Organ matters - Organs matter!

INAUGURAL RECITAL OF THE NEW ORGAN BY PAUL ISOM
St Luke's Church, Eardley Road
Sevenoaks

Friday, 28 June at 7.30pm

Music by Bach, Buxtehude, Gardonyi, Lemare, Hollins, Phillips, Delius, Franck
Admission £6 Concessions £4


Call 01732 750870 for further details

The London County Asylum Hospital at Stone, Dartford, closed a few years ago and is going to be re-developed soon.  There is a fine 3m Norman and Beard instrument available to anyone who can rescue it.  It is in beautiful condition, nice casework and has really been looked after and appreciated.  It falls under my remit as DOA, despite having been made redundant, and the current owners are trying to be extremely respectful to all fixtures and fittings of this large chapel.  No wanton bulldozing here, just a desire to ensure that the organ goes to a good home.  There is no power to the chapel now and it is not possible to try the organ - although power could be laid on; at cost, of course.  Could any interested parties please get in touch with me in the first instance.  I have a sheet with a photo of the console and also the stoplist.  I will put you then in touch with the developers who will arrange access.

PM me for further information.

Paul Isom

Greetings all,

My wife and I will be opening up our house for a mega sale of new organ and choral music, secondhand organ music and books, secondhand organ and choral CDs, together with periodicals on organs in abundance.  The new music will most likely be discounted to 50% of it's original price. Our organs will also be available for those who would like to play them - an Oberlinger 5 stop pipe organ and a Rodgers 2 manual organ. We are having the 'Open House' on:

Open Weekend Friday 27 – Sunday 29 April 2012
Friday: Open Evening 5 pm—9 pm
Saturday: Open Day 10 am – 5 pm
Organ demonstrations at 11 am and 2.30 pm (Saturday)
Sunday: Open Afternoon 2 pm – 4.30 pm

We are within easy distance of London, Essex, Surrey and Sussex and you are all most welcome.  We will be posting details on our websites in due course.

Please PM me if you would like any further information or would like to come - directions etc.

Paul & Helen Isom
Culver Music/Secondhand Organ Boooks

I hope our hosts will excuse me for this rather blatant bit of publicity.  I have been frustrated by the lack of shops selling books on organs, especially second-hand books.  To this end, I have been building up a modest stock of interesting books and periodicals which will appear for sale on my website very soon.  I am currently fighting with e-commerce settings and photos and, once complete you should be able to order direct from the website or via Paypal.  There will be a wide variety, including back copies of periodicals (The Organ, The American Organist, ISO Journal etc) as well as a wealth of other interesting material (including French inventaires - some new and unread).

Please PM me if you would like to be notified when the list has been published together with website details.

Paul

P.S.  If anyone would like to offload any material please PM me

For those of you in France at the end of July, I shall be playing a recital at Meursault (see details below) in aid of their organ restoration.  They have been very kind and awarded me honorary life membership of The Association of Friends of the Organ of the Church of St Nicholas at Meursault for helping them move the restoration along a notch or two.  It is hoped that it will be restored by Formintelli, even possibly at the end of the year.  If you are able, do come as it's an amazing instrument.  I have a key, so could arrange for interested parties to come and try the organ.  PM me privately if you're interested. The website is still a work in progress, although the English side has recently been updated, and I hope to have it completed by the 31st July.  The revised address is www.meursaultorgue.com. Details of the recital are as follows:

M E U R S A U L T
Église Saint Nicolas

En accompagnement du
Festival Musical de Bach à Bacchus
et en coopération avec
l'Agence de Tourisme de Meursault,

les Amis de l'Orgue de l'Église Saint Nicolas de Meursault*
v o u s   i n v i t e n t
au

RÉCITAL D'ORGUE
par
P A U L   I  S O M
Consultant des Orgues du Diocèse de Rochester, Angleterre,

Samedi 31 Juillet 2010  à 20h30

sur le précieux Mutin & Cavallé-Coll orgue de l'église.

Œuvres par :
Johann Sebastian Bach, Augustin Barié, Denis Bédard, André Fleury, Alexandre Guilmant, Gustav Hägg, 
Samuel Rousseau, Charles-Marie Widor.


Le récital est donné en faveur de la restauration de cet orgue important et votre générosité sera beaucoup appréciée.


*Association régie par la loi du 1er juillet 1901

I have been heavily involved with the parish by way of helping them to understand that they have an historical instrument.  While small, it has a lot to say for itself and is a fabulous organ to play, especially for the liturgy.  While it is very much a work in progress, I have put together a website which is currently being updated in time for a recital I am giving there in July.  The website has an English page which contains much history about the church, organ and area.  The audio page contains complete pieces taken from a recital I gave there in 2008.  The playing is not of the highest order, and the organ was suffering due to the high heat, and these factors combined with the fact that the Anches Appel pedal kept springing off, rather conspired against a smoothly played recital.  However, you can hear the quality of the unrestored organ.  It is very difficult to realise that the sound comes from just nine stops!  It is hoped that Bartholemy Formintelli of Verona will do the restoration in the near future.  The website address is:

www.meursaultorgue.com

Formintelli has produced an excellent report and intends to affect an historic restoration.  As you can see from the many photos on the website, the organ really looks shabby, but still sounds pretty good too!

My wife and I own a house and apartment not far from Meursault (I play there on Sundays when we are on holiday).  Should anyone wish to come and see and try the organ, you would be most welcome. PM me privately and I will let you have further details.  Equally so, you would be welcome to rent the house or apartment - again for further details PC me privately.

Hector

I am having great trouble sending you a PM in response to yours and your security lettering does not show and the letters in the recording to not indicate upper or lower case.  Can you please advise?

P

My wife and I paid a visit to Taize today to do the Taize experience, and more importantly to try their new organ out. For me it has always been somewhat irksome that the organ (Gonzales catalogue job) was never played in all the times we visited. It was explained to us that the organ was not that good, and had also reacted badly to the fast-blow heating system, fast becoming unreliable. I also understand that it's tonal side was less than pleasant, and at complete variance with the Taize-style of music. The decision to have the new organ was made when the heating system was replaced with a new under-floor system, and the new instrument was built by Grenzing of Spain. I think that it was with some trepidation that the Brothers made the decision to replace the organ. Finding something to fulfill a constantly changing role was never going to be easy, especially as they had made do with guitars, keyboards etc for some years, so finding a niche for the use of the organ is still something they are coming to terms with, after all - some people view Taize music as an 'organ free zone'.

What of the organ? Firstly, you can visit the builder's website for details - spec etc. I loved it, epecially as you can register horizontally with increasing warmth as you pile on the modest number of foundations. The Sub coupler also adds a lot of depth without loss of clarity. There is an either/or system with the stops which allows all the stops with the exception of the Fourniture and the Montre to be assigned to either manual I or II. This system, used in conjunction with the sub coupler, and the rather natty II/I treble and II/I bass allows a large number of interesting combinations. The Pedal Basson (the website it says Bombarde douce) is more of a modest Posaune and fits well under the plenum.

I have assumed that the console appointments have rather been dictated by the available space for the organist (not much!). All the stops are above the console (similar to the Dutch style) - and I was somewhat glum when I saw these. However, nothing has been missed, and they are all within easy reach and move up and down (three positions I/Off/II). Quick stop changes are easily made and I quite liked the arrangement.

I enjoyed playing the organ very much indeed, and having seen the stoplist prior, it rather screamed to me that it was limiting with it's mutations and classical bent. However, it is truly a cunning little instrument with huge presence. It has a big sound when everything is going as I has a vast space to fill - and the vast scale of the pedal Soubasse is testament to the need for the organ to cut the mustard.

It is really pleasing to see that Taize hasn't completely eschewed the organ. I think they are trying to work out how it is going to be used, and I can certainly understand their caution. It is also heartening to learn that three of the community play the organ (two Dutch one English) and really appreciate it's presence.

If anyone is in the Taize/Cluny area, drop them an email - they are really friendly and happy for the organ to be played.

I do hope that I haven't dropped any clangers with our esteemed moderators in this post.

Hector