instrument with the wonderful Comper case that Andrew Freeman saw fit to illustrate in his book of 1938. Below the organ loft was a nameless 4 manual console with a whole host of stops including a Grand Septieme! I expressed surprise to the priest - surely that's not the console to the organ - to which he replied that it was an electronic that Willis had loaned to the church during the rebuild.

A Grand Septieme? The priest told me it should be avoided like the plague. But no doubt it's musical for something. . .

Best wishes

David P

[David Drinkell]

The Manual compass is as it is because there were at one time Grand Pianos in the various chambers which were played via the master console, plus a "pianist" playing the organ would thus have familiarity and could make use of it without too much thought...

Eric
KB7DQH

Actually, the extended compass was a Midmer Losh feature, designed (among other things) to facilitate the playing of transcriptions.  The Convention Hall organ was not the only one so equipped.

It is on record that Noel Mander was enthusiastic about building a GGG compass organ for St. Michael, Paternoster Royal in the City of London until he realised that he had committed himself to the expense of providing half a pedal organ at no extra cost.

I once had to advise on a rebuild where the organist wanted the compass extended down to GGG to increase the possibilities of playing down an octave.  As the organ in question was a Compton Miniatura II, it was necessary to be tactful....

[Ian van Deurne]

Hi everyone!

My last, somewhat terse comments about this, I'll admit, was designed to stir things up a little, bearing in mind that not much has been happening on this forum of late, and in this I seem to have been somewhat successful. Let me try now to explain the reasons for my thinking on this subject. You may agree, you may not, but after all, this is why we are here....isn't it?

Firstly, let's look at the issues from the organ building point of view.
The first problem concerns the date of the construction, 1929-1932. This unfortunately coincides with the exact moment when the art of organ building reached its nadir. The time when the cinema organ had taken centre stage, and when it more often than not dictated how pipe organs of every kind should be constructed: essentially an organ should be like some kind of one-man orchestra, able to reproduce with style and panache the entire panopoly of popular songs, operatic arias and other kinds of banal ditties in vogue at that time. This was the time when the cinema was enjoying an unparalleled level of success. Likewise, the type of organ, built originally to accompany the silent films, was regarded then as the most modern, and the most technically advanced musical instrument of the age. It is also no coincidence that within three years of the Convention Hall organ's completion, Laurens Hammond released his tone-wheel electronic organ to the world, and after that happened the days of pipe organ building started to look distinctly numbered.

There was a reaction of course by some, resulting in the famous court case to test whether Mr. Hammond should even be allowed to call his invention an organ at all, since there was nothing 'organic' in the method of sound generation. He successfully proved (or his team of lawyers did), that as the production of sound in a pipe organ came from the natural oscillation of air in a tube, then the oscillation of an electric current (which is also a natural phenomenon) within a coil is exactly the same thing.
       This or course, has been the subject of sometimes heated debates ever since, and if the same case was to come before a court today then the outcome would probably be much different. However, this was the mid 1930's, and the last thing on anyone's mind at that time was how a pipe organ should be properly designed and constructed. Anyway, the Hammond organ reproduced its sound by means of an amplifier, so if you wanted a much bigger sound, then you just fitted a much bigger amp!

If all of this was true, then why was this enormous organ in the Convention Hall ever built in the first place? The simple answer to that is timing. Had the Hammond organ been invented just ten years beforehand, there is no telling what would have happened to organ building. The other thing that needs to be considered is the dire state of the economy at the time, with the Wall Street crash and its subsequent reverberations around the world. So yes, it is indeed a wonder that it was ever built at all, but the fact remains that it was, and it is also very possible that money problems might be one of the reasons why the design of it is so seriously flawed.

From the organist's point of view, I'll start at the console.
Seven manuals - with the uppermost being placed at such a ludicrous angle, making the execution of any real keyboard technique impossible. 455 ranks of genuine pipework, not really so much more than other very large instruments then, if you include mixtures, but blown up into 1,255 'speaking stops', with so much borrowing, extension and duplication as to be virtually beyond comprehension. And for what, to make the whole thing just look far more impressive at the console to the uninitiated?  Several complete 'departments' are not really there at all, but contain an assortment of different registers all borrowed from elsewhere. Does this reflect lack of money, or was it originally designed to be like this? If lack of money was an issue then I can understand to a certain degree, the reasons for such chaos.
       It has been proudly stated that to take a tour around the entire instrument takes four and a half hours. Compared with the amount of time an organist is going to need to find his or her way around, to try and find out exactly what is there and what is not is going to take many months or even years. When he or she draws a stop on one department, only to find it already in use on another is going to be more than just extremely frustrating to say the least. One of the first fundamental rules in designing pipe organs is that one pipe cannot be in two places at once.  Borrowing and extension to a certain degree is fine, but usually on much smaller instruments, and mostly in the pedal, where no more than two notes are played together, unless in a duet. The sharing of a common bass for the bottom octave between two 8ft stops on secondary manuals to save space and money is also perfectly acceptable. This has been done for centuries, but the only reason to invent whole 'phantom departments' is a purely cosmetic and superficial exercise, and of no musical value whatsoever.
       Another worry concerns the long compasses of the three lowest manuals, and it now seems that this was employed by this specific firm on several other occasions. Perhaps the reason for it was a reluctance by older organists to accept standard German keyboard compasses, just like it was in England a century before. Other than that, I have no idea. However, it has also been already said that the reason it was done was because of the various piano attachments needing a longer compass to be effective. This might indeed be the case, and if so then it proves what I've already said, that this organ was never intended to be a serious instrument at all, but the kind of one-man orchestra in the style of a cinema organ, rather than a proper pipe organ with any real musical integrity.
       This, however, is another fundamental mistake; it will never work, especially in a building as large as this. Stringed instruments and pipe organs never stay in tune with one another. As soon as the temperature rises, then so does the organ's flue work. The piano attachment on the other hand will pull in the opposite direction, and go flat.....
       Herr Handel found that out in the 18th century when he entertained audiences between acts of his operas on his Cembalorganum, a standard harpsichord with a chamber organ of around five stops attached to it underneath. The thing would never stay in tune, which is the main reason why most of these instruments were soon broken up and hardly ever survived complete. The original idea was a valid attempt to combine the initial attack of the harpsichord together with the sustaining power of the organ, but the laws of physics intervened to ensure that it would never be successful.

I am also surprised to see that this instrument is now being described as a national treasure. I don't understand why, because it has never been so described before. It's probably due to some misplaced nostalgic longing for the past which always seem to be so much better after the passing of time. It might also be due to the labelling of it being the world's largest musical instrument, although it had been just sitting there, languishing for decades, unloved and completely ignored.
       The generation that built it couldn't have been that impressed with the end result either. The organ had only been fully working for twelve years before the hurricane came and seriously damaged it. If it had really been such a national treasure, then don't you think that steps would have immediately been taken to repair and restore it to fully working condition? Yes, the war hadn't yet finished and so once again, money as well as manpower might have been an issue. However, during the fifties and sixties, when everyone was able to pursue the so-called 'American Dream' that we hear so much about today, then why wasn't something done about it then? The reason is because the United States, like everyone else had long moved on. The Convention Hall organ was now regarded as a dinosaur from an age when sensible organ design hadn't really mattered, and so once again, it's just another question of timing.

Back in the mid 1920's, a new interest had started to develop in organ music of earlier times, especially interest in the baroque age, the time of Johann Sebastian Bach. This awakening started in Northern Europe and slowly spread across the world. In 1958 the faculty at Harvard University commissioned a new organ from the Dutch organ builder, Dirk Flentrop, who had been a key figure in the revival of classical organ building practices which had their roots in the Dutch and German organ building techniques of the 16th - 18th centuries.
       This organ proved to be a revelation in America, who up until that time had based all their organ building practices on the 19th century British organ and adapted it to their own particular preferences, which usually meant increasing the wind pressures and scaling up the pipework in order to make a noise of church-shaking proportions. Now, suddenly, here was an organ, built with mechanical action, slider chests and low wind pressures which sang, rather than just shouted, but which still effortlessly filled the substantial room in which it is housed with a strong, clear and beautiful sound.
       This soon altered everything quite dramatically. Many of the age-old, larger companies that had dominated the American organ building landscape for many years, but who were unable or unwilling to adapt to the new way of doing things, slowly began to close up shop and disappear, to be replaced by other firms, many at first quite small, who were then able to take full advantage of this new awakening.
       And so it is today. The art of organ building is alive and well again and flourishing in America, although they have not been immune from the pressures of the economic situation any more than anyone else. Very many companies are doing excellent work and can proudly take their place amongst their European colleagues as equals, which is just how it should be and hopefully, the future of pipe organ building will remain bright and profitable for everyone.

So after all of this, don't you think that simply reviving something that is only going to prove to future generations just how bad the state of organ building had become at that time is such a good idea?  Don't you think that correcting the worst mistakes of the past should at least take some priority, especially when the instrument in question is so well known throughout the world, and not just for the sound it either makes or does not make?  Oh and yes, I have been there, on more than one occasion as well so I could see at first hand what kind of problems would have to be overcome to build an organ in such a large space. A building as large as that will have its own 'mini-climate', so before any organ is built there this would have to be addressed first. No information as far as I know had been released as to how they intend to achieve this before the instrument is to be restored, but I sincerely hope that it will be a priority, otherwise the whole project is doomed from the start; the organ will never function properly for long. 

Firstly, the organ chambers need to be lined in a non-porous material which will help stop them becoming damp with condensation which will affect the action and soundboards. This would also provide a good opportunity to direct the sound downwards, towards the people for maximum effect, so the sound will not just waft around the entire building. Once that is done then each chamber needs to have its temperature and humidity carefully regulated so that every part of the organ can function properly together, because this will vary considerably from when the building is empty to when it is full of people, regardless of what the weather is doing outside. The comment I made in my original rant was not to be taken too literally. Of course, much of the pipework will, and should be retained. That is the historical precedent, but as to the question of wind pressures and revoicing, I would not be able to comment on without knowing the results of a full-spectrum acoustical analysis of the building, something that could never have been done when the organ was built. For only then can these factors be properly evaluated and new pipe scales be planned. One thing is certain however: lose the ridiculous reeds on 50-100 inches of wind, they are impractical to maintain and completely unnecessary. How are you going to be able to stand next to them to tune them for a start?  Such a horrendous volume will irretrievably damage your hearing, and will probably not be permitted now in any case due to health and safety issues, and while we're on the subject; those awful Diaphones, based on the foghorn principle and which make a completely unmusical noise, should also be one of the first things to be removed and replaced with real organ pipes.
       Invented by the wonderfully eccentric but tragic Robert Hope-Jones, they never proved to be much of a success, and as with most of his organ building innovations, not very much survived for long. After his unsuccessful attempt to set himself up as an organ builder in the United States, just before he committed suicide, he sold the remains of his business and patents to a German immigrant. His name?  Rudolph Wurlitzer of Cincinnati, Ohio.

And thus this subject turns full circle!       

[JBR]

There was a reaction of course by some, resulting in the famous court case to test whether Mr. Hammond should even be allowed to call his invention an organ at all, since there was nothing 'organic' in the method of sound generation. He successfully proved (or his team of lawyers did), that as the production of sound in a pipe organ came from the natural oscillation of air in a tube, then the oscillation of an electric current (which is also a natural phenomenon) within a coil is exactly the same thing.

Lawyers!

The sound of a violin is caused by oscillations of a string, and that also is a natural phenomenon.

So that makes a violin an organ?!

[David Drinkell]

It's rather dated to say that the twenties and thirties represented the nadir of organ building.  That's what we were told in the seventies when I was a student and, being of the age to question everything, some of us wondered 'Why?', explored the instruments of the time and decided that the viewpoint was untenable.  The best work of such as Henry Willis III, Arthur Harrison, John Compton, Herbert Norman and, over the pond, Ernest Skinner, are the equal of the finest from any period.  Like any instrument, one has to know how (and sometimes what) to play on them.  As the late Gordon Reynolds put it, there's no point registering an 1897 Hill as though it was a dehydrated Schnitger.  Nevertheless, we learned much from that period, as we should from all periods, and that is bound to colour our views today.

No one today, I hope, would destroy or greatly alter a pristine E.M. Skinner organ, but rather preserve it as a treasured piece of musical culture and a viable musical instrument.  The same applies to the Atlantic City organ, with the added fact that its size makes it remarkable.

Wurlitzers and Hammonds are red herrings in this debate (and, speaking as the organist of what started off as the first Hope-Jones organ in North America, I have an interest in how his ideas developed).  Most mainline builders eschewed the theatre unit organ. There were exceptions, such as Compton (Hill, Norman and Beard kept their noses clean by using the name 'Christie' and Walkers' had a connection with Compton which enabled them to profit from the theatre organ boom and the associated technical advances without putting their name to the product).  There was some degree of overlap (Vancouver Anglican Cathedral had an early Wurlitzer), but in general the unit style did not have a large influence on large church and concert organs.  Hammonds were ingenious machines in their day and proved durable, but they never sounded like anything but a Hammond and would never have been considered for a prestige venue, especially one of this size.  To fill the room, they would not need a larger amp, but many more banks of speakers.  To this day, one of the biggest problems with electronic instruments is that they are constrained by the limitations of loudspeakers and, in particular, the way such devices project sound in a straight line and lack the radiating qualities of a pipe organ.  In the 1930s, there was no electronic device on the market which could have been capable of filling such a building with sound.

There is some substance in criticism relating to the duplication of various divisions.  Such criticism was made in some quarters when the organ was new, and even its designer. Emerson Richards, may have come to agree to some extent.  Similarly, although extensions are a minor part of the instrument, it may be that some of them were unnecessary.

The original scheme was larger and was rethought because of the world financial crisis, but to call it 'flawed' or 'chaotic' without knowing the instrument is to make an unjustified presumption.  Those who actually played the organ did not make such a judgement, although it would be incredible if, in an instrument of such size, requiring so much new thinking and technology, everything was right first time.

Seven manuals - again, players commented that this proved not nearly so difficult as might be thought.  Several gave the opinion that the organ was easier to play than some others with less sets of keys.  I notice that, in pictures of the new resident organist at the console, the music desk is lowered over the top manual.  This is not uncommon on large instruments - the 'extra' manuals tend to be for special effects and there's no harm in putting them out of the way when not needed.  The music desk at St. Paul's Cathedral can be lowered if required, and the order of the manuals at St-Sulpice was altered in Widor's time when it became mechanically practicable to bring the Recit down to a lower manual than the top one.

As I mentioned earlier, the extended compass of some of the manuals was a Midmer-Losh speciality to facilitate transcription playing.  It appeared in other of their instruments and had nothing to do with having a piano attached to the instrument.

In getting to know the instrument, the challenge would not be the duplicated departments - they are clearly set out on the console - but to realise the full potential of the riches that are available.  Not only does the Atlantic City organ have more pipes than any other (considerably more than any except the Wanamaker), but it has far more variety within it than any of its rivals, having been conceived as an entity in the first place.  The Wanamaker organ, by contrast, has been added to piecemeal all its life and has, on paper, a much less logical scheme, with a good deal of duplication.  For many years, the resident organist used a rolled up newspaper to whack on whole clusters of stop-keys because there wasn't a proper piston system until quite recently.

Hope-Jones bashing is terribly out of date these days.  His tonal ideas were a dead end, but we can appreciate his genius in engineering and acknowledge that his products were of high quality (he employed some of the best voicers and craftsmen available at the time).  Special occasions require special needs.  Yes, the building probably does need 50-100" wind to produce the effects envisaged.  There are a number of 50" reeds in other locations and no one has yet gone deaf while tuning them.  Some tuners might wear ear-muffs when at close quarters.  French organs produce some monstrously loud noises from their reeds, but no one complains about them.

For big basses, the diaphone may well have been seen at that time as the proper producer.  Incidentally, they were not based on fog-horns, but the same principle was later used to produce fog-horns, a reversal  of  the original statement.  Furthermore, it is not fair or accurate to damn them all with the description "awful" and to do so suggests a lack of personal knowledge.  A number of builders, Compton, for example, overcame early problems and produced some very fine examples. 

A dinosaur?  Yes, it would have been regarded as such.  American organ building was in the initial stages of drastic change when it was built. G. Donald Harrison and Walter Holtkamp did wonderful things, but at the same time much was lost which we now regret.  Some instruments from their time are now regarded as less than successful. But that was then - this is now.  Nowadays we appreciate the great achievements of former times.  We treat them with respect and we learn how to think in their terms.  Emerson Richards probably knew more about tonal design than anyone else at the time - he had the money to go and listen - and he also had a thorough knowledge of the practicalities of organ building.  Perhaps in no other age could such a conception be considered and brought to fruition.  The whole 'surround sound' concept in that vast building could not have been achieved in any other way.  The engineering feats necessary to build the organ are in themselves worth preserving for posterity, but above all, the acknowledged quality of the sound makes it imperative that all support should be given to the restoration of this terrific one-off achievement.  (I say again, look for writings by those who knew the organ at first hand - you will not find any respected authority saying that it did not do what it was meant to do, and in a superlative fashion). 

Did it need to be so big?  Probably not.  Liverpool Cathedral does not need to be as big as it is.  Neither does Notre Dame.  Liverpool Cathedral could be adequately served by a smaller instrument, although there are hardly any parts of it that would not be missed were they not to be there.  The wonderful medieval churches in my native East Anglia were never necessary, but we are thankful that they are there.  People will moan about the extravagance of the new tower at St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, but the people there seized the moment to create something that will be glorious for hundreds of years.  Man can be forgiven for aspiring to do something exceptional that will be admired by posterity.  The Atlantic City organ is such an achievement.

[/pre]

[David Pinnegar]

Dear Ian and David

Thank you so much for these valuable contributions about this organ, which are important to be aired in our generation as otherwise the instrument will be incomprehensible to the future.

It is also a pleasure to note the usefulness of this forum as people degenerate into near  twitterering on Facebook, which might be fun, but hardly advance the preservation of knowledge and as a result perhaps people with such depth of information at their fingertips might persist in generating threads here and on forums generally rather than facebook.

The issue of Hammonds is interesting. I value the Hammond as a learning tool about harmonics, about the structure of sound and tonality. As a teenager I was fooled by the quiet diapason sound and, the instrument that I experienced was clearly voiced with presets to mimic some stops of a large Harrison nearby. But in ensemble, we all know the resulting sound. In their early brochures it's remarkable the number of famous names who endorsed the Hammond with enthusiasm although one wondered if they were all old and losing their keenness of hearing. Or perhaps they had heard a well crafted demonstration. The lack of multiple sources, of course, prevented proper addition of tonalities but the numbers which were installed in famous places (and notably removed at some stage) was interesting. The Royal Opera House had one, for instance. Opening recitals on such instruments included tonally large works such as the Boellman Suite Gothick and one really wonders if people came away from such concerts as enthusiastic as the installation had hyped.

But the large works on something as large as the Midmer Losh would be something to behold, and perhaps we might do again.

In contrast, yesterday I was at St Maximin taking my Father and eldest son there for the first time, and its grandeur is subtle. Son who normally engages in constructing electronic music found the Cromorne of interest, the Grand Tierce of intrigue but most of all what blew us away was the subtle silveryness of the Trompettes and the extraordinary gentleness of the instrument's great power in its acoustic. Pierre Bardon finished with the Bach Toccata in F and the crescendo was subtlety itself transmorphing tone from flues to the sparkle of reeds. As an Orgue de Seize Pieds part of the power is in the full harmonic spectrum from 16ft to 1ft shining through in chorus, not in the usual way that we think of mixtures adding sparkle. Anyone can make a noise with these grand instruments, but to craft music takes the skill of players of long experience.

Best wishes

David P

[David Drinkell]

The issue of Hammonds is interesting. I value the Hammond as a learning tool about harmonics, about the structure of sound and tonality. As a teenager I was fooled by the quiet diapason sound and, the instrument that I experienced was clearly voiced with presets to mimic some stops of a large Harrison nearby. But in ensemble, we all know the resulting sound. In their early brochures it's remarkable the number of famous names who endorsed the Hammond with enthusiasm although one wondered if they were all old and losing their keenness of hearing. Or perhaps they had heard a well crafted demonstration. The lack of multiple sources, of course, prevented proper addition of tonalities but the numbers which were installed in famous places (and notably removed at some stage) was interesting. The Royal Opera House had one, for instance. Opening recitals on such instruments included tonally large works such as the Boellman Suite Gothick and one really wonders if people came away from such concerts as enthusiastic as the installation had hyped.

Sam Clutton waxed modestly lyrical about the fun he and Geraint Jones had making authentic-sounding noises on the Hammond which was put in the National Gallery in London for the concerts which Myra Hess arranged during the Second World War.

Canterbury Cathedral had a Hammond for nave services for many years (two, in fact, parallel installations with two consoles, either of which would play either or both installations) - a fact which their agents were careful to publicise, omitting to mention that the Willis was there too.  Allan Wicks commented that the Hammond was at least reliable, which he reckoned couldn't be said for other electronic devices at the time.  Henry Willis III wrote that the organ loft always seemed to be full of discarded bits and pieces from the Hammond - but then, he would!  There was one in the Hall of Homerton College, Cambridge, in the late seventies.  It dated from the thirties but still worked, although it had a tendency to smoke (as many of us did in those days).

Pop music of the period was often characterised by the Hammond sound, so surviving examples are much sought after.  I once sourced one in Belfast for a Queen tribute band.  The keyboard player was an organ builder and reckoned he could get it going again.  Nothing else sounds quite the same, but you now have the amusing situation of electronic keyboards which try to imitate Hammonds as well as pipe organs!

Some quite big names gave demonstration concerts for Hammond.  I'm sure the money came in useful.  I remember a big Hammond gala in Colchester Town Hall with George Blackmore (who, let us remember, had been a pupil of Percy Whitlock and had an FRCO), but others included organists of major cathedrals.  I also remember Les Whitmore, who lived in Orkney for a while.  He was a jack-of-all-trades with keyboards and made made a number of those Hammond-a-go-go type LPs that appeared in some quantity.

Here in St. John's, Newfoundland, there are large Hammonds in at least two local churches and a funeral parlour and a horrendous little one in a small church up on the south side hills (the tremulant whereon is, as far as I can make out, not stoppable).  I had a pretty good apprenticeship with Hammonds through helping out at several months' worth of Evensongs at a local church while I was organist at Belfast Cathedral, but I still have to think twice about the correct sequence to turn the damn things on.....