I have followed the debates on this forum for several years and apart from the rather ungracious negativity of some contributors have found the posts of others such as Colin Harvey and Nigel Allcoat both interesting and informative. However, as someone who sits on the lower rungs of the organ ladder ( if not the bottom one!) I see a growing problem with both parish church and chapel organs and would be interested to hear colleagues' comments.
With declining congregations, changes in musical style and the increasingly straitened financial position of many churches and chapels, adequate maintenance of the organ is slipping well down the priority list for many parishes and congregations. Where I live you probably only need the fingers of one hand to count the number of instruments that are well maintained; many needing tens of thousands of pounds spent on them to restore them to good playing order. Recently i had occasion to play a 3 manual digital instrument which, although perhaps not my ideal sound, gave me serious pause for thought. First was the pleasure of sitting at a very comfortable console but secondly, and more importantly, everything did 'what it said on the tin' thus allowing me to concentrate on the music and my performance of it rather than remembering the current set of problems and how I could avoid them.
If this situation continues, and I see no sign of it improving, then will pipe organs be confined to cathedrals, the larger parish churches and Oxbridge colleges? With the savage cuts in local authority spending, even well known civic instruments may have an uncertain future as in the big question mark hanging over the Cavaille Coll in the Parr Hall, Warrington ( an instrument I knew well in my youth). Am I being unnecessarily pessimistic?