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Is there a shortage of female organists of outstanding ability? I have heard in the last year in London Canadian , Danish, Australian and American players of extraordinary artistry, and I didn’t go looking for them particularly. I would have thought that the story of solo organists since 1945 has pretty much been defined by women: Demessieux, Alain, Bate, Weir, Falcinelli, Susi Jeans, Ethel Smith, Ena Baga…

There are lots of pictures of the construction of the Seerhausen copy on the excellent new Wegscheider.eu website.

Alfred Monk, probably.

No, one cannot presume that Samuel Wesley’s lecture concerned equal temperament, since it didn’t . Wesley was referring to Hawkes’s patent organ of 1808, which had 17 pipes to the octave, and a pedal to move from the sharp to the flat side. He went in giving similar lectures until 1830. There’s an extensive article , again by Philip Olleson, in JBIOS 20 (1996).

The Echo pipework was used in a HNB temporary organ of 1952 for St Mary’s Baptist Church (Bootman, Organs of Norwich 2000). It’s not a good idea to use the NPOR as if it’s a carefully considered work of scholarship. The more complex the organ history, the more difficulties there are going to be. The instrument with the extant but disconnected Echo organ is Westminster Abbey.

Mr Carter’s argument (what’s mine is mine and I will do what I like with it) has been known as the ‘Vicar of Tewkesbury’s Defence’ since the 1850s, and even then, it didn’t stand up. The ‘job of work’ argument doesn’t work very well either. An organ is not just a bucket, it’s a work of art (or not) and a monument as well as a tool. Denmark has practically no old organs, because in the C19 and C20 they had lots of money and perceived the old organs as incapable of doing the ‘job’. Spain and Portugal have lots of old organs. For at least a hundred years or so, and to some extent even now, they are completely irrelevant to the purpose for which they were designed.

I’m not sure it’s as clear cut as that. Orgues Thomas went bankrupt in November 2020, by which time the Wrocław organ was well underway. Orgues De Facto operates from the same workshop, and with some of the same staff. Dominique Thomas (now working as a freelance voicer) was at the inauguration.

If you do a quick survey of recent concert organs (or even recent German organs) the concept is actually totally predictable. Weird case. Tick. Micro tones. Tick. Enormous. Tick. Just a huge Riesenorgel really, which is not a particularly radical idea. Just a very, very expensive one.

The previous Dean had no cathedral experience either.

All the references to William Allen of Bristol are derived from one one mistake, which people have copied. There was no such person.

The historic organ is the Brighton one, not the present St. John’s one. Historic Buildings listing does not include organs. Their only concern is with the appearance. Only one organ has ever been declared part of a Listing schedule, and that was in a secular building. College chapels are extra-Diocesan, and the diocese has no say whatsoever.

So perhaps those people who tried to accentuate the positive regarding HTB’s stewardship of the building and its organ might like to reconsider? The St John’s rumour has been going around for some time: Andrew Nethsingha hates the present instrument. Any attempt to move the Willis into St John’s will result in the destruction of a historic organ. Being a college, they can unfortunately do what they want.

But Facebook groups are no more difficult to search than fora... Just because people don't do it doesn't mean it can't be done. Mine has an index, anyway, so you can see what's there.

On the subject of alternative Fora, and at the risk of blowing my own Closed Horn 8 (tc), I would like to invite anyone who is not aware of it to my Facebook group, British Pipe Organs. It is essentially photography based, but encourages (and contains) lively debate on all sorts of organ matters. It's been going for 14 months, and now has about 2000 members and 1500 organs pictured. It's fully searchable and has an index, in the interests of having some sort of semi-permanent usefulness.