Organ matters - Organs matter!

On it's own, yes, a vox humana generally isn't much to behold. However, when you mix it in with softer flues and strings, it can help to create a beautiful, almost ethereal sound. I'm used to them on theatre organs where, I think it is safe to say, they are a little more refined than their classical cousins. On the theatre organ, mixed with strings and tibia (tremulants on of course), they go a long way in creating a lush, warm tone.

He may not have been a professional organ builder, but he was employed as City Organist, so from a council point of view, I'd imagine he would have been the man to go to when it came to the Civic Hall Organ.

The restoration of the organ would appear to have been put out to tender, so from what I can gather, professional organ building firms were involved at the start, and I'm pretty sure the big three are mentioned in some of the write-ups on WCC's planning department. I think the plan was that Steve would work with them to see the restoration through which would have been a sensible idea, then it was announced that the organ would be removed, restored, and re-homed, again which Steve would have seen through by all accounts. After his death, it all just seems to have fallen flat on its face and from there on, from what I have seen, it has all been left down to architects.....

The information is all public information anyway, it's on the councils planning department website, news articles, organ related websites, and social media. If I sound as though I am bad mouthing Historic England, that's certainly not the case. Historic England can only judge by the information they are given. It's a tragic and short-sighted set of circumstances. I can understand from the council's point of view that the organ was in the way of them creating a more financially viable venue, it should never have happened like this though. It seems that no organ building body has been involved since Steve Toveys passing.

The organ was not a theatre organ, it was concert organ, the vast majority of it is a straight instrument, capable of being used for both classical and popular music. The organ was installed in 1938 when the hall was constructed. The organ included a melotone unit as part of the specification. This was rumoured to be down to John Compton's insistence that the organ had theatre ranks, however, the organist responsible for specifying the organ did not want theatre ranks/percussion on the organ. So a melotone was added. This was soon removed by Arnold Richardson very early in the history of the organ.

In the work done by Hawkins in 2001, a new transmission system was added to the organ, 4 theatre organ ranks and percussions were added to take place of the missing melotone. Three of the new ranks added were constructed new by Booths of Leeds, Brass Saxophone, English Horn and Kinura, as well as a Moller Tibia Clausa – which was of an enormous scale and sufficient to carry the other 56 ranks of the instrument when used in "theatrical" mode. It could be argued that these additions made the instrument more along the lines of what John Compton had intended in 1938. They certainly have been much appreciated by visiting organists as it allows for a much more flexible specification without destroying what was there originally.

Let me make this clear – No changes were made to the original specification other than additions/borrowing. Nothing was removed and the original specification of the instrument was present (minus the long removed melotone). There was no new console, the console is original. The Ex Blackpool Empress Ballroom Wurlitzer console was purchased in 2004 to be connected to the organ as a secondary console. This never transpired. The Ex Empress Ballroom Wurlitzer console is now back in the Empress Ballroom.

In 2015 it was decided that the organ would be removed from the hall. According to the council, reports showed that in the event of a fire on the stage, the organ prevented effective smoke extraction and it would not be re-installed, but it would be placed into safe storage until funding and a home could be found for it. The hall closed in late 2015 – the organ was still in use up till this point. The council had been advised by Historic England that the organ be removed before any asbestos work was carried out in the building, and for its safety during the ongoing building works in the hall. The council did not carry this out despite offers of removal to storage at no cost to the council. They chose instead to leave the instrument in situ.

In August 2018 after a long silence with regards to the future of the instrument, the council approved planning permission for the disposal of the instrument due to the assumption that the organ may possibly have been contaminated with asbestos. The pipework was apparently in poor condition and it would apparently cost £250 per pipe to test each pipe for asbestos and the council was not willing to go to this expense.

I'll add here that the pipework was in no worse condition than that of any pipe organ of 80 years of age, it was in pretty good condition, albeit a little dusty.

Information supplied to Historic England by the council/contractors made out that the organ was not unique, that it was a run of the mill cinema organ of which there are many examples of and that the original console had been replaced in 2004, when in actual fact it was still on the organ up till 2015.

It was also said that the audible and visible elements of the organ had been removed (if so how were organ concerts possible right up till the hall closed?) and because of that, it held no historic value.....

It has also been stated that when approached, that the council were advised by Heritage Lottery Funding that the organ would be unsuccessful in any application for funding because HLF were only interested in more visible, less expensive organs, and not expensive enclosed instruments and because of this, it was deemed not worthy of preserving. Historic England gave the all clear for the instrument being disposed of. The reports quote £1.29 - 2.5 million for the restoration of the organ are completely off the mark, you could probably have built two or more organs of the same size for those figures. I have read elsewhere by organ builders that the lowest quote received was actually more in the region of £600k for restoration. By my own calculations, worked out at around £10k per rank, I'd have said that figure too.

I would also add to this, to keep in mind that the scrapping of the organ was nothing to do with lack of money. Indeed, the council are spending £38.1 million (plus losses since the venue closed in 2015) on adding 400 new seats and a fly tower (with the organ now conveniently out of the way) in order to turn the venue into a theatre. That's around £100k per seat.....damn expensive seats!