If you are visiting Malta and would like to visit and play a couple of historic Italian instruments, get in touch with we and we'll try to arrange that for you.
Robert Buhagiar (organbuilder and restorer)
email: buhagiar.robert@gmail.com
website: www.robertbuhagiar.com
Hi!
Firstly Mrry Christmas everybody!
Second - welcome Robert! It's great to see you here on the organ matters board and I hope you'll tell us a bit about your maintainance challenges and restorations from time to time that you encounter in Malta.
For anyone who has not been, Malta's a great place to be but you don't want to drive anywhere between 4.30 and 6.30-7pm as the traffic is beyond imagination . . . although the organs are well worth visiting.
At Cospicua Robert kindly showed me and demonstrated an ancient instrument that he had restored and rebuilt which had been long forgotten. Although pitched at 4ft it was remarkably effective. I'll try to get footage of the visit onto YouTube before long.
Best wishes
David P
Thanks for the welcome, David.
I am not much on the internet, so please excuse me if I do not post regularly.
Please allow me to state that the Cospicua organ (Based on 4ft principale) which David mentioned in his post, is also included in the Priory CD 'Historic Organs of Malta and Gozo'.
Robert Buhagiar
Malta
I seem to recall that David has very recently had a hand in the acquisition for a church in Malta of a fine redundant English instrument too... any updates, David?
I read the description of the Priory CD and found that one of the churches in this collection has a 15-second reverb. (wow!!!!) St. Paul's, London, has something like 10 seconds.
This I gotta hear!
Hi!
15 seconds!
In my opinion, however, St Pauls is not for me the venue really to appreciate organ music. It merely ends up being a blur of tonal colour without really being able to discern the music. Perhaps it's a matter of instrument placement. The ideal is a very long building, without transepts nor dome and in this, in England the chapel of Charterhouse School, and the basilicas both of Albi and St Maximin in France really stand out.
All the more reason, however, as you say, to get the recording.
Best wishes
David P
I love big reverb, but it does come with a price indeed. Back in the 70s, I went to a recital at L'Oratoire de St.-Joseph in Montreal, home of a 5-manual, 78-stop Von Beckerath. This is an Art-Deco version of St. Peter's Basilica, smaller, of course, but with about 9 seconds reverb. One Bach piece, in G-major, had a fast tempo. The G.O. 16' Trombone and 8' Trompette in the left hand, an 8' flute and sesquialtera in the right, you could make out the melody in the right, but the reeds were all smeared.
I think one reason for this, is that in the dome, soundwaves keep going all over the place and intersect themselves.
Thinking about St Paul's Cathedral - St Paul's Cathedral Valletta is worth a play. I wonder how the organ appeal is going? I recall that the work was going to David Wells
It's possible that the organ at St. Paul's Valletta is featured on the above CD? By the looks of the dome, this could be the 15 second.
David Wells is the one restoring the big Willis. He's been the curator for years now. I put it to you that you were referring to L'pool Cath.?
Quote from: flared_ophicleide on April 04, 2012, 01:47:58 AM
It's possible that the organ at St. Paul's Valletta is featured on the above CD? By the looks of the dome, this could be the 15 second.
David Wells is the one restoring the big Willis. He's been the curator for years now. I put it to you that you were referring to L'pool Cath.?
St Pauls Valletta is the Anglican cathedral - no dome, but still a good acoustic and I'm sure I saw David Wells name mentioned in connection with the restoration.
The 15 second reverb, is most likely Mosta Dome
It's great that L'pool Cath.'s organ is in such capable hands. Hands so capable that the care of an organ in southern Europe may have been placed in those same hands. If so, then I'm happy for Mr. Wells.
Mosta Duomo. Headed for their website right now.