stewartt

Now I'm sure that everyone participating in this discussion will accuse me of being completely crazy but I'd just like to ask what it is that you are doing in the privacy of your own home on these amazing things with zillions of stops and gadgets? Not practicing properly, I should imagine. I have at home one rank of nice gedackt pipes played from two manuals and pedals on direct electric action and - guess what - I've ended up doing nearly all my practice on it, because I don't much like practicing in a freezing cold church and also because the pedals actually play in time with the manuals, which certainly doesn't happen on my church organ. Because there are no gadgets to fiddle with I just get on with learning the notes and listening properly to what I'm doing. Once that's all sorted out I take it to the church and add all that stuff that tries to get in the way of the music - swell pedals, combination pistons, stop changes, fiddling about with CCTV cameras, seeing what mischief the choristers are up to etc etc and now that's easy because I've learned the notes properly. And try learning a big French toccata on one rank of fast-speaking gedackt pipes in a completely dead acoustic and you'll be amazed how easy it is when you get it on the church organ - it'll just play itself. Back to basics, chaps.

O.K. Perhaps there's something wrong with my hearing then.

I last played this about ten years ago. What I remember - apart from the joy of one of most breathtakingly beautiful consoles ever made - was how comfortable it was to play, how responsive the action was and how generally easy it was to play. Almost at an H&H level of comfort and convenience. It was a real eye-opener. And the sound is fabulous. The only bad news is the weird swell pedals, which take a bit of getting used to

Here's a different angle. I have in my house an organ built by Brother Charles at Prinknash Abbey, on loan from a friend. It consists of one rank of nice Victorian stopped diapason pipes, all played on direct electric action by two manuals and a full sized pedalboard. I have found this to be so useful for practice that I now visit the church only to rehearse registration and put the finishing touches. In my experience it's all you need really. Not what I would have expected, but what a joy not to have to learn notes in the winter with ends of fingertips slowly going numb at the ends of the mittens. Why put up with a nasty electronic thing?

I've never played anything except various shapes and sizes of English R&C pedalboards. Last weekend I was playing for a wedding at Trinity College Cambridge (wonderful instrument, but that's another story) and did some practice the day before, very nervous about dealing with a continental style pedalboard. I found that after a couple of hours one gets very used to a straight, flat board and indeed on the day didn't play a single bum pedal note (more than can be said for some Sunday mornings - I can tell you!). So it seems that - like trigger swell pedals - it's really not a big deal.

I visited after Easter 2009 and was delighted to find that everything was in full working order and it all sounded great. Trevor Tipple is currently looking after it.

When we restored the Ginns Bros organ at Shipton-under-Wychwood (I'd better not say who the organ builder was although he did a great job for us, in case the Organ Police go after us because it was cone tuned)) we discovered that the Celeste - a lovely Willis style Vox-Angelica as one would expect given the original builder's background - was tuned randomly sharp or flat! I asked for it all to be tuned sharp on the basis that flat celestes don't help the Choir to stay up to pitch. I can't say that it sounded much different as a result. These Willis celestes are just the best, aren't they? The Swell Vox Angelicas and those fabulous Solo strings at Salisbury, roaring around the vaulting like crazy sonic angels. When I was a schoolboy in the late 60s all the experts were telling us we shouldn't have these things and I thought 'Hang on a minute - why is that every time I go into a Cathedral the organists just can't keep their hands off them?. Thank goodness that common sense has returned.

I am assembling the bits for a house organ and have acquired a beautifully made R&C pedalboard. It looks like Willis or Compton work and has the frame and the sharps finished in black. It's in excellent condition but the black finish is wearing off in places. I am sure there will be some experts here who can advise me as to how to restore these parts to their former glory. I am very familiar with using shellac varnishes - is this how it was done?

It is fascinating to feel the hot air that has been expended on this subject over the forty years that have passed since I was a schoolboy. As a parish church organist since I was fourteen I have played organs with Victorian tracker action, trigger swell pedals, balanced swell pedals, electro pneumatic, direct electric, barker lever etc etc. If done properly, they can all work very well, but it really doesn't matter at all which is used because the people listening can't hear the difference anyway. What matters is the siting of the instrument and the quality of the scaling and the voicing of the pipework, plus competence in winding and making it all work properly. After that, accessibility and ease of maintenance are critical. A lot on money has been wasted recreating ingenious and marvellous solutions that can now be done much better in other ways. Surely it's as simple as this, isn't it? If the layout permits, use a properly designed mechanical action. If not, use a good electro-pneumatic or direct electric. The dual console arrangements that we seen over the past couple of decades are just a stupid waste of money, aren't they?

We hired Cambridge Reed Organs' Dubain instrument some years ago for a performance of the Rossini with Chipping Norton Choral Society. We engaged Anne Page to play it and the result was a sensation. We had absolutely no idea that such wonderful sounds could come out this kind of instrument in the right hands. Highly recommended and worth every penny. It completely eclipsed the two Model 'D' Steinways!

Apologies for going back to Gloucester, but I had the pleasure of playing it for a visiting choir evensong last weekend. I've not encountered it before and found it to be one of the most satisfying and musical English organs I have ever played. Yes it doesn't have all the usual English cathedral organ sonic toys, but what it does have is so musical and beautiful and works so well that you don't really want anything else. Leave it alone, please - Downes got this one absolutely right. Stewart Taylor

I suspect that few of us are fond of toggle touch drawstops. I have played plenty of EP organs that don't have this - H&H most notably. They used to have their drawstop solenoids made by Taylors, I think, and very nice they were too, with a deep draw and a a good 'feel'. I don't think Taylor's are still in businesss, so I don't know where they go now. Stewart Taylor

Yes, P&S do a very nice top resistance keyboard. Recent examples are the new keyboards at Hereford and Salisbury Cathedrals and St Laurence's Ludlow. Doubtless there are many more. Willis used to do a similar arrangement (maybe they still do) and I have a very nice example on the 1930s Nicholson/Walker console at Holy Trinity Hereford. Absolutely nothing to do with the touch of a good mechanical action, of course, but very pleasant to play on, nevertheless.

It does seem to me that there is something of a 'grumpy old men' flavour to this strand. It really doesn't have to be this bad. We've got thirteen kids in the choir here at Holy Trinity, Hereford - very ordinary kids from local schools. We're no-compromise NEH and standard 'cathedral' anthems/setting territory. The other day I asked some of our senoir choristers: 'So why do you turn up week by week?' 'Because we love the music' they said, quite unprompted by me. The trick is to find a way to clear the ignorant adults out of the way - maybe bypass the teaching profession if it isn't helping.

I was lucky enough to visit Cleveland Lodge in the days when Lady Jeans was still resident. I'd gone as a BBC Outside Broadcast engineer to record her playing a harpsichord recital produced for Radio Three by Basil Lam. It was a great day out and she was a most charming host. I remember the organ in her study as being very loud and aggressively top-heavy and it seemed even worse when I went back years later and played it in the RSCM days. A good example - as others have said - as to why it is not sensible to have mixtures on house organs.

It is not clear to me whether this topic is now about nightmare parishes or nightmare organists. Rather the latter, it seems.

Isn't it interesting this? I asked a simple question and over half the replies are nothing to do with the question I asked. Wouldn't it be good if folks could stick to the topic?

Wish I'd not mentioned BMWs - got one already, thanks.

It seems that you folks are not short of an opinion on most matters, so I would like to ask your opinion. I am O & C at Holy Trinity, Hereford. As a church we are not bust and we have a decent organ (details on NPOR for those who can't resist), all of which is in good playing order. Lots of people use it for practice, which is great, and a couple of teachers teach on it. Hardly anybody pays anything. It does seem to me that people ought to expect to put something in the kitty towards the cost of heat, light, electricity and maintenance but I am in a quandry as to what might be a reasonable figure to ask. Students, for sure, should be able to use the organ as much as they want for nothing; we need to encourage the next generation. But what about well-heeled pensioners who arrive in BMWs? And should teachers pay to use the organ? Your thoughts and views will be of interest. What do other people do? What should we do? Stewart Taylor

You're absolutely right here. The truth, I suspect, is that our builders are just not building enough instruments to fine-tune what is, after all, a very empirical process. Anyone who has had the privilege of being involved with a good organ builder in the fascinating business of starting from scratch, even if it's only one stop, will rapidly realise how incredibly complicated and touchy the whole business of creating sound from organ pipes actually is. I think they've now completely mastered the mechanics of actions and winding in a way that the Victorians (surprisingly) never did, but the creation of a cohesive tonal scheme that works in a particular acoustic is very hit-and-miss - and that's if you don't have clients/advisers/architects who know nothing and do everything to mess up the final result. I've played many tremendous Victorian organs that have worked really well in the context of today's parish church services and today's very different ideas about registration and articulation. We use them differently now, but they rise to the challenge. What they all have in common is that they were knocked up month after month out of standard ranks of pipework that the factory was turning out by the hundred every month. Practice makes perfect. In another field, the Steinway piano has reached the peak of perfection (if you like that sort of thing, which I do) that it currently occupies because they've been at it for so many years and built so many pianos. If I had one suggestion for where we are right now, I'd say please let the organ builders get on with it and stop interfering. The more we push them this way and that the less chance they get to perfect one particular house style. I think we'd get a better result if gave them more space. Stewart Taylor

Oh please - let's not go back to the sixties and seventies when we had pompous experts tell us what we could and could not have and we got lumbered with a lot of really useless instruments (and a few good ones as well - OK I admit). Organs in English churches are there to (a) accompany hymns (:angry: accompany the choir - if there still is one © make spiritually uplifiting liturgical sound effects (don't knock it - it works) and (d) maybe play some organ music that nobody much will listen to unless you're really lucky - not necessarily in that order. So please can we have the humilty to relearn how to make those totally effective Hill/Willis/Harrison/Nicholson/Walker/Gray and Davison etc instruments that did (and still do) the job so superbly well. 14 stops is plenty if the siting is right. I think it's been going in the right direction of late and our English builders certainly have mastered how to make superb actions of all types. I'm not interested in fancy or progressive instruments - being clever is not necessary. Being good and effective and fit for purpose is. Stewart Taylor