Organ matters - Organs matter!

Hammerwood Park East Grinstead Sussex

Gregory Duggan 'cello and Helen Yorke Piano

Helen is an eminent international pianist who teaches at Trinity College of Music and the Birmingham Concervatoire of Music http://www.helenyorke.com/html/helen_yorke_bio.html

She's bringing Gregory Duggan playing 'cello. Gregory read music at Goldsmiths College University of London before gaining a scholarship to study at Trinity College of Music with Natalia Pavlutskaya. Gregory has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the UK, Europe, China and the Caribbean including venues such as St Martin in the Fields, Blackheath Halls and the Wigmore Hall notably performing the UK premier of Prokofiev's Concertino arranged for Five Cellos at the Rostropovich Memorial concert. His recordings have received acclaim and he plays with numerous orchestras. He is generously supported in his studies by TCM, H R Taylor Charitable Trust, Irish Youth Foundation and the Lynn Foundation - and so deserves our support too with a healthy audience on 10th April.

Programme:

Beethoven Sonata for Cello and Piano Op 102 no 1   
Piazolla Le Grand Tango   
Prelude Op.32 no5, Op.32 no 10 and Op.32 no 12
Rachmaninov Cello Sonata Op 19   

We look forward to seeing you.

Please do try to let us know that you're coming (it saves my grey hairs to know that we have an audience in the week before) by telephoning 01342 850594

Tickets - £10 members - £12 non members - Children NOTHING - Adults bringing children HALF PRICE

Sat 2 April Bristol & District Organists Association –
Organ Improvisation Workshop – 2.00pm

With Nigel Allcoat, at St Monica Trust Chapel, Cote Lane, Bristol - Do join us for this superb opportunity to share in this practical workshop of l...iturgical organ improvisation (all abilities) with one of the finest UK teachers of this subject.
All welcome – admission free – retiring collection - refreshments at Interval
Info from VoxOrganisona@aol.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 07866 692089

For those who have not heard of Nigel he's a musician and musicologist of great erudition and this event is worth going out of your way to attend.

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Will California be next?

Chile Earthquake Richter 5.3 this morning. http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/world/Chile+struck+earthquake/4452424/story.html

A 6 a month ago.

Clearly Pacific plate is on the move.

Although California's power stations have been built with earthquake in mind, Japan's American designed power stations have demonstrated vulnerability to loss of backup power. At this time, perhaps it would be sensible to bring in extra backup power capability . . . and if people don't need to be in the SF-LA area, perhaps it's a good time to take a holiday somewhere else . . .

This is not a prediction, simply commonsense that doesn't need rocket science nor experts to understand.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12682145
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8370151/Mystery-over-millions-of-dead-fish-in-California-harbour.html

There's clearly a series of submarine crustal activity . . .

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Matthew Copley's website http://www.matthew-copley.co.uk/ has news of his work at Hastings on restoring the Snetzler there and a beautiful new house organ for a client in Manchester.

Very nice projects . . .

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

The performer at the weekend certainly made the most of the Hammerwood organ. Whilst electronic instruments should not be good enough to be a threat to pipe organ building, I believe they should be inspirational enough to do justice to the repertoire
Reger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4jvJDGQXEc
Messiaen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPqoorLguj0
Bach D minor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHOcCLvUeH4 in Meantone!
(I had not known before that Bach's authorship of this is disputed . . . )
Brahms chorale preludes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNCUbsqsiac

Many thanks to a brilliant young man who battled furiously with a painful injured right foot to perform and we hope people may enjoy the recordings.

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

I have just uploaded some rather interesting recordings of a concert last weekend for which I tuned a modern Yamaha piano to a temperament which is a derivative of Werkmeister III. The tunings that I had done before were all on 19th century instruments and in the piano world, equal temperament appears to be thought to be an instrinsic part of the modern piano. On the basis of my experiments, I believe that view to be mistaken:


Arvo Part:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7v5jYkw13w

Who said that unequal temperament was unsuitable for 20th century music?

Bach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs7wDeDSQiI

Beethoven
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiX5Xjtb7-E

Chopin nocturne:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFHivVjAmBA

Chopin Study in A flat !!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhNf3zRd5cs

Chopin 2nd sonata 1st movement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7k3Vck-XZ8

Chopin 2nd Sonata Scherzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaYEmQgY_xU

Chopin 2nd Sonata 3rd & 4th movement extracts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8in_RJYbjGM

What's the verdict?

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

A friend on Facebook posted a link to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng4Zbr6AeOQ

Very interesting - performed in "modified" meantone - I wonder what that might be?

Perhaps we might try putting the Hammerwood instrument into Meantone for Bach for John Clark Maxwell's recital at Hammerwood on 6th March 4pm . . .

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

I have always suggested that electronics are a valid tool to the pipe organ world in simulating either what has been lost or what has not yet been built . . .

Many are familiar with the work of Dr Pykett but for those who aren't,
http://www.pykett.org.uk/hear_it.htm
is extremely interesting.

I'm amused at his jibe about manufacturers imposing a wash of reverberated sound in order to cover up the inadequacy of their products . . . :-)

Best wishes

David P

An Italian definition . . .

HEAVEN

Italian cooking, German efficiency, French manufacture and English Police

HELL

English cooking, Italian organisation and German police

;D

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

According to the most expert authorities on French organs, the instrument at St Antoine, Isere, http://www.uquebec.ca/musique/orgues/france/santoineab.html is one of the most inspirational instruments dating from work in 1625 and 1748.

If anyone is serious about enjoying the organ and discovering the amazing repertoire which such an instrument is able to inspire then there's a wonderful house for sale in the village at an affordable price ideal for living there permamently and avoiding UK cuts . . . or merely for organistic holidays.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=326627&id=555981638

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Today I had reason to look at a Location Agent's website and found a couple of interesting photos:
http://location-collective.co.uk/location-detail.html?id=7644&cid=972
is an organ with an intriguing disposition - real or false pipes?
and there are one or two others that look interesting.

What really drew my attention was the photo labelled Town Halls on
http://location-collective.co.uk/index.html/public-spaces--services--buildings/250
but can't find the building concerned.

In these days of economic cuts, is the Town Hall organ more endangered than the Church Organ and what, nowadays, are most of them used for?

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

It is a pleasure to see the current issue of The Organ magazine and I encourage people to subscribe . . .  It's a bumper issue in which photos of wonderful pipe organs throughout the magazine make the obiquitous advert for Johannus electronic keyboards on the back look significantly plastic in contrast . . . :-)

The current issue includes an article on the new organ at Cranliegh School built by an English organ builder which I'm very very much looking forward to experiencing. It's built as a two manual with a "mock" third manual . . . designed to give greater versatility coupled permanently to both Great and Swell, clearly perhaps with the spirit of the French Grand Orgue in mind. Most wonderfully, it's tuned to an unequal temperament, Kellner, and it will be great to hear how this works out in practice on the wider repertoire. From my own explorations on the piano, both client and organ builder are to be very much congratulated on their enlightenment in this area.

It's a bumper crop of articles on the organs at St Johns' Smith's Square, Westminster Abbey, St Edmundsbury Cathedral, a new instrument at Jorkunde Denmark, the Matthew Copley restoration of the Snetzler at Hastings, and a new Ruffatti at Midwestern College Campus. It's good to see that the economic climate has reduced advertisements for electronics to just two, with Skrabl marketing pipe organs whilst the UK organ builders are well featured in the articles.

The magazine will be good detailed reading in due course and I hope that members here will enlarge interest in these particular organs in this column.

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

The organ at Villefranche sur Mer is described as having a Pythagorean temperament
http://www.orgues-cabourdin.fr/orgues-cabourdin.fr/Villefranche.html
but when I went through the keys they had a significantly familiar character to the nature of the temperaments I'm used to . . .

I made a few quick jottings:
A rough and ready look at the tuning gave
CF pure
CG pure
GD fast beat
DA pure
F#B pure
F#C# pure
AbEb 60 per min
BE 90 per min

Perfect 3rds or near:
FA
EG#
GB
BbD
CE

This is what it sounded like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwoglLif3ps

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

I have just been talking with someone with personal knowledge of All Souls, Altheston Road Hastings which I assume is
http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N15689

Redundant church - water coming through the roof with slipped tiles etc. Apparently the roof used to be maintained by a skilled roofer working with ladders and movable platforms. Now, of course nothing less than full scaffolding is good enough putting maintenance costs through the roof, 'scuse the pun.

Anyway the result is an unloved instrument in an unloved unmaintainable building with water ingress . . .

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

A friend's friend's hospitality for her organ has come to the end . . . and so she wants to sell it. It's a Johannus Opus 5, two manual, with capability for external speakers and it does Meantone and Werkmeister III temperaments too.

PEDAL
Subbass 16'
Octave 8'
Gedackt 8'
Fagotto 16'
SWELL
Stopped Flute 8'
Viola di Gamba 8'
Vox Celeste 8'
Koppelflute 4'
Flute Twelfth 2 2/3'
Waldflute 2'
Nazard 1 1/3'
Oboe 8'
GREAT
Principal 8'
Rohrflute 8'
Octave 4'
Octave 2'
Sesquialter II 
Mixture II-IV 
Trumpet 8

Kate's looking for around £2000 or offer - telephone 0*1*3*4*2  8*2*3*8*6*2

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

I wonder if anyone might assist in compiling stories of eccentricity at the organ?

One of the most eccentric organists must be the late and great Giorgio Questa. Sadly he died last year and was very reclusive, seeking utter perfection, and rejected the technology of the 20th century so little is known about him except in northern Italy.

Great he undoubtably was and if anyone can track down any surviving recordings of him playing, I'd be very very curious to hear.

Apparently he built a special portable organ for use in recitals and concerts which was his own, unique and very clever design. In his perfectionist manner, he built every part and every pipe himself.

Apocryphally he took his organ to a redundant church in the middle of a wood by a lake to do a recording session. He was as obsessively perfectionist about everything and he took great care in everything, the quality of the equipment, the microphones etc . . .

The recording session had a problem: the lake adjacent was home to frogs. They croaked and croaked loudly. Of course this not only annoyed him but ruined the recording. Apparently they croak particularly in spring to attract mates. Accordingly, Giorgio went to the local chemist and ordered a particularly large quantity of Potassium Bromide. Reputedly he put it in the lake . . . and the frogs stopped croaking.

The recording went well after that. Very well apparently . . . until the very last note. Working late into the silence of the night he had not banked on the final hazard - an owl hooted. Sadly on account of this he destroyed the whole recording.

On another occasion, there is a monastery near Genova where concerts are held in the summer, but it's only accessible by boat . . . Giorgio was booked to play there and the audience turned up . . . but there was a problem. Realising that his precious organ would have to go on the boat, and that there was no other way, he refused to allow the organ to be loaded onto the boat . . . in case the boat was sunk by sharks.

A musician of great talent, vision and imagination. I'd love to hear any his music recorded that survived . . .

I wonder where the instrument is now? I'd love to see it and hear it . . .

Best wishes,

David P

The following letter appeared in The Times today:

QuoteTaxing fugues
Sir, Evidently the country's vast number of organ builders must be in great demand.

How else is one able to explain the decision, which came into effect (rather sneakily) on January 4, 2011, to disallow claims for the reund of VAT on payments for church organ repairs? Clearly this move is designed to arrest the flow of truly significant funds from the Exchequer.

There may, of course, be other explanations: the Government has no interest in the maintenance of historic artefacts, or perhaps its members wish to promote happy-clappy worship to the accompaniment of guitars. Or is this another example of the Government's being deluded rather than realistic?

Our Francis Booth Organ (1827) at Westgate Chapel, Wakefield, is currently being reinstated. It has taken us a long time to raise the finance fo this, and we have been hit hard by discovering that we cannot make any claim for the VAT refund even on the instalment we paid our organ builder before  the ruling was imposed.

KATE TAYLOR
Chair, Trustees of Westgate Chapel (Unitarian), Wakefield, W Yorks

As this ruling was made on 4th Junuary under the previous government and is yet another of Gordon Brown's sneaky policy of stealth taxation, this would be an appropriate tax decision for this government to reform.

However, there is here a comparison with the anti-conservation effect of VAT in the realm of Historic Building preservation - where repairs to historic buildings are subject to VAT but new works to historic buildings are zero rated.

Perhaps therefore it might be important to try to identify whether any work to the organ, which may be part of the schedule of the listed building, enables the work to the organ to be considered as "new work" rather than in any way merely repairs.

However, whether considering organs or buildings, this tax is not the way to enable the Big Society to ensure the preservation of the Heritage.

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

I mentioned elsewhere about YouTube videos receiving rude comments . . . The trouble is that often they are the most popularly watched . . .

There's currently a wonderful example of people who like to make rude comments on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImUo2w1YgQ
which features a great fun character organist who can handle nearly any score put in front of him . . . but rather likes experiencing the POWER of FULL ORGAN which as on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81JzrpXMB14
the camera audio simply cannot cope . . .

When one explains this to rude commentators and directs them to properly recorded recordings such as
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe_eJ60PmtM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nrvPmirH7c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9usBggyS5Nk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD9FFPhyRd4
and a French Baroque Masterclass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1YcEjz8Xro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2pdYou-Rs
asking them to name 5 other organs in the UK where one can teach such repertoire, it's really amazing the number of such people who can't make positive comments on those recordings, nor even repeat their initial tirades about the instrument directed to those recordings . . .

Are there simply inadequate people around who like to criticise others just so that they can feel superior enough to have been able to do so?

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

Matthew Copley has just finished restoring the Snetzler at Hastings and a book is now available:
http://www.larksdw.co.uk/order.html

Best wishes

David P

Hi!

A friend sent me a link about reconing a speaker, which contains generally good instructions -
http://www.ehow.com/how_5907213_recone-electro-voice-speaker.html

This reminded me that there might be people interested in repairing Tannoys. I bought a pair of 12 inch units and crossovers cheaply on Ebay recently. Both had the cloth surrounds to the cones shattered, but the pieces slotted together. I use Isoflex special roof sealer primer as an ultra flexible rubber membrane repair glue - and it's brilliant. So one was repaired easily.

The other unit had been damaged beyond this, having in addition, the final turns of the voice coil mangled as they had crashed back onto the pole piece. Normally one would have reconed but a new Tannoy cone seemed to be beyond my pocket money . . . I started to unpick the turns of the coil very gently, straightened out the wires, inserted some micro solder joints, rewound them into the cylinder and stuck with superglue and shellac  . . .

I had encompassed the possibility of cutting off the voice coil and attaching a new voice coil - and new voice coils are available on Ebay from China. I bought a 2 inch but this was too small, fitting snugly over the pole piece. To my surprise however, the Tannoy voice coil fitted snugly over the CHinese voice coil . . . so I used the unwound section of the Chinese voice coil as the shim in order to position the spider and stabilise entirely the cone assembly for stitching the shattered cloth cone surround with some drops of superglue before homogenising the surround together with the Isoflex.

Perhaps this might encourage anyone else in repairing speakers but if anyone would like something like this done, then I've done it before . . . I have also just finished refurbishing one of a Lowther PM7A pair for someone - the cone was distorted out of shape, the spider and surround rotted away, and the voice coil scraping on the corroded pole pieces . . . now working as good as new . . . . The voice coil gap of these is only 1mm, so with the thickness of voice coil there's only 1/8th to 1/4 mm to play with in recentring the coil in the gap and the secret to this is the jig necessary to re-form exact circularity of the voice coil . . .

Best wishes

David P