Organ matters - Organs matter!

Yes, I know St. Mary's, Shrewsbury - such a shame that a wonderful church like that should be redundant (although sometimes redundant churches are busier than when they were working). I think of the organ as the Binns equivalent of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin: a wonderful instrument hidden away.

Kilkenny Cathedral (CofI) was a very similar Bevington to the one at Wellington and both were restored by Walkers' in the sixties.  Kilkenny was in a sorry state when I played it during my time at Belfast - a fine instrument whose majesty was somewhat veiled by its condition - but has since been restored, rebuilt and turned round by the excellent Trevor Crowe of Donadea, Co. Kildare.

I would find it impossible to come to an absolute conclusion - there are many instruments that linger in my mind, all different but all wonderful in their way.  Here are some.....

A group of students at Addington Palace once asked Gerald Knight over breakfast which organ was his favourite.  'St. Paul's,' he said, without hesitation or looking up from toast and Telegraph.  In many ways, I think he was right, and I've always considered the Mander rebuild to be right in every way. 

Allan Wicks came to do a master class and seminar at Bristol University when I was a student.  A non-organist asked, 'What's the best organ in England?'.  He replied, 'Chester Cathedral.'  I could go along with that, too, although I'm not generally a Hill fan.

There's Truro as well.  Nothing finer.  But some would choose Salisbury, and maybe some, Hereford.  And they'd be right.  St. Patrick's, Dundalk takes some beating, the west gallery position giving it an advantage over some similar jobs.

Redcliffe, Bristol Cathedral, Downside - preference may play a part, but no one can deny that they are all "Best" in their way.

St. John the Evangelist, Islington.  Walkers' turned out some splendid instruments around this time - I would guess Wimborne Minster is another and, some day, with pcnd's permission, I hope to find out for myself.

Best Binns - The Old Independent Church, Haverhill, Suffolk.

Norman & Beard's Edwardian Summer - The Moot Hall, Colchester.  And somewhat later - Holbrook School, Suffolk (the perfect juxtaposition of placing, acoustic and a blank cheque).  Hearing Norwich Cathedral played by David Dunnet made me think it was as fine as they come, although it can sound lumpy in the hands of those who don't know it so well.

"Rushworth's could really do it when they wanted to" - Holy Rude, Stirling (another blank cheque); St. James, Antrim Road, Belfast.

"A particularly happy result" (Henry Willis III) - Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, the late lamented St. Jude's, Thornton Heath, Surrey, the realisation of his "Model" three-manual organ at St. Thomas a Beckett, Wandsworth, United Reformed Church, Stowmarket, Suffolk.

Small firms hitting the heights: 
Cedric Arnold, Williamson & Hyatt at Walsingham, Norfolk, and St. Botolph's, Colchester
Roger Yates (most of the few jobs of his that I know) at Kilkhampton, St. John's Taunton (successful gilding of a Father Willis lily), Bozeat, Northamptonshire (remarkable 1939 job, like a Willis III Model but more classical and refined, with a good case).
Lammermuir Pipe Organs at St. Mary's, Haddington, Lothian.

A couple of little old jobs: Great and Little Bardfield in Essex, the former by Miller of Cambridge in a gorgeous Gothic revival case and the latter by goodness-knows-who (Miller was in there somewhere, too) in archaic style and a Renatus Harris case.

Marcussen at Borgundkyrkje, Alesund (despite the back-handed compliment that I made it sound like an Arthur Harrison).

Arthur Harrison - Christ Church, Skipton, Yorkshire (Blimey! and only 21 speaking stops),  and the "RSCM" organ now in Shrewsbury.

Down Cathedral (Arthur Harrison's rebuild of not-a-Samuel Greene, further rebuilt by Harrisons', with Wells-Kennedy adding the final trimmings).

The Mander at St. Ignatius Loyola, New York.  As a young teenager, I was terribly impressed by St. Vedast, Foster Lane, and, slightly later, St. Giles, Cripplegate, and I have had no reason to change my opinion.

The Wurlitzer at the Gaumont State, Kilburn and the (again late-lamented) Compton at the Plough, Great Munden (nicer for having a Wurlitzer wooden Tibia, I thought - all this and Greene King IPA too!).

The Aeolian-Skinner (G. Donald Harrison) at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York.

I remember a hardened organ-buff grabbing my arm with tears in his eyes on hearing the Gabler at Weingarten. A one-off (even Ochsenhausen is different), and maybe more famous for its looks and specification than for how it sounds.  Very subtle and beautiful.

Finally, I know that the organ I play every day isn't the best in the world - indeed, in some ways it is rather odd - but I like it better than any other I've had in my charge because I can turn it inside out and make it do things of which, on paper, it shouldn't be capable.  The similar-sized job in the United Church down the road is supposed to be one of the finest of its marque and period, but to me it always sounds like a late-fifties Casavant....

I'm sure there are lots of others of which I have no experience, and everyone will have different opinions.  It just goes to show that this is a question to which no definite answer can be made.

Launceston Methodist was quite important in its original form as an early Compton (just coming out of his initial Hope-Jones phase) and was not without its admirers for what it was - I guess a big noisy battle-wagon well-suited to leading massed Methodist hymn-singing.  There was an article about in "The Organ" some years ago, I think by Arthur Arnold.  I can imagine it must have been a gruesome thing before Lance Foy got hold of it.

For some perverse reason, I am led to the thought that the en chamade "English Tuba" added in the west gallery at Ottawa Anglican Cathedral (the rest of the organ being a moderately pleasant three-manual Casavant in the chancel) had the same effect aurally as breast implants visually.....

Not in itself a bad organ, I think, but completely banjaxed by its position.  The church has nave, aisles and chancel and the organ is built in a chamber behind a false 'east' wall, complete with stained glass windows (illuminated electrically).  The console is in the 'west' gallery with the choir.  Conachers' built some fine organs around this period (1964), of which there are or were a number in Belfast (the firm was the major builder in Ireland), and according to Wells-Kennedy, who tuned it, there was nothing wrong with this one as such.  But you just COULD NOT get any guts out of it in the church!  Even the heavy pressure Tromba unit at 16-8-4 sounded weedy.  The church had a really good choir, which saved the situation.

The "worst organ" epithet is not mine, however, but that of a much more distinguished player, indeed one of the world's leading recitalists, who gave the opening concert.  His mood was not improved by the fact that he left his organ shoes by the console while he went out for a bite to eat and the verger, thinking they belonged to some tramp, threw them out.  Returning, he nevertheless prest on (sic) with the concert, but afterwards pronounced it to be the worst organ he had ever played.  The story was part of Belfast organ lore and I heard it from several people.  http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=D01431

Some extension organs are spoiled by having a loud diapason rank unenclosed and the rest of the pipework in a swell-box and thus too soft to be used in combination. Also, they tend to take all the Swell upper work from the flute, the string being too feeble to do the job.  Compton did not make this mistake, but other builders did.  One of the worst (http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=D01379), not only had these defects, but also a perfectly horrible tierce mixture extended from the salicional and a 16' bass to the flute (the pipes a nicely-made metal Quintaton) which was far too feeble to support anything on the manual.

The above are sad, because they are not bad instruments in themselves, but incapable of doing the job for which they were built.  I find that much worse than an old wreck which is just managing to keep creaking along because it needs doing up.

I, too, was surprised that pcnd hadn't mentioned Calne, which seems to haunt his bad dreams!  Being that way last September (nostalgia trip to Bristol), I made a diversion via Calne, but the church was locked.  Frustration made more acute by the fact that someone was in there playing the organ.  It sounded decent enough to me, but possibly audition through the key-hole of an oak door would make a fluty rendition of a quiet Bach chorale prelude sound ok on any organ.  It's nearly forty years since I played there as a student, so I might think differently now, but at the time I thought it was a fine enough example of Conachers' work of the period.  The three manual at Holy Trinity, Windsor, has a similar character.  Not up there with the Willis IIIs and Harrisons (no Manders in those days), or even the best of Rushworth, but still impressive.  I don't think this impression was totally down to the train-spotting-like habit of notching up another four-manual....

I will try to get on it again one day.  I find pcnd's judgement on organs to be reliable and knowledgeable, even if (thank God) we don't agree all the time!

Quote from: Gwas_Bach on June 29, 2015, 10:20:44 PM
This organ (http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=H00084) in its current state.

That's a shame.  I remember playing it years ago, before it was pepped up, and it wasn't a bad old beast in those days.

Ex-Queen's College, oxford, supplanted when the Frobenius went in.  If it's anything like the Rushworth at St. James, Antrim Road, Belfast, which has an almost identical stop-list, it should be a fine instrument.

Hear! Hear! or Amen to jwillans.

Tony's post said nothing to denigrate the organ, but pointed out that there can be, in certain situations, other options.  That some clergy take a more destructive view is unfortunate, but cannot be used as a criticism of Tony.

You're right (about Yarmouth).  I had forgotten.  It was quite well thought-of among organs in that part of the world.

Davies's electronics were developed from a one-off electrone built by Maurice Grant long before the days of GD&B.  The actual prototype was bought by Maurice Maxfield of Waltham Cross (I remember him from Organ Club meetings many years ago).

I once played the Davies hybrid organ in St. Peter's, Sandwich, Kent.  The Great had pipes but the rest was electronic.  I was 14 at the time, which makes it 45 years ago and I don't remember much about it!

I think the heyday of GDB ended when they had to move from their Hammersmith premises to Northampton.  Few of the skilled staff were prepared to leave London.  Then Maurice Grant moved to Wales and the firm thereafter did very little.

Regarding the model two-manual organs, there were two in Northern Ireland, absolutely identical in all but sound.  That in the Harty Room, Queen's University, Belfast, was finished by Hendrik ten Bruggencate and was a lively, even aggressive presence in a relatively small room.  That at the Convent of Our Lady of Mercy, Lurgan, was finished by Chris Gordon-Wells of the excellent local firm Wells-Kennedy and was altogether more gentle, besides being in the west gallery of a large church.  The Lurgan organ was removed some years ago and I don't know what happened to it.  The Harty Room organ is still there, although there have, I believe, been alterations to the room since I lived in Belfast. 

Before setting up Wells-Kennedy, Chris Wells was the local rep for Davies, which may or may not have had a bearing on his finishing work at the Harty Room.  Davies was one of the few firms which managed to maintain a permanent presence in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.  The other was Charlie Smethurst of Manchester, who liked the place so much that he retired to Belfast.  He was trained as a console hand by Harrisons' so his organs tended to be nice to play but lumpy to listen to.  His big three-manual at Knock Methodist Church, Belfast was refinished by Wells-Kennedy a few years before I left Belfast and the difference was amazing!

Compton did two hybrids, in the sense that the basses were produced electronically: Church House, Westminster, which had a very short life before being destroyed in the Blitz, and the Methodist Central Hall, Great Yarmouth.  The latter lasted a long time and had its electronics updated.  I believe it went to the Mechanical Music Museum at Cotton in Suffolk.

The passing of Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld novels, will be widely mourned.  Among the creations in his books was the Great Organ of Unseen University, Ankh Morpork.  The creation of that wayward genius B.S ('Bloody Stupid') Johnson, it had three manuals and such a myriad of controls that the only person capable of taming it was the University Librarian who, by a magical accident, had been transformed into an orang-utan.  The extra long arms apparently came in handy.

I was in St. Helen's last September. The organ is in good form.

I believe Limerick RC Cathedral as rebuilt by Willis III had such an arrangement.  It's since been rebuilt again (by Ken Jones, I think).

Larger Casson 'Positive' organs often had secondary departments made up of registers on their parent divisions an octave higher.  Others duplicated certain Great stops to make a Choir Organ, playable on the same manual by means of a piston.  Redgrave Church, Suffolk, has such an example, although I see from NPOR that it has recently been slightly pepped-up.

http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N12906

Given the pedigree of the instrument, it would seem logical that Davies, rather than GD&B, would have worked on it.  The original Davies, after all, was responsible for Aeolian installations throughout the country, although I think he was trained by Willis.

Maurice Grant, in his book, was adamant that GD&B would continue on their own paths, merely sharing work-space with Davies, whose instruments concepts were vastly different.  I don't know what eventually happened....

The Gilks and Mander instruments are not on the same  system.  The Mander is a conventional extension organ, but Gilks used a different method that was, as far as I know, unique to him.  The pipework stands on a slider soundboard, and there are draw-stops for each rank of pipes.  The pitch is controlled by stop-keys.  Thus, either rank of pipes will sound at all pitches  selected on the stop-keys.  The great disadvantage of this is that you can't have one rank sounding at one pitch and another at a different pitch, e.g. you can't draw gedackt 8' and principal 4'.  I've seen two such Gilks organs, one in All Saints, Hereford and the other in St. David's Cathedral, both many years ago and both single-manual instruments without pedals.  This is the first time I've heard of one with two manuals.  It could make a neat and pleasant instrument for someone, the advantage being that the mechanism is relatively simple when compared to an orthodox extension job.

The Casson looks like a handsome little job with a useful selection of sounds.  They can make very nice little church organs and there are lots around the place (probably a hundred in East Anglia alone).  This one looks as if the case may have been bespoke - the firm offered a number of case designs (an example of one of the more popular ones, installed at Thompson, Norfolk, near West Tofts, caused Pevsner to hazard a guess at it being by Pugin) but I don't recall having seen this one before.

I have MF-G's book, but I don't see a mention of your organ in it.

Try contacting John Bailey, manager at Bishop & Son, 38 Bolton Lane, Ipswich IP4 2B8, 01473 255165.  He was trained at G, D & B and was manager in the firm's final years.

Try the Pipe Organ Preservation Co of Northern Ireland.  They have a number of redundant instruments available and what I've seen of their work is commendable.  If the Conacher from Oldpark Presbyterian Church, Belfast is still available, I can recommend it as a particularly effective example of the firm's later work, and it's quite compact with a detached console.

http://www.amccartney.org/popco/