Organ matters - Organs matter!

I also would be glad to see Paul Derrett here. I have some of these recordings, and recommend
them, also for the quite interesting british organs he uses.

Best wishes,
Pierre

Well, Cavaillé-Coll did not invent all ! The Crescendo-based tonal design was already emerging
during Bach's time, in his region, with the whitdrawal of the division of the organ in two parts
(Engchor versus Weitchor, i.e. the Principal chorus and the rest)  and the builder who summarized it in an integrated concept
was Eberhard Friedrich Walcker.
As for the couplers, the very last move, that is, having the reeds and mixtures "exported" towards enclosed divisions,
leaving the Great with only fundation stops, this was imagined by E.M. Skinner in the US, and nearly all the europeans
quickly followed.
One should not underestimate the influence of the US builders in Europe. As early as 1880, for example, a belgian builder,
Kerkhoff, who worked nearly only in Brussels and Liège, built his own version of the Roosevelt windchest.

Best wishes,
Pierre

A stunning performance, maybe the best Mendelssohn on Youtube,
on a magnificent organ visited and appreciated by Cavaillé-Coll (the Witte-Bätz organ
of the oude kerk, Delft, NL):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe1Sy1Qiof4

Best wishes,
Pierre

Here is the original Specifications by Oscar Walcker:

http://www.walckerorgel.de/gewalcker.de/PDF/op2073.pdf

The original windchests have been destroyed in the 70's, and replaced with
the then "mandatory" slider-chests.

An historical summary:

http://international.stockholm.se/Tourism-and-history/The-Famous-City-Hall/Facts-and-history/The-City-Hall-Organ/Brief-history/

There are two reasons for the french organs to be ofter off-tune than the british ones:

1)- Free-toned reeds, with thin tongues, hold their tune more difficultly than the less-free toned ones
      (not to mention the closed-toned ones that still exist) from Britain, with thicker tongues;

2)- The West-end position, above the high doors, sees the organ precisely in the high part of the building,
      where the modern heating systems gather the warmth. You can have there 25°C, for example, when
      there are 18° at floor level.

But as a matter of fact, when you visit organs in Situ -in Britain as well as elsewhere- there are always at least
some pipes that are more or less off-tune.

Best wishes,
Pierre

Indeed it is frequent that modern organs present a "clean" voicing, with every voice
next to the other, rather than blending togheter. This was typical for the
neo-baroque period, and this is what the toaster imitate -of course, such devices
could never reproduce any blend at all-. Moreover, organs that are too well in tune
may reinforce this impression, like dry acoustics too. Whenever you hear an off-tune pipe,
you instinctly know you have the real thing.

Best wishes,
Pierre

....Moreover, there is something about it on the Internet, and easy to find:

http://www.shadysidepres.org/node/26

And here is the Specifications , this time the present-day, Reuter's one:

http://database.organsociety.org/SingleOrganDetails.php?OrganID=10818

(I had previously linked towards the 1990 Möller's one)

Quote from: AnOrganCornucopia on January 16, 2012, 12:03:33 PM
Indeed so! I know I've been guilty of that on a number of occasions.

Incidentally, Pierre, how did you get the information that it's a Reuter pipe organ?

In Situ, in 1994. I went there about one month after the job was finished.

1) About the touch of the pneumatic action:

Mr Mander is not alone about the difference between EP and pneumatic action.
This is recognized since many decades, and, in continental Europe, there are many
organs that have already been reverted to the pneumatic action (when they were originally
built so of course)
Did you ever try them ?
If the touch of the pneumatic action was the same as with EP, then it would be the case
with Barker levers as well (there, too, there is no mechanical link between the note and
the soundboard pallet, and one could speak of an "ON-OFF" action. But any organist
knows this is not the case.)
Again, if so, we should rebuild Cavaillé-Coll organs with EP action instead of painstakingly
preserving them.

2)About the very purpose of the organ.

If we adopt a "managerial" view -and I have been paid for 27 years to do so-, an utilitarian,
value-for-money, would-be-"rational" one (a rationale which in fact never exists!), you are right.
But then, why still have pipe organs in the first place ? If the organ is a tool like, say, a fridge,
a toaster is all we need.

Best wishes,
Pierre

This is a new video, featuring a splendid Psalm-Prelude by Herbert Howells:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhSSB-zLaAA

The organ is a 1994 Reuters, built with pipework of the previous organ.

Best wishes,
Pierre

Well, may I suggest you read the article by John Pike Mander again ?

With the experience we have in Belgium with pneumatic actions, it seems the critical factor
is above all to have the organ played daily, so that the conditions within the soundboards remain
the same as they are outside, while this keeps the leather supple.
A pneumatic organ which is played daily lasts even longer than a tracker (I had to leave another forum
for having written this. But the organs (more than 100 years without releathering! are there to testify....)

Best wishes,
Pierre

I found this article today with a great pleasure:

http://www.mander-organs.com/portfolio/sacred-heart-wimbledon.html

It deserves a carefull reading ! needless to say, I am eager to find sound files.

Best wishes,

Pierre

I have no taste for luxury, and would change nothing to my way of life, save for some books
and CDs more. But I think I would start an organ-building workshop with two aims:
1)- To re-visit the Casparini and the thuringian baroque styles.
2)- To re-visit the Post-romantic organ style, in a multicultural way (what else expect from a belgian,
cramped between Germany, France, England and the Netherlands ?) with pneumatic action (and any
electronic device limited to an external PC, so that the very fragile electronics would not remain in the church
when not in use, while the many updates could be done easier).
There is something that could be done in both those ways. The Casparini organ of Görlitz remains a myth that
deserves some kind of reconstitution; the baroque organs of the J-S Bach's epoch and area are still partly there,
while the Neo-baroque period preffered simplified versions of the northern organs, so that there is no proper
Bach-organ outside Thüringen and (part of) Sachsen plus the Brandenburg (by a builder from Sachsen, J.Wagner, who
I suspect might have been trained partly in Thüringen as well); the works of Arthur Harrison, Lewis, H-J, Willis III,
Stahlhuth, Oscar Walcker, Koulen, Kerkhoff (a belgian builder), The later Goll firm (after Friedrich's thus), Gebrüdern Link,
E-M Skinner, among others, lend to think the Orgelbewegung stopped an immensely creative period that still had
to present a vast synthesis of styles.

The way to Vegas please ?

Best wishes,
Pierre

This is particularly important with pneumatic actions; the more you play them, the better
they go. The leather parts remain fit, the temperature within the soundboards remains close
to the one that prevails outside, the dust cannot accumulate in minute adjustments...
We have several pneumatic organs in Belgium that work perfectly since more than 100 years,
to the point the belief "Pneumatic was not a good idea" is seriously questionned nowadays.
All those organs are played every day, either in busy churches or in colleges (College St-Michel,
Etterbeek/ Brussels is a good example) since day one.

Best wishes,
Pierre

An absolute gem, but you must be prepared to listen to it like an organ you visist in Situ
in a forgotten area: the condition of the organ is bad, and the last tuning must have occured
some years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsGwuCJztNQ&feature=share

The organ was built 1904 by Wegenstein, an austrian builder who established himself
towards 1880 in Timisoara.

This is a forum about the organ, not religious matters. Those are quite complicated, I know it from having
myself tried to understand what I could about those matters.
Moreover, this is quite a hot topic worldwide nowadays, when we have many people throwing the debates
towards the extremes, often basing themselves upon a knowledge of the matter I fear could be somewhat
limited -I would never dare to enter such a debate, despite having read the Bible, St-Augustin et al a certain
number of times, not to mention others sacred litteratures from India, Thaïland (I have had interesting experiences
there in buddhist monasteries) etc.
So I think we should better avoid such debates on an organ forum.
From that view point, such a signature as the one discussed here is a provocative thing, as it tends to lauch
such debates.
In the troubled times we live in, maybe it is better to restrict onesellf, with such matters, to a silent study, confrontation,
meditation with the sources. The rest belongs to who we know.

Best wishes,
Pierre

Another pilgrinage: The Trost organ of Grossgöttern, Thuringia.
Played by an excellent organist, and a good quality recording with it:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xblxas_cd-promo-helga-schauerte-integrale_music

There is no need for a swellbox for Rheinberger. As for Reger, the need is actually quite limited,
though we know Straube used it -but he was influenced by the US organs!-

The Angermünde church would be quite richly equipped then ! Why not ?