Organ matters - Organs matter!

Unless I was looking in the wrong place, I don't think this organ was listed on NPOR.  any chance of you filling them in, Eric?

I get applause at the end of the concluding voluntary from those who stay to listen - which often includes the Dean.  On the whole, I'd rather they didn't do it, but I don't want to make a big thing of it.

I know quite a few organists who are very, very good at their job, sensitive accompanists, gifted choir-trainers, knowledgeable about liturgy and repertoire, but are not believers.  Similarly, the composers of much truly great and inspirational church music have not had the gift of belief - Britten, Tippett, Howells, Rutter, Parry, Vaughan Williams, Sumsion, etc.  I believe that a person who is good at his/her job will be more valuable to a church than someone who believes but is not so gifted.

Conversely, there's a vast amount of tripe composed by those who are believers!

It's said that in Labrador there's a Moravian Church with an organ dating from the time of Bach.  Labrador is part of this Diocese in Anglican terms, but the Moravians were early missionaries in that vast and (still) remote area and remain a strong presence today.

Carlo's touring organs are a bit like Queen Elizabeth's beds.  He came to Belfast Cathedral once to do a Christmas Spectacular (it was broadcast on Radio 3).  The current touring organ wasn't available, so the instrument which was used (along with the Harrison) was borrowed for the occasion from a parish church somewhere in the Home Counties.

One touring organ was lodged in Harwich Parish Church when Carlo was in the States.  I remember having a whirl on it.  At the time, the church organ (an historically important one by Flight) was sick unto death - a state in which I found it when I first took up organ playing some 45 years ago and in which it continued until Peter Bumstead restored it in 1992!  I think the Allen connection came about because Carlo was friends with Michael Woodward, who lived in the town.  Christopher Dearnley had a house there too, so the old Flight got quite a bit of playing, despite being in such a state.

Perhaps....

but Bach is known to have been interested in pianos and apparently acted as agent for a piano manufacturer during his time in Leipzig.

A colleague of mine, when being interviewed to be an Associated Board examiner, was asked, 'Do you think Bach should be played on the piano?'  His answer: 'You obviously do, because he's on your syllabus'.

In his article on registration, a link to which appears elsewhere on this board, Peter King observes that Bach survives transcription to other instruments - including organs which are not like those he knew - better than any other composer.  I think there's a lot of truth in that.

I would certainly say that it's better to play Bach on the piano than not to play Bach at all.  Some players have made it a speciality - Glenn Gould, for example.  I'm not a fan of his, but he certainly had and has a large devoted following.

It's quite common in North America to have 68 note soundboards for 61 note manuals.  This means the octave coupler works up to g56.  For some unfathomable reason, my organ has 68 notes on Great, Choir and Solo but 73 on Swell.  It's amazing how much longer the beasts take to tune with those extra notes up there!

I've never heard of extra notes being provided at the bottom for a sub coupler, except very occasionally for a particular stop, usually a reed.  An 80 note soundboard suggests extension rather than providing for the couplers.

An interesting point is made about toasters.  A typical American pipe organ in a typically dry American acoustic will sound very like an up-market toaster. I suppose that's obvious and to be expected, but it goes some way to explaining why Allens, for example, don't sound quite right in British churches.  The really smooth voicing gives them away.  In the YouTube recording under consideration, I think I could have believed it was a toaster until the Pedal got really gutsy.  At that point, the manual parts still sounded Allen-ish, but the Pedal had more weight and rasp than I would have expected it if hadn't been real.

Quote from: AnOrganCornucopia on January 15, 2012, 04:58:27 PM
Well, I'm not really an organist but I have tinkered around on organs of all action types, backfall trackers, suspended trackers, Barker lever, Willis floating lever, pressure and exhaust pneumatics, electro-pneumatic and pure electric. I can't say that I've ever really noticed a tubular pneumatic action giving any more 'feel' than an electro-pneumatic action.

I dunno - I reckon the feel of various pneumatic actions is part of the atmosphere of playing different instruments, along with the console style, the keys (old Walkers have lovely long keys with black undersides) and so on.  Harrisons' reconised this at Westminster Cathedral when they kept the pneumatic touch-boxes on the west end console but electrified from there on in.  Proposals to do the same to a Lewis (& Co) in Belfast were vetoed by the Lottery people and the action continued to be troublesome.

Walker pneumatics could certainly be a little sensitive and need a lot of re-adjusting - I used to play on one - but nice enough when they were in good shape.

I notice in NPOR that Westbury Park has only the Pedal Bourdon extended.  If it's been altered, maybe you could contact NPOR with an update.

Similarly, I don't think Methodist College, Bristol is mentioned at all.  Maybe you could send NPOR the spec, even it if was as dreadful as you say it was!

Welcome, Patrick.  It would be wonderful if you contacted the National Pipe Organ Register and updated them on the organ's history.  Compton Miniaturas are very nice little instruments - I hope you get hours of pleasure from it.

I'm sure someone else would know a great deal more about the Glasgow organ scene than I do.

The Kelvingrove Hall recitals are at 1:00pm Monday to Saturday and 3:00pm on Sundays.

The new 'Bach Organ' in the old Barony Kirk near St. Mungo's Cathedral may well be the most interesting at the moment.  St. Mungo's itself is worth seeing and the organ is big but not well known (possibly because the long-time organist John Turner wouldn't let anyone play it).  The Episcopal cathedral on Great Western Road is a big three-manual, Kelvingrove Hall a very notable Lewis with daily lunchtime concerts.  But you should really go to Paisley and visit the Abbey (organist George McPhee is very approachable) and the big old 4m Hill in Coats Memorial Baptist.

Quote from: AnOrganCornucopia on December 28, 2011, 10:59:16 PM
Willis supplied Steinmeyer with reeds?  :o

That's a combination I REALLY want to hear - much as I love Willis organs, I'm sure you'd agree there's nothing better about them than the chorus reeds and Tubas. Steinmeyer, meanwhile, made what sound like some of the best flue choruses ever made...

Incidentally, doesn't the west front at Trondheim look very English? Reminds me of Lichfield and Lincoln...

I see also that Steinmeyer are still in business - and have been since 1647! That must surely make them the oldest surviving organ-building firm in the world... hopefully they'd be able to replicate the many tonalities lost from the vast Trondheim organ, restore those presently in the Quire organ... but how on earth, even in a non-English organ, are you supposed to make do with no Swell, just a big enclosed Positive? The complete removal of casework in that ancient building is also criminal... The following, regarding the organ's 'restoration', makes for very worrying reading:
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&prev=/search%3Fq%3DNidaros%2Bsteinmeyer%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dflock%26hs%3Duri%26channel%3Dfds%26prmd%3Dimvns&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=no&twu=1&u=http://kirkemusikk.net/steinmeyer/%3Fside%3Dorientering&usg=ALkJrhg2q_K_TM67G7mURO10Rx4y6EjDHw

Why, in the 1960s, did they not leave the Steinmeyer alone, acquire another instrument for the Quire and restore the old Wagner instrument somewhere else in the building? That would have covered all their needs - instead the Wagner remained languishing in storage until the 1990s, the Steinmeyer was wrecked and a cobbled-together Quire organ installed (I wonder how satisfactory it has been). You couldn't make it up, could you?

Willis III wrote up the Trondhjem organ in 'The Organ' just after it was built.  He describes a meeting with the search party before the order was placed and his subsequent visit to the completed instrument.  Although he was asked to supply several reed stops, this was against company policy ('The traditions of my firm....' or something similar) and the pipes were made elsewhere under his supervision.

The organ was originally in the north transept, so as not to spoil the view westward.  A later architect disliked the sight of the organ filling up the transept, so it was divided in 1962, with most of it going to the west gallery (with the old case) and other parts used to make a two-manual instrument in the quire triforium.  At this stage, there was a certain amount of tweaking (mostly removing 8' registers - although there are still a lot - and revising the upperwork) and the main Swell division was put into store where it was destroyed by fire.

When the Wagner organ (which had been stored when the Steinmeyer was built and was still largely intact) was restored, the case was removed from the Steinmeyer to clothe the old instrument again.  Any restoration of the Steinmeyer must therefore include something being done about casework.

The Steinmeyer was still an impressive instrument when I played it in the 80s, despite its vicissitudes.  In particular, it had that peculiar grandeur that only comes when a lot of pipes are sounding - the sort of sensation one gets at Liverpool, Weingarten or St. Paul's.  When it is fully restored, it should be one of the world's great instruments.

Regarding the building, a great deal of it, including the west front, dates from the 19th century restoration.  Lincoln is indeed the most like it of the British cathedrals. 

This is so true!  When I came here, the organ hadn't been played much apart from on Sundays and there were a number of minor but irritating faults.  I play it every day and it hardly ever gives any trouble, despite being over eighty years old and overdue for a major overhaul.

Up the road, there's another big four manual Casavant which had a resotration a few years ago.  When we held a Lent recital series on it, there were all sorts of things happening that shouldn't, but all that it needed was playing!  Unfortunately, the small sanctuary organ and the piano get played much more often than the big organ - such a shame!  If someone went up there once a week, pulled out all the stops and sat on the keys, they'd have a lot less trouble.

Having had great kindness shown to me in the past by some truly great organists (such as Francis Jackson), I long ago made a vow that if I were ever in charge of a large and interesting instrument I would let people play it.  I have stuck to that, and the organs have been better behaved as a result.  Our tour guides have instructions that visitors who express an insterest in the organ should be offered the chance to play.  After all, the worse that can happen is a dreadful noise!

Quote from: AnOrganCornucopia on December 31, 2011, 06:20:09 AM
....each multi-strung note has separate strings: Steinway, like most makers, use one string and coil it round the tuning pins multiple times. Bösendorfers are easier to tune (and are more stable) as a result - or so says my excellent piano tech friend.

I don't quite understand what you're describing here - could you elaborate, please?  It's very interesting, but I can't quite visualise it!

During both of my last two jobs, the respective churches were donated Steinways - I never took to either, although that may well be more my fault than that of the instrument.  The first one was a massively heavy (weight and tone-wise) upright (the previous owner also had a Broadwood and a Bluthner, either of which I would have preferred, especially the Broadwood).  The second was a small grand, the previous owner of which, being in her late eighties, wished it to go to somewhere where it would be appreciated as none of her relatives wanted it.  She had been personally to the factory and selected it when it was new and had kept it in mint condition.  The tuner said he felt as if he should pay us for the privilege of maintaining it.  And yet......I knew it was a fine instrument but I never took to it.  The Vicar Choral, who is a much better pianist than I am, thought it was marvellous and spent hours on it. 

When I had to go out looking for an upright for accompanying rehearsals, I fell in love with, and bought, a Challen.  It was perfect for what I wanted - I guess I lack the gift of regarding a piano as anything but a work-horse.

I hope the Steinmeyer in Trondhjem Cathedral will soon be restored.  It was terribly messed-about-with (and moved) in the sixties, but even so is a fine beast.  Unfortunately, the 'Willis' reeds were lost in a fire while in store - these need to be replaced.

I think that Hope-Jones, although he wasn't an organ builder himself, employed some first-class craftsmen, so apart from features which were experimental and didn't work out as well as expected, his organs were of superb construction.  Certainly, his pipework was often of excellent quality, as evidenced by the surviving ranks here in the Cathedral organ at St. John's, Newfoundland.

Ingram continued  to build in the Hope-Jones style after HJ himself had fled to the New World.  I don't know whether the Cathedral organ here (which was half-finished when HJ departed) bore a Hope-Jones plate, but it certainly had his motto 'Laus Deo' carved on the console.  The panel survives in our museum and we have pictures of the console - a typical HJ type.  Therefore, I think we are justified in classing instruments such as Hartlepool as Hope-Jones organs, even if they post-date HJ's connection with the firm.

There used to be a very nice small Hope-Jones at St. Maru's Catholic Church in Croydon. I believe it was replaced by a toaster a good few years ago - does any one know if any of it was recycled?

If it's still there, St. Oswald, West Hartlepool was a complete example of a four manual HJ, although built by Ingram after HJ had left for America.

It was sad to learn this week of the death of Reg Lane, who for many years was rep for Hill, Norman & Beard, based in Essex. Reg was apprenticed to Henry Willis & Sons, but spent most of his working life with HN&B. His round included jobs like St. John's College, Cambridge and Saffron Walden Parish Church. He was a skilled craftsman, an excellent tuner and very nice person, with a fund of good stories. May he rest in peace.