Barry Oakley
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Posts posted by Barry Oakley
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Frankly, I put Cameron Carpenter and Wayne Marshall on a par, closely followed by Carlo Curley. All of them are showmen with egos far too big for the music they ultimately destroy.
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Thanks for the link, Barry. Interesting stoplist: two undulants, a Great with 2 Open Diapasons and mutations (that must be quite rare in the UK), no Dulciana (doesn't worry me). Bigger than the Christ Church Rieger and a much better acoustic.
Anybody know what's happening to the old Merton organ? I quite liked it when I gave a recital there in 1980.
I'm not sure, but if you take a look at the construction pictures they could reveal a clue. One picture in particular would seem to show trays of pipework suggesting that some of the pipework may have been salvaged from the earlier organ. It does not look to be of new manufacture.
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I see that Dobson Pipe Organs, USA., have now commenced construction of their opus 91 destined for Merton College, Oxford, and scheduled for completion in 2013.
See: http://www.dobsonorgan.com/html/instruments/op91_merton.html
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Hi everyone,
I've been pondering about the topic of stopper lubrication and was wondering what peoples opinions were about using Tallow (rendered lambs fat) or Talcum powder.
I can see advantages to both options; e.g. with Tallow you can effectively 'set and forget' and it does provide some seal in the gaps that can occur between the leather and the pipe.
Would be interested to hear other contributors views on this.
JA
I have known an application of neatsfoot oil to stoppers that has successfully revived the seal and the leather.
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I know of a lady who had been an exemplary teacher for the best part of 40 years or more, a role that did not require her to have a CRB certificate. When she retired she offered and was accepted to return to her school as an unpaid person who listened to children with reading difficulties and helped them overcome their problem. She was unable to fulfil this role until she had been CRB checked and was in possession of the appropriate certificate. How utterly ridiculous!
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...Returning to the electric action of pipe organs, I would be most interested to hear opinions regarding the concept of Compton's patent luminous stop, one of the most visible (although inaudible) of his signature inventions. Ignore for now the foibles of its practical realisation e.g. the reliance on a relatively frail lamp, the ease with which the second touch can sometimes be engaged by accident, the erratic behaviour of incorrectly adjusted reversers. Is it a convenience or merely a gimmick? Is it evidence of MM's theory that invention at Acton sometimes ran ahead of necessity - a concern that Willis was quite vocal about in connection with action developments generally? I wonder about it during the long hours of reverser-adjusting and lamp-replacing!
Lucien
I would tend to agree with MM. From my researches Compton's patent luminous stops fall into like or dislike categories. Quite some years ago I was at one time fairly conversant with the overall reliability of the system at Holy Trinity, Hull. From memory I can only recall rare occasions of lamp replacement (can you still get them from new?). The late Norman Strafford liked them because of the double-touch facility, the only criticism at one time being the effect of strong sunlight negating the bulb illumination. But this was remedied by detaching the actual stop head and inserting a circular piece of brown paper that gave the stop a warm glow. The organ at Holy Trinity, now 74 years old, has never been touched apart from tunings although some ranks no longer speak and wear and tear is causing other undesirable problems. But at Hull City Hall, the late Peter Goodman had the Compton console modified by the introduction of conventional drawstops. As he once said to me, "I like something to hang onto."
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Does anyone have a schematic or operators/installers instruction sheet for these. We're working on one at present and cannot track down a fault. PM me if this is easier.
Thanks,
Jonathan
Cannot Kimber Allan give you any information?
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Mentioning Richard Hills, here's an absolute delight, as he takes to the piano, with the excellent Simon Gledhill playing a privately owned theatre organ somewhere in deepest Lincolnshire.
Richard is nothing of not versatile.
MM
Great stuff! I've been thinking (for a change), might this be the Compton that the late Ted Crampton had a hand in getting up and running again? Sorry, should not have used the word running as I did not detect any.
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CRASH!
(i just fainted)
MM
So you fainted, MM. Heaven knows what calamity would have happened to you if you had witnessed what I once did at a RC cathedral in Yorkshire one Good Friday - nubile young women attired in red dancing round the altar.
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Beautiful! Everything Jos van der Kooy touches always seems so right, and that superb organ makes you wonder why Mendelssohn ever came to England at the time.
Thank you for posting, even if I did almost end up dating a Chinese lady,
MM
I have to agree. It's undeniably gorgeous and reminds me so much of my late friend, Peter Goodman, playing the Mendellsohn on the organ of Holy Trinity, Hull, when it was in a first-class condition.
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Mein Gott! They're trying to beat us at our own game. Did they have an English consultant/adviser, one wonders, or is this just a Rheinlander's fantasy of what an English concert organ should sound like.
JS
If Birmingham's Symphony Hall is anything of a yardstick there is a long way to go.
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I shall never be a convert to chip-board however!
MM
And neither shall I, having once had a replacement flat roof made from the stuff that when the rain finally penetrated it turned to porridge.
But I have heard of MDF being used for chests and I suppose if it's properly glue flooded (and it is a stable material), it should be OK.
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Did not John Compton in his early days acquire Gern's workshop facilities Nottingham? Or am I way off track?
Yes, I was a bit off track. John Compton actually took over Gern's Turnham Green premises.
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Did not John Compton in his early days acquire Gern's workshop facilities Nottingham? Or am I way off track?
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Absolutely electrifying. A musician who plays with his ears. Loved it.
I could not agree more!
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If you get a chance, listen to the organ voluntary from Lincoln in this weeks Choral Evensong.
Colin Walsh's reading of Allegro from Symphony no.2 is outstanding and the organ, as always, sounds magnificent.
I have a very critical hi-fi system and I thought CW's registration was exceedingly muddy, given the super Willis he has at his disposal. I heard him live at Hull City Hall one Friday lunchtime many years ago and considered his registration lacked for clarity.
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This was the organ, built by Samuel Green, once in Bangor Cathedral, but presently unplayable and in the Church of the Holy Angels, Hoar Cross, Staffordshire.
http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=N05336
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I had to smile ruefully when I read this, because it reminds me about the Royal Engineers during in WWII, who wanted to set out explosive mines on the dirt roads somewhere on the Chinese Pennisula, to prevent enemy movement and action. The problem was, that when the mines were buried, they left a very visible patch in the roads, which could be seen, with the result that the enemy drivers just steered around them. With enormous ingenuity, I think it was the late Sir Michael Bentine, who came up with the idea of making a mock pile of elephant droppings, which they covered the patches with. The enemy drivers thought it fun to drive over them......kerboom!
They were a remarkable generation of brilliant and often devious minds.
The more I read about John Compton and those around him, the more I begin to wonder if they weren't like crackpot boffins; forever inventing things for the sheer fun of inventing things, but perhaps I do them an injustice.
I know that an electrical engineer of some status, was shown a Compton relay cabinet, which was far more compact than anything which had been made previously. After studying it for some time, he is reputed to have said, "I don't believe what I'm looking at, it is absolutely brilliant."
Unfortunately, for someone who is attempting to gather all the information together, I've never been inside a Compton theatre organ; though I have played many. On the other hand, I've helped tune and maintain, (as well as disassemble), Wurlitzer organs, but that doesn't help very much does it?
I'm quite looking forward to the moment that I feel the need to go out and see things for myself, and perhaps take photographs.
The thought occurs to me, that I have a recorder, from which I can get half a dozen notes quite easily.......ten pipes plus a bit of Compton ingenuity and we've got a whole flute register....at least in single notes.
MM
You might like to take a look at this website http://www.pipesinthepeaks.co.uk/ The organ is, I believe, looked after by Cartwright Organ Builders who are based in the Potteries. As the name suggests, the organ is based in the Peak District and I'm sure the owners, they run the adjacent garage, would be obliging if you were to make contact with them. I just called in one day, they had never clapped eyes on me before yet they happily let me have a look.
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Paul Derrett ("Cynic") has done a couple of recordings on Compton organs. Downside Abbey - Benchmarks Records 806831CD and Holy Trinity, Hull - Benchmarks Records 806833CD. Both can be heard on Organlive.com.
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Amazing that of all the great organ builders this country has turned out (and Compton is certainly amongst them) it is Compton who seems to have commanded the greatest amount of attention.
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I'm sure you don't have to apologise. It can get quite complicated with Compton, as I'm sure you will appreciate. However, the organ at Trinity was certainly a large one to start with, and the extension ranks are relatively few. As you will know, the City Hall instrument has a pedal division of some 33 stops, (including 5 or 6 percussions which had Bairstow in an apoplectic state), but almost all the flues are entirely straight. (20 + ranks of them!)
The information about the two-note polyhone pipes is interesting.
With regard to empliyees going to other companies, I am grateful for the Casavant connection. Another former employee ended up in Australia.....Lawrence I think, was his name....I have the details somewhere. He continued to build fine examples of extension organs, which are highly regarded down under.
I'm still absolutely intrigued by the possible H,N & B connection, and even more intrigued by the Compton supply of Mixture ranks to one of the American greats, Walter Holtkamp.
It occured to me yesterday, that all this shredding away of the outer-wrapper, to reveal the contents, simply wouldn't have been possible before the computer age, but so quick and efficient is the internet, I constantly find things in the most unexpected of places.
Of course, putting meat back on the skeleton is going to be much more difficult....and creative. Without company records, and only anecdotal information, any semblance to chronology really has to be abandoned, which is how people tend to write about things past as a kind of structure and discipline. That's why it has to be a creative undertaking, but at least the patents shine a little light on the development and chronology.
I wonder, did Compton switch entirely to war-effort work during WWII?
Does anyone know?
The reason I ask comes from a statement I read, which includes the line "........after the war in 1947, Compton resumed building organs."
If they were only involved in war-work connected with electrical equipment (?) and RADAR, it makes the output of the firm even more impressive in London, because it would reduce actual organ production time to about 20-25 years.
MM
In one of my earlier postings I believe I remember mentioning a lengthy telephone chat I had with the wife of Frank Hancock. A lovely interesting lady who had been with the company since around 1936 and where she met and later married Frank. She gave me the distinct impression that much of Compton's work was given over to the war effort and that any organ work was largely tuning and maintenance.
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Around 10 or so years ago, maybe more, I had some involvement in the rebuilding of the Compton unit/extension organ, formerly at Oxted, Surrey, and now in the Methodist church at Hessle near Hull which replaced a clapped-out Wyvern analogue and which in turn had replaced the original Abbot & Smith. It contained a rank of flues on the pedal division which you refer to in "Factoid 2". They each had an electrically-operated device at the top of the pipe which allowed the corresponding sharp to be played from - e.g. C-C-sharp, D-D-sharp etc., etc.
In an earlier posting you refer to Holy Trinity, Hull as having extension. Whilst it has duplexing in some instances, it is a straight organ.
Sorry, but I was only going on what the late Peter Goodman had said to me re Holy Trinity. My only experience within the two cases was some tuning on the Solo and Swell. There is clearly extension elsewhere according to NPOR.
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If it's of any interest MM, in the compilation of facts you are gathering about Compton, when I had a chat with Alistair Rushworth some years ago I remember him saying that one, possibly a couple of former Compton men, took off for Canada after the company folded to work for Casavant.
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Thanks Tony. I think David Drinknell had worked out the same and suggested this as an option.
To keep abreast of my research, I came across one or two interesting factoids; one of which has yet to be confirmed at source.
Factoid 1) Compton Polyphones came in THREE types. CCCC versions, EEEE version and, the version I'd never heard of, in which one pipe plays two notes.
Factoid 2) I stumbled across an interesting statement. "Hill, Norman & Beard, who supplied pipework to Compton....etc"
Factoid 3) John Compton supplied mixture pipework to Walter Holtkamp in America.
Intriguing and intriguering..........
I'm sitting on a small mountain of such information.
MM
Around 10 or so years ago, maybe more, I had some involvement in the rebuilding of the Compton unit/extension organ, formerly at Oxted, Surrey, and now in the Methodist church at Hessle near Hull which replaced a clapped-out Wyvern analogue and which in turn had replaced the original Abbot & Smith. It contained a rank of flues on the pedal division which you refer to in "Factoid 2". They each had an electrically-operated device at the top of the pipe which allowed the corresponding sharp to be played from - e.g. C-C-sharp, D-D-sharp etc., etc.
In an earlier posting you refer to Holy Trinity, Hull as having extension. Whilst it has duplexing in some instances, it is a straight organ.
Worth a good look...
in The Organ
Posted
I much agree that this forum has lost much of its former vibrancy. Although unfortunately expelled some time ago (perhaps the moderators would have yet another serious rethink), I miss the highly informed and often thought provoking contributions from "Cynic" (Paul Derrett). I know he is sorely missed by others, too.