Organ matters - Organs matter!

I think Sheffield and Portsmouth at least employed soundboards, etc as well as pipes, which has been the downfall of a number of rebuilt organs - St. Edmundsbury, for example, or Tewkesbury - but didn't Canterbury follow the St. Paul's principle of being all new apart from the pipes?  I stand to be corrected on that if I'm wrong.  Canterbury is a very fine job indeed, but it's a shame they lost the Solo Organ - it's a bit short on quiet accompanimental stuff (that's not just my opinion - Allan Wicks told me so himself in the course of a consultation lesson many moons ago).

I am totally unqualified to form an opinion about St. lawrence, Jewry, but on paper it looks a bit fierce for that building.  Klais can handle large organs in small rooms - Caius College, Cambridge seems to work OK.

I'd be interested to learn why correspondents dislike the new organ at St. Lawrence Jewry.  I haven't been in the church for (probably) about thirty years, so I've never heard it - and I must confess that I only heard the old one briefly and can't remember anything particular about it!

There are, or have been, a number of instances in recent years where it has been thought better musically, economically and for the sake of reliability to start afresh rather than recondition material that has already been retored and reprocessed several times.  The old St. Lawrence organ used as its basis the N&B organ from St. Paul's, Camden Square (Ivor Davies, who gave Noel Mander his first employment as an organ builder, was sacked by N&B for cleaning this on his own account), so was probably nearly a hundred years old in most of its parts and nearly fifty in its latest incarnation.  One could cite similar examples, although this path is by no means the one always chosen.

I suppose that the Mander organ, in some ways dated by NPM standards even when it was installed, may well have seemed decidedly out of fashion by 2000.  The present instrument is what the current incumbents wanted.  As Bernard Edmonds said about the St. Paul's rebuild, 'I, too , could have told them exactly what they should have done, but fortunately no one asked me'.

I'm sure I'm about to reveal embarrassing ignorance, but what piece is he playing?  Sounds like fun....

GDH maintained that the Great reeds were provided by the Bombarde - logical enough if there is one!

I have no qualms about enclosing the Great reeds (or, come to that, the flues), provided that the effect with the box open is the same as an unenclosed chorus.  I don't subscribe to the opinion that you can always tell - it depends on placement and construction.  In these parts, for example, tubas tend to be enclosed (all three in this Province are).  A couple of blocks away, the 50s Casavant at Cochrane Street Church has one of the best tubas I've ever heard.  David Wells, on a visit, reckoned it must be a Harrison (interesting, because the previous organ was a large 3m Harrison, apparently killed off by North American heating systems, as were a lot of slider-chest organs, and both Casavants and the organist who was there at the time of the installation maintain that none of it was used in the new one except the facade).  There is no doubt at all that when the shutters are open it sounds just like an unenclosed tuba should.

I think the Trombas at King's would have been voiced on a lower pressure if they'd been unenclosed.

Absence of Great reeds is certainly a handicap if there is no practical alternative.   It's no use relying on the Swell reeds, because they're the Swell reeds and that, to a large extent, is that.   On the aforementioned Cochrane Street Casavant, there are no Great reeds, and the Tuba is of much the same tone as the Swell  reeds, but louder - they're all fairly bright trumpets.  You therefore have no choice about your chorus reed tone.  The same thing obtains up the road at the Basilica.  The cathedral organ has 8 and 4 Great reeds (and octave couplers), plus Double Trumpet, Cornopean, Oboe and Vox in the Swell and a Tuba on the Solo - and they each have their own character.  The Great 8', despite being called 'Tromba', is quite as lively as a mid-period Father Willis and in the bass is quite blasphemous (as my Belfast friend Stephen Hamill would say).  There is thus a very comprehensive choice of reed choruses, which I find makes it easier to get the right ambience in different styles when compared to the other two jobs.

Quote from: AnOrganCornucopia on March 02, 2012, 01:49:52 AM
Yet a Cavaillé-Coll will, except on the smallest instruments, have a complete chorus to mixture plus a good provision of reeds.

Depends on your definition of smallest, although even without mixtures and reeds a Cavaille will, as you know, sound much richer than most English jobs (Father Willis possibly excepted).  The 4m CC at St-Roch, Paris, has no mixtures or reeds on the Grande, although plenty elsewhere to couple.

My point was that, from CC onwards, coupling was an essential part of registration.  Ralph Downes even maintained that most of the average Great was only used for climax effects.  I'm not sure that he was entirely correct about that, but he certainly identified a common practice.

The other point to bear in mind is based on English usage and rooted in choral accompaniment, probably in an orchestral style:  a lot of organs consisted of the stops a cathedral organist would use most often to accompany his choir, plus a big diapason to bump the hymns along.  That this approach to organ design was not ideal for smaller churches where choirs might be less competent and congregational participation more important does not seem to have occurred to people for a very long time!  Even purveyors of big choruses like Lewis and Binns fell into the trap.

And we are talking about a residence organ here, so the smaller and more orchestral effects might well be provided in greater profusion than in a church instrument.

I don't think galleries are necessarily a killer acoustically.  Other things like carpets, upholstery, soft stone and wood roofs are more likely to have this effect.  Two galleried churches which come to mind as having excellent acoustics are St. Botolph's, Colchester and the Cathedrale de Saint-Pierre (an island just off the coast of Newfoundland - a French colony, it has 6,000 inhabitants, one church - a cathedral - no supermarkets or fast-food joints but five patisseries).  Both have plaster barrel vaults, which are good for sound, and the St-Pierre organ (a Casavant rebuilt of a Mutin with 14ss) is in the west gallery.  Some of the City of London churches have pretty good acoustics, if they're not so rich as to have been over-cushioned.  In the case of CCS, I would guess that the size of the place would negate any adverse effect from the galleries and, if Hawksmoor intended them, they should be there (I don't know if he did - I read once that Wren didn't intend galleries in St. Bride's, which was one reason why they weren't replaced after the Blitz).

Contrary to what has been suggested earlier, Christ Church Spitalfields is still an active church (or a revitalised one), although it is true that the Diocese wanted to close (and possibly demolish) it years ago.

http://www.ccspitalfields.org

There's a well-produced website also for the Friends of the church

http://www.christchurchspitalfields.org

If the inside of the church is to be fully restored, there would be no point putting the organ back until that is done.  Under such circumstances, it would be safer in store.

Quote from: AnOrganCornucopia on February 29, 2012, 07:43:25 PM
I just can't understand why the still only 40-year-old N&B was simply broken up rather than moved East. It was also a far larger and presumably more powerful organ than even the Harrison-incarnation Sutton organ.

http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N13691 is the Hope-Jones to which I referred. Intriguing spec, and as most of the pipework was by Hele (and even included a mixture), it could have been rather nice. It does seem odd, though, that the Great is effectively a Choir/Solo organ, with the only semblance of a chorus on the Swell.

There wouldn't have been room for the big N&B at the east end of Jesus Chapel.  The organ wasn't lost at that time because the insides served as the basis for Rutt's organ at the City Temple in London and the case to a church in Portsmouth (I think), but both were destroyed in the Blitz.

The HJ/Hele at Ewell is not so unusual if you consider that organs in those days were regarded as crescendo machines - a trend started by Cavaille-Coll.  The Great supplied the foundation and the oter departments coloured it.

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

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.

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

I remember Philip Prosser, a very skilful organ builder in Belfast, working on an old Forster & Andrews and Castleknock in Dublin and remarking that he was lightening the action.  He said that it was quite often easy to do this on Victorian tracker jobs and that some, F&A in particular, were often unnecessarily heavy.

Quote from: AnOrganCornucopia on February 19, 2012, 10:02:02 AM
St Cyprian, Clarence Gate is a Rutt - and it's very nice indeed. Pretty comprehensive 3-manual instrument - the one thing it lacks is a mixture of any description anywhere on the organ, but the diapason choruses to 2ft are pretty bright anyway - a mixture beyond 2ft would really be a bit of a luxury for additional impact, as with the Armley Schulze. It's a pity that the casework (designed by Comper, as was the rest of this fabulous church, one of Betjeman's favourites) was never executed, although I hear that plans are afoot to rectify this. It certainly ought to have a proper case to reflect the wonderful rood and parclose screens up the other end.

There's also a Rutt somewhere Purley way, used for a local festival with which Gerard Brooks is involved, rebuilt and enlarged by GDB in 1981 or so, which has a console much like the People's Palace organ, with the Rutt name in that stylish curly italic font.

David, what do you find 'tonally depressing' about them?

A

I've always wanted to try St. Cyprian's (and see the church, too: its tonal qualities were described by Edward Maynard Pinkney in Music Opinion, November 1972, as 'particularly ripe', and I've been intrigued ever since.

Generally, though, I've rarely found a Rutt that I liked, which is rare for me.  I did lot of practice as a teenager at Wivenhoe Congregational Church
http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N08676
Whopping Diapason, Dulciana and little 4'flute on the Great, Stopped Diapason and Gamba on the Swell, no octave couplers.  Nicely made, and half-decent case (built for the previous church and transferred to the new one in the sixties), but tonally there wasn't much you could do with it.

St. Peter's, Colchester has a Rutt - one of the worst organs I've ever encountered, which is saying a great deal:
http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=H00583
A reasonable specification, but nothing really adds up and there's a complete lack of excitement.  I have nothing against extension organs, but this is the sort of job which gives them a bad name.  Again, workmanship and case are of a high quality.

The old organ at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Rutt's largest, was fairly grotesque.  I knew it towards the end of its life, but I can't imagine it was ever very much better.  And the Rutt luminous console was a dreadfully ugly thing.

I wish I liked Rutt more - he was an Essex Man, like me!

I've never heard the Compton at St. Alban's, Holborn, but I've heard it's pretty startling.  Thanks for the mention of this week's Choral Evensong - I'm listening to it now.....

Yes, the People's Palace organ was a Rutt - it even had the name in big letters forming the music desk, as Compton and Wurlitzer were wont to do.  I don't know what it's like, but in general I find Rutts well-made but tonally depressing (the one exception is St. Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge, but I think that Rutt left the tonal side mostly alone when he rebuilt it).

It used to be the case that the BBC Concert Hall organ was little used because of sound leaks into other studios, particularly the news department.  The Maida Vale organ was much used and well-maintained. It had the reputation of being a remarkably fine instrument, particularly considering that it was more extended than Compton's norm.  Some of the smaller Comptons are particularly effective - St. Olave, Hart Street, for one.  St. Bride's must be one of the biggest jobs Comptons' ever did - a lot of it being completely straight.

The touring organ which Harrisons' built for George Pattman had a quinted 32' reed.  It also had one 32' Bombarde pipe which played on each of the lowest 12 notes. 

The Union Chapel Father Willis is indeed a superb example of its type (not quite unaltered, but nearly so), and in a fine building.  I don't think that the hydraulics are the only ones to survive, but there can't be many left.


"....a very fine instrument by the local organ-builder (better known as a famous bell-founder), Taylor..."

Excuse the correction, but the organ  builders, Taylor of Leicester, had no connection with the bell-founders, Taylor of Loughborough.  As far as I know, the only organ-builder who was also a bell-founder was T.C. Lewis.  The only bells of his I know of are four at Fen Ditton in Cambridgeshire (the organ isn't his, it's by J.D. Dixon of Cambridge) - I guess there are others elsewhere.

In 1979 there was a very early Hammond in the Hall of Homerton College, Cambridge.  I think it dated back to the thirties.  It still worked, but had a tendency to smoke (as did many of us in those days).

Walkers could be a bit over-suave, especially when the reeds got bigger and on higher pressures, but when they were good they were very good indeed.  St. Columba's, Pont Street is another, but this one at the City Temple may have the edge on it.

Colchester has an exceptionally fine early 20th century Norman & Beard in the Moot Hall (itself probably the finest town hall of any provincial town in the country).  With less than thirty stops, it gives the impression of an instrument with twice those resources and it stands in a good acoustic in a fine case by the building's architect, John Belcher.  Approaches are being made for funds for a complete restoration.  For details see www.moothallorgan.co.uk.  The organ has been out of use for some years, but was in surprisingly good form when I visited a couple of summers ago.  Having not heard it for some thirty years, and having been  around a bit in that time, I was absolutely gob-smacked at its quality.

Ipswich has a relatively recent civic organ, installed in the Corn Exchange in 1975.  I've only been in the building to see performances of Gilbert & Sullivan by the excellent local society, and I've never seen so much as a glimpse of the organ!

I was suitably edified and had a good laugh too.  A winning formula - thank-you.