Alsa

All I can say is that there are loads of scores you come across from Bach through to Rossini where you get C clefs times 3, and no matter what amount of time you'd take preparing (even transcribe Rossini's Stabat Mater if you wish) when standing on the rostrum and someone asks you a question then THAT's when you wish you could read the clef fluently. But it's like all exams - it's there to test you, surely, not just see what you already know? It's about what you do when required to think on your feet... to push your boundaries, stretch your mind. (Except we don't do that anymore in modern education do we? Everyone passes, just some pass better than others. "All pigs are equal...")

I think that I can possibly shed some light on both things you mention. The first is that the Birmingham development as I understand it involved the college being in area where there were going to be all sorts of other developments in close proximity which would have been a supportive environment and provided passing trade. These other developments started to fall through and left the college a bit high and dry. When revamping the figures it became clear the college was going to fall heavily into debt - so it did the only sensible thing which was to get out of that development area too. Regarding the C clef business - the syllabus with score reading in G treble, C alto and tenor and F bass clefs was just merely an exercise which had no practical equivalent, whereas three C clefs, soprano, alto and tenor plus an F bass clef is bog standard in published choral music well into the 19th century. So therefore you could expect to encounter these and need to be able to read them. Just try conducting a Mass by Mozart from full score, for example, and you'll see the point.

It was well documented in articles about St David's organ that Paul Hale kindly donated some old spare HN&B drawstops from the old organ at Southwell, which matched the existing HN&B stops at St Davids. If you have ever worked with H&H you would know that Mark V would never try to pull the wool. The H&H reputation, and his, is just not worth it - and anyway he is a man of the highest integrity. (As indeed is JPM ...)

Yes - was just on ITV3 in the "An Audience with..." series

Yes, you would be very safe to assume that would be the case on a Hill organ of this period. That's the normal way English organ couplers work unless there are also intermanual octave couplers e.g. Swell Sub-octave to Great on, say, organs by Willis in the mid 20th century.

No it's one of those great organs from up north!

You die on your own sword, precisely because you haven't bothered to hear some of the better organs in London. And guess what - all you seem to be able to come up with is a series of large organs - and yet you discounted the 6 largest in London, which includes the largest organ in the country! Large isn't always best, it's what you do with it that counts - though up north they probably still turn the lights off first! Merchant Taylors? Quite nice I suppose once you get past the chiff, but not perhaps NPM's finest hour. To quote a famous recital organist: "Well done anyway!"

I hope not. It's certainly very easy to think there are no organs worth playing/listening to in London outside those 6 places - but when you stop and think about it, it's just not true!

Yes, you are quite right - because discounting six large organs - St Paul's, Westminster Abbey and Cathedral, Southwark Anglican, RAH, RFH there aren't any really significant organs inside Greater London ... except perhaps (and the list isn't exhaustive) Historic (say pre 1880) St Giles Camberwell St Vedast Foster Lane St James Clerkenwell Greenwich Naval College St Anne Limehouse St Mary Rotherhithe Christ Church Spitalfields (soon) Buckingham Palace H&H The Temple Church All Souls Langham Place All Saints Margaret St All SS Tooting Graveney Hill St Mary-at-Hill St Mary Abbots Kensington St Peter Cornhill St John Hyde Park Crescent Mander St Matthew Westminster St Giles Cripplegate St Andrew Holborn Lewis St Mary Bourne St + another in south London - I can't quite remember where at the moment! Walker St Martin-in-the-Fields St John the Evangelist Islington Italian Church Hatton Garden Sacred Heart Wimbledon London Oratory recent British-Irish St Mary Paddington Green St Mary Woodford St Peter Eaton Square St Margaret Lothbury Ealing Abbey The Grosvenor Chapel, Mayfair Modern imported (Europe/north America) St John's Smith Square St Lawrence Jewry The Little Oratory Marylebone PC RAM concert hall The Tower of London QEH Willis St Dominic's Priory Hampstead The Union Chapel The Ally Pally St Augustine Kilburn Jesuit Church Farm Street Compton St Bride's Fleet St St Luke Chelsea St Mary Magdalene Paddington

Sorry wasn't getting at you about brides and grooms etc, but I thought some of the other contributions were a bit stand-offish about wedding music. One thing about the Wesley - kids love singing it, so rehearsing it is easy!

crikey - what sort of weddings do you go to??

There's a lot of common sense here. The music at a wedding is not governed by, for example, the same constraints of season that one would have at a liturgical service such as a communion or evensong so to worry about the appropriateness of Elgar, Mozart, Bach /Gounod, Franck or even Schubert's classics is probably getting a bit too serious about it all. At the point where anthems are sung, surely its all about rejoicing at being at a marriage service - this music therefore is what the bride and groom like and have chosen for their guests to enjoy. Think back to Royal weddings ... I always enjoy Advent/Christmas season weddings, when you can sing carols - I find them refreshing and surprising in this context and somehow it makes the carols transcend the commercialisation of Christmas. Familiar melodies are good and if you can get in a marriage theme or love all the better, but it isn't essential. When I was a treble we also sang from the list above (including Jesu joy) but my favourite was the treble duet 'love one another' from SS Wesley's Blessed be the God and Father. It's as good as anything, and a nice tune too! other ideas: How Day by day (can be in 1 2 or 3 parts) Vaughan Williams Come my way (The Call) - it's even in hymn books nowadays (e.g. Common Praise) Then there are various offerings by Rutter or Archer. We might well turn our noses up at them, but the music at weddings isn't for us (musical cognoscenti) - it's for the couple and their guests to enjoy! PS On the subject of the concepts of rest eternal and marriage not fitting, I once heard that a certain Prince's favourite music was the dies irae from Verdi's Requiem and he wanted it at his (first) wedding, but was pursuaded otherwise. How prophetic that would have been.

good point

Well I thought that the old organ in Worcester was positively one of the very least attractive sounding cathedral organs I have ever played, and that's saying something! Stringy Diapasons, honking reeds, bland flutes, thin strings, forced and shrieking upperwork, all far too loud at close quarters and in a very poor position for sounding throughout the building - almost all the worst aspects of English organ building thrown into one instrument (except the console) - and now all of these abominations are being copied by Schoenstein in America. Hurrah ... let's send them some of the real thing ... andgood riddance! But then I don't have to/choose to play an electronic every week. So it would be in my list for the Worst Cathedral Organ in Britain!

That's interesting, because it's quite the opposite to the nineteenth century conventions of, say, Cavaille-Coll or Lewis or Hill or Wlllis who made theirs with quite narrow bases opening out to a very full, flutey and melodic treble. As a solo rank in the treble they are excellent, but also in music by Widor and Vierne where you will be asked to play with both hands on manual with the Flute Harmonique, the gradual change of tone across the registers means that the top part always shines through melodcially, the lower registers blending into an accompanimental role perhaps with other stops coupled from the Recit. Just a thought, but I think musically a bit more useful.

Wot, no puntuation again?

Actually, you might be rather surprised to find that on many old 'baroque' organs the Sequialteras are placed with the chorus stops rather than with the solo stops (flutes, mutations and reeds) e.g. at Haarlem they are on the same side of the console as the Principals and Mixtures. The implication is that they were considered as an element that could be drawn in the chorus, rather than exclusively as a solo stop.

A case of big car syndrome

well, in that vein BOURNI -AS OFF

Is there a plaque?

That post reads as a leading question, if not a trap. Perhaps the key to the answer is in the phrase Franck-style rather than suggesting a direct copy of Ste. Clothilde... or maybe organ builders can no longer be artists in their own right - only copy older styles . What an awful thought.