kropf

Regarding technical specs of the Hannover instrument: Do not trust the german sources to much, even the interviewed organist mixes up the date of build (1902/1904). Schulte organ builders (near Cologne) have quite a reputation for importing English organs, sometimes redesigning them technically and optically. Some references given here: http://www.orgelbau-schulte.de/de/htmls/england_amerika.htm and on the home page http://www.orgelbau-schulte.de/ they say that they can rely on a pool of about 50 english/american instruments. And they definitely argue with the financial benefits of re-using existing material...

Another one now inaugurated in Hannover area: https://www.orgelbau-huefken.de/aktuelle-projekte/hannover.html News report, images, and a brief video (after some advertising....) In his short statement the organist points out the organs' capability to accompany choirs very well. http://www.haz.de/Hannover/Aus-den-Stadtteilen/Sued/Suedstadt-Nazarethkirche-hat-neue-Orgel

Interesting thoughts and ideas here. In Germany there are several compositions in print, which more or less successfully try to generate encounters for young audiences with pipe organs. They may appear as short musicals, stuff like "Peter and the Wolf" etc. A more recent activity was started following the listing of German organ building etc. as immaterial UNESCO world heritage. A small foundation around Jäger & Brommer organ builders runs the "Königskinder" project. The name (king's children) refers to the children of the King of Instruments. This project supports organists, parishes or schools who seek to bring children into contact with pipe organs with an Orgelkoffer, an organ suitcase, which contains several materials to explore an organ and to get deeper understanding of it. Well, more precisely said: At the end, the idea is to gain an "organ portrait" produced by the young "researchers" and incorporated into a larger database (published online). A physical portrait for display on site is beeing made, too. The idea is that schools or teachers apply for such an event, the project team will then make contact with local organs and organists suitable for that purpose resp. missing in the database of the "Deutsche Orgelstraße" (Organ Road of Germany). I think it is not impolite to say that the project is promoted by the named organ builders who may seek to gain interest for their work. Anyway, the idea may work. The Blog section of the website shows the first events. This project strengthens or initiates connection between children and instruments in their local surroundings, a quite important aspect. The website (German only) : https://www.koenigskinder.online/ To encourage young people to PLAY organs, the leading German project is the youth organ forum based at Stade (close to Hamburg, in the Heart of the Arp Schnitger region). Even if you do not read German, the photograph showing so many teenage organists at once is quite touching: http://www.jugendorgelforum.de/ Karl-Bernhardin Kropf

Here is some good news, which may encourage this forum, too: As announced yesterdy, it became possible for the manager of the named second german forum to migrate it to SSL encryption and to update the software. This was made possible by a donation. May all organ fora prosper in 2019!

Hello everybody! After three years break, I am writing a contribution again.... I want to let you know that the provider of the second largest german-speaking forum (orgel-information) has announced to close down, as some work to be done regarding the need of https-encryption doesn't seem to him worth the effort anymore, as his forum has fallen into sort-of sleep, too. The dominant german forum (pfeifenorgelforum) is still busy, but also sees times of very little activity, and it is quite fascinating that one can't find any cause or pattern responsible for that. Facebook might be an issue, for shure. I promise to have o more frequent look to Mander's! As mentioned above, many hundreds of readers do benefit from the knowledge beeing shared here. For me as an organist from abroad who is addicted to anglican church music, it was and still is an important source. So, thanks go to all who kept this alive through the past years! Greetings from Karl-Bernhardin Kropf, DOM St. Mary's Church of Rostock, Germany

Thank you for making me aware of this final verse of "O come". For me, personally, this song bears many remembrances to early services in catholic music in Austria, where I grew up, and in my following lutheran years in Germany. Both hymnals contained this piece, and as a singer I learned the nice Kodaly setting, too. This setting by Andrew Carter and so many other arrangements are constantly proving that the art of decorating and reinforcing congregational singing and hymns is at its highest in English cathedrals.

Beeing one of the mentioned Rostock singers, I want to thank DHM for giving us opportunity to share this experience. It was among my toughest and most beautiful experiences as a musician. Beeing known here on the forum as admirer of Anglican church music, it was the first time I was part of a native performers group as a singer, which I enjoyed the more that I normally only conduct or play the organ at home. Having attended many evensongs at great places and translated it to our Rostock version, it was still an incredible challenge to cope the Ladies und Gentlemen of with Rochester Cathedral Voluntary Choir - according to German levels a very experienced and well-sounding choir - to have the right pieces at hand at the right moment, to keep close contact with the conductor and to link into the high musical tension, which was kept throughout all services... The estimation of the daily musical work which is done in the cathedrals and major churches in the Anglican world has doubled, and it was high before.... Thank you everybody out there for keeping and making flourishing this tradition. As this is an organ-related forum, I want to say that Rochester Cathedral's organ was among the very impressive experiences of cathedral organs I have had until now. Projection ad sound in the quire is very compact, and it seems well capable of bearing the congregational singing on sundays. Though I hope to achieve similar effects at home, I never experienced the feeling of a congregation beeing united or melted together by the organ accompaniment to the hymns that much before. This all would not have happened without a superb player, always on the spot throughout the rehearsals, making use of a wide variety of sounds for choir accompaniment and giving us Dupre's B-major prelude as Sunday postlude. It was Matthew Jorysz, currently organ scholar at Clare College, Cambridge. And, back to topic: I'm a native Austrian, living in Germany since 1992. My generation has been told its lessons and has quite thoroughly learned them. Therefore it is always interesting and important to see, what commemoration of the Great War or WW II does like on the side of those, who helped to make them end. Naturally, the view will differ slightly from those who started all. Every day I tell the visitors to our organ loft (part of our noon prayer routine) the story of the removal of 3.000 pipes in 1917 for ammunition industry just in our own organ (the 90 facade pipes where to be sacrificed, but it was decided to kick out everything which would not have survived an intended major rebuild, too...), and I tell them about the inauguration of the next organ in Nov 1938, the air raids of 1942-44 and how they brought back what has been sent out... May it never happen again. Greetings from Rostock KBK

As most often, I have no answer, but would like to share the interest in it, as this question was risen regarding the organ I'm serving at. The fact, that the wind enters at the treble end at some soundboards was seen as an issue, as the wind consuming bass seemed to be under-supplied. As improvement improvement it was thought not to simply change the entry side, but to create an additional entry.

Hello SlovOrg, thanks for your reply! The underground archive is a very nice find. And your Slovenia option made me think it over, and I tried IE instead of my standard Firefox - an idea I did not have before - so I finally could listen to Exeter Cathedral! Thus the problem is limited to a few cubic centimeters and I can fix it somewhere in the Firefox PlugIn area... Edit on Dec 20th: ....it happened today with the automatic installation of the latest Firefox version - I'm happy to join evensong audience again!

Sadly, I cannot follow resp. share discussions of BBC3 Evensong anymore, as they obviously have cancelled the podcast possibibility for listeners abroad. I can understand copyright reasons, but for me it is a loss of a loved connection to Anglican church music. To hear the mentioned (and future) Norwich evensong would have been nice, as I've been there not long ago. Greetings Karl-Bernhardin Kropf

Don't forget the interludes after everly line of the hymn - we do not exactly know, what happened when where, but there are so many examples of interludes all over protestant Germany. I even have some 19th century examples in our own church records here, providing two different versions at each line's end, so you could pretend (at least two verses long) you have the required improvisational skills. If you have a look at Bach's preserved Arnstadt Chorales and the interludes there (and you are aware that he was charged of irritating the congregation! It is even said in the records of his Arnstadt case, that he was called to KEEP a strange tone/note and not to turn to another one immediately), then one could imagine, that, by some more exotic changes in those flourisihing lines, he could have managed it in a way that we would be able to understand at least a little bit...

So, you must have been lucky with your choice of locations! There are many books around with accompaniments for the hymns, 3-part, 4-part, piano compatible, lower for "older" generations and funerals (???), but the problem is, that weak players are heavily struggling with them in cases when the hymns have been scheduled very lately (at catholics often minutes before service starts - the dreadful electric displays for the hymn numbers make it possible...), so they decide not to practice or slow down too much and do freestyle harmonization. Even at players with church music diploma, you can hear many things pressing one to express "Keep the printed settings, please!" Another problem is aesthetics: Many players who are aware of harmonic tricks use hymn harmonization as a showcase for their skills. The first verse of a hymn is often enriched so much that it should be reserved for last verses on special occasions. Very frequently you can find printed outcomes like this, when such players are asked to contribute to hymn collections. The weak players using such collections thus have to repeat those "special effect settings" for many verses... On the other hand, organists who combine taste and capabilities, can really lift up the emotions of a singing congregation. Talking about names, I would take Peter Planyavsky first. Wolfgang Seifen is extremely talented, especially in romantic stuff, but once he is at the console, he is like a boy in a toys store and has difficulties to restrict himself from doing everything what he is able to..... (which makes his improvisation concerts often tiring on highest level)

Alas! Here and there I check the Ruffatti website. Little to read about new installations, but the "backstage" section has been extended. And in the "pipework" area, there is now a description of exactly what I was thinking about - scroll to the end of that page!

Yes, of course, I was not clear in my reply. Even as a joke, it referred to music which could be played along to chiming bells, sought in the opening post.... The art of change-ringing is to be highly admired. Though those various kinds of mentioned artistry in Italy, which put the ringers often at a very high risk by getting hands on bells and clappers directly (youtube shows plenty of such scenes) are fascinating, too. But this strange system of English change-ringing, which is not commanded by musical means but mathematical patterns, is one of those things you can find on your islands only. When I was promoting our huge bell restoration project here, I got "The Nine Tailors" by Dorothy L. Sayer as a gift. In her foreword she says something like the above about the art of ringing, which could only have been developed in England. A very nice book. Are there any similar books dealing with crime and organs involved?

At least, "Ding, dong, merrily on high" should always work...? BTW, this is one of the English carols I could listen to/sing all year long. Is it just because of the foreign language that one can stand carols even outside christmas season?