Organ matters - Organs matter!

I would say:

Have you called in the Diocesan Organ Advisor?

Have you taken independent advice (yes, it costs money).

If they have both recommended getting rid of the organ, have you made reasonable attempts to find a new home for it? This takes time - a lot of time.

Making way for plastering does not sound like best practise to me.


Paul

Well, I'm dubious as to whether the Mander organ could have been rebuilt. Unfortunately, few of his mainly new-or-rebuilt/using lots of old stuff/ organs seem to have stood the test of time: Sheffield, Portsmouth RC, St Michael St Albans, St Lawrence Jewry, St Philip Earls Court. Maybe Canterbury now?

On the other hand, I think the new SLJ organ is crude and overloud. Also, considering Klais's reputation for engineering, it looks quite untidy in many ways, as does Smith Square.

Well, yes,

but if all those things are taken into account, it would be impossible to criticise any organ, surely?

Sometimes you just have to say what you think.

Quote from: David Drinkell on March 03, 2012, 01:23:39 AM
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).


quote author=AnOrganCornucopia link=topic=1260.msg5730#msg5730 date=1330653232]

I was aware that the interior had been finished some time ago, having followed its progress with keen interest. However, I have been in a number of churches with such side-galleries, which have without exception had the most unimaginably abysmal acoustics: I have not been in CCS but, on my experience so far, felt I had little reason to hope that they would fail to wreck the acoustic. Unless they are used regularly, given the opportunity I'd do what the Victorians quite rightly did and tear them down again. Every church I've known that's had them has wanted rid of them because they're an expensive Health & Safety nightmare...



Well, I'm with David here. I've seen many churches whose acoustics have been ruined by carpet, and some which have been rendered unexpectedly dead by soft brick or complex wooden roofs. Not to mention acoustic tile, in North America.

I have yet to see one where old galleries appear to make things worse, though perhaps somewhere really small, with a large number of galleries, might fit the bill. Whitby, for instance, or that church in the New Forest.

But we can surely all think of galleried churches with brilliant acoustics: Thomaskirche, Leipzig? That big church in Wolfenbuttel? St George's, Hanover Square? St James, Piccadilly? St Mary's, Wanstead? Any number of little churches in Westfalia and Thuringia and  Holland (Meppel), full of wood? St Leonard, Shoreditch? - where the side galleries have happily been put back recently.

Christ Church Spitalfields.


'This organ was once described to me as having a wonderful cathedral roll to it - clearly this is no more! What a desperately sad lost opportunity.'

Well, your informant must have been pretty old! I don't think the organ has been playable since about 1950.


Incidentally, for those who might not have been there recently, the interior has been completely restored for a couple of years now, with the galleries re-introduced, and I can assure you from personal experience that the acoustics are great.