Colin Richell
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I can well understand the delight of Musingmuso in listening to George Thalben Ball playing "Ride of the Valkyries" on the Alexandra Palace Organ.
Happy days !
Colin Richell.
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Absolutely right!
I should have known better, but anyway, I went back to the notes of a lecture I gave at Bradford University some years ago, and refreshed my memory.
Quentin Stuart Morvaren Maclean (1896-1962) was born in London: his father being Alexandre Morvaren Maclean ("the God of Scarborough") who conducted the Spa Orchestra, Scarborough, and elevated it to high status as one of the finest to be heard at the seaside resorts.
Thus, Quentin Maclean was not only born in London, he lived there with his family and took lessons with Richard R Terry at Westminster Cathedral. Presumably (?) Aleck Maclean must have either relocated to Scarborough, or spent the summer months there.
In any event, Aleck Maclean was a fairly prolific composer, and his works (especially operatic works) were not only well known in England, but also in Germany apparently.
Aleck Maclean's father was the British light-music composer Charles Donald Maclean(1843-1916)
Some of the significant works written by Quentin Maclean after his studies in Leipzig with Straube and Reger, include the following:-
Piano Trio (1937) - d.1937
Trio Ricercare (1954) - d.1954
Stabat Mater
Marche Selennelle, for organ
Organ Concerto? (First performed by George Thalben-Ball?)
It should also be mentioned that Quentin Maclean was not only invited to play an RCO recital, he also gave the first British performance of the Hindemith Organ Concerto. Quentin Maclean also had, as his assistant theatre organist, Sidney Torch; the doyen of light music conductors, who with the late William Davies, established that very long running BBC institution, "Friday night is music night."
Although Torch more or less went into denial about his early days as a theatre organist, it was characteristic of the man that when the day came for him to retire from music, he did it in style, taking hold of his baton and greaking it in half; laying it on the music stand and departing the BBC concert orchestra with the words, "Ladies and gentlemen, that was my last concert."
Fascinatingly, in retirement, Torch showed little interest in music; keeping his grand piano locked and unplayed, in spite of the fact that he was a true virtuoso pianist. He explained, "Music was my business, and when I retired, I retired from music."
In his most recent CD release, Simon Preston plays the restored organ at the Royal Albert Hall (splendidly carried out by out hosts, Mander Organs); the title of the CD being "Organ Restored."
Interviewed about the recording, Simon Preston (a non FRCO!) included the following:-
"In America the traditions of theatre organ playing are still kept very much alive. As a child I remember playing two very old records over and over again on a wind-up portable gramophone - the sort that had wooden needles which you had to keep sharpening.
The first was George Thalben-Ball playing The Ride of the Valkyries on the Alexandra Palace organ, and the other - equally favourite - was Quentin MacLean playing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on the organ in the Odeon Marble Arch."
Simon Preston then reveals a "trade-secret" which has puzzled many of us for years:-
"At the age of five I could not work out how Quentin MacLean did the opening glissando in Rhapsody in Blue; apparently he used the Siren stop - useful for Cops and Robbers chases in the silent movies - switched the organ on and, when the wind went into the bellows, it produced this very smooth glissando up to the top E flat!"
(I love that little throw-away line, "At the age of 5, I could not work out....."
)So desparately trying to keep this thread on-topic, the above information links the names of Maclean and Simon Preston (as non-FRCO holders), and further links them to others who obviously were not, namely: Carl Straube, Max Reger and Paul Hindemith.
Presumably, (I know I shouldn't presume anything), Sir George Thalben-Ball was an FRCO, but what about R R Terry?
There we are Quentin....back on topic.....and I know what Santa's going to be sending me this Christmas!
(Just when you think these thread are wandering off-topic, they come back to haunt you!)
MM
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According to my local paper today, Feroka is about to sign the 125 year lease to run Ally Pally.
The Lib Dem Councillors are not convinced that the lease forces Feroka to protect the building and interests of the Trust,
Colin Richell
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In case anyone does not know, Feroka is the preferred developer for Alexandra Palace, and hopefully the contract will soon be signed.
Feroka has offered support for the organ and we hope that this will happen, but no-one can talk to then until the company becomes lessee.
People are up in arms because Feroka is not confirming that the original tv studios,will be retained in their present position, or indeed as a museum. Roger Tucker a member of the Appeal, and ex employee of the BBC at AP put a very strong case for the studios, organ and theatre at last week's meeting.
I am confident that the lovely theatre will be restored, but we will wait and see.
The Great Hall in which the Willis organ is situated will remain as an exhibition centre, which will bring its own problems in arranging suitable concert dates.etc
The last concert attracted 17 people, so where is all the support when Feroka will need to be convinced that the organ is viable.?
I would love to see a pipe organ back in the theatre, and this venue would make a wonderful home for a homeless Wurlitzer.
Colin Richell.
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In case anyone does not know, Feroka is the preferred developer for Alexandra Palace, and hopefully the contract will soon be signed.
Feroka has offered support for the organ and we hope that this will happen, but no-one can talk to then until the company becomes lessee.
People are up in arms because Feroka is not confirming that the original tv studios,will be retained in their present position, or indeed as a museum. Roger Tucker a member of the Appeal, and ex employee of the BBC at AP put a very strong case for the studios, organ and theatre at last week's meeting.
I am confident that the lovely theatre will be restored, but we will wait and see.
The Great Hall in which the Willis organ is situated will remain as an exhibition centre, which will bring its own problems in arranging suitable concert dates.etc
The last concert attracted 17 people, so where is all the support when Feroka will need to be convinced that the organ is viable.?
I would love to see a pipe organ back in the theatre, and this venue would make a wonderful home for a homeless Wurlitzer.
Colin Richell.
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So, once again we hear of an item or items eminating from the Willis firm which had not been paid for. Not a good way of doing business !
I am informed that Liverpool Cathedral are very happy with David Wells, so sarcastic inuendos are hardly helpful. from the Willis firm.
Colin Richell.
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Pity you don't have the old Canterbury console!!
I wonder where that went? Any takers?R
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I have just seen Nfortins message of the 16th August, where he refers to the Alexandra Palace Willis organ.
I fear he is correct when he suggests that the organ could not be returned to its former state, because the unfitted pipes are in poor condition (why?) and new ones would have to be made. The rebuilt Great Hall is very different to the old one, and the acoustics have changed.
However, I am confident that a restoration is feasible, even if the organ has to be moved elsewhere, and there are sufficent organ builders in the UK to complete the work, if we can convince the new developers of the Palace that the project is worthwhile.
Surely one of the Greatest organs in Europe, if not the World.
Colin Richell
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As I have never visited Liverpool, I will make every effort to attend this recital, bearing in mind the excellent concerts given by the Professor at Alexandra Palace in recent years,
I have heard the organ on songs of Praise, and it is obvious that Harrisons? or is it David Wells ? are doing an excellent job in maintaining the organ as one would expect.
Colin Richell
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The heading of this thread is "RCO is it moving or not", but as usual people are going off at tangents in their submissions.
You may be interested to know that in my latest "Steam Railway" magazine it states " Birmingham's Curzon Street Station which is a Grade 1 building has been empty for four years, there was a saviour lined up for Curzon Street, the Royal College of Organists, which wanted to turn the building into its headquarters, but shelved its plans because of rising costs, leving the building with no future.
Colin Richell
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I am suprised that, on this thread, which is supposed to be about the finest five organs, there is so much criticism of Carlo Curley.
I well recall Carlo's concerts at Ally Pally in the 1980's (one of which was televised by the BBC) with his Allen organ, and he was able to
attract audiences of well over 1000, something which had not happened since the 1930's.
He puts bums on seats, and this is why i intend to book him to play in the unrestored Ally Pally Victorian theatre next year, with its wonderful acoustics.
If we were talking about finest organs in the past, surely the Willis in the Palace would have been a contender !
Colin Richell.
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Both John Winn and I enjoyed most of the concert, but not the ticket prices!
The soloist was disappointing, perhaps she should have used the microphone.
As to the organists, Stephen Disley was as always excellent. and the organ behaved impeccably.
I do not know what the attendance was, but we are talking about an organ recital. and the hall was almost full. So who says that people are no longer attending organ recitals ?
Mind you we are talking about the Albert Hall which seems to attract people, whatever the event.
I am looking forward to the next one,
Colin Richell
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We were there too.
It was much better than last year. Next year will be even better if John Birch doesn’t play. His sole aim seems to be to drown the orchestra. He has little idea of balancing organ and orchestra. There again, one of the first things he did, when becoming organist at the Temple church, was to unenclosed the big reeds. Thalben Ball presided over an organ that was right for the building. Full organ at the Temple is now a dreadful sound.
Stephen Disley was first class. His only problem was the position of the soloist in the Bach. She was so far away and organ and singer were not always together. I watched, with interest, the conductors beat during this item. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with what was being performed.
More audience this year I think.
Well done again to Manders.
Alan
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That's a bit unfair. Surely he has a right of reply to criticism and to correct misinformation.
I and others had posted messages that Henry Willis and Sons remained in business, so that should have been sufficent.
Does anyone know how Henry is, as Fred Clarke is anxious to contact him, but feels he may have the incorrect phone number.?
Thanks
Colin Richell.
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Well how interesting that was. Rather like watching paint dry.
Perhaps the Moderator might consider reducing the length of postings. especially where organ builders are receiving free publicity !
Colin Richell.
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Well, I must say it's always nice to be remembered - Large Hat or not!
Actually, on the Willis information side of things first, to prevent any possible misconception or, perish the thought, disinformation or misinformation from the usual sources: I took over as Managing Director on the 7th October 1997 when I was 'put in' by HW4 (who had retired earlier that year but who still held the majority shareholding) and when the two Joint Managing Directors, both Family Members, were removed - the reasons for this are not important.
Following this I and a so-called friend (of eleven years), a VERY rich man, purchased the shareholding in its entirety - this involved a very long and complex legal settlement to all of the family members and Trusts which were individual share holders. The point of this was that, over the next 12-24 months, I and my partner were to buy out the full shareholding from my 'friend'.
Unfortunately, as is often the case with very rich men, he discovered the value of property and chattels in the company and rather clumsily set about trying to sell it all out from under me - asset stripping is the common terminology. So I fought him. We eventually bought him off.
Petersfield had for a long time been thought to be much too far south for the purposes of the daily running of a firm whose interests were nationwide and so the move northwards was decided upon - we first planned to go to Sheffield but then it was suggested to me that Liverpool would be a better option. We have had a Branch of one size or another in Liverpool since 1854 and our present address is less-than-100 yards from the registered address in 1860.
So that there is NO confusion: Henry Willis & Sons Ltd is the same Company as that registered under the old Lewis Reg. No. (70718) in 1901 and which transfered to HW&S following the Willis family' Partners' buying the shareholding in Lewis & Co in 1919. There is no 'New' firm, merely a change of Directors and Shareholders as takes place in all Limited Companies over a long period. The Company never ceased trading and never had the financial difficulties alluded to by some in the past.
We purchased, outright, the freehold, land, buildings and contents of the former Rushworth & Dreaper company in 2003 - the only thing we didn't get, which we had actually made sure was included in the sale, was all of the paper records of R&D - unfortunately these were all removed and shredded before we could prevent it. A great and very important loss as far as I'm concerned.
Paul is very gracious in referring to our latest minor triumph in the job at Ruthin. We actually don't feel the need for constant rounds of advertising as our workload is constant and very high - there are some contributors to this list who come here to the Works at intervals and who see what is happening here and will, I am sure, let me know if they think I overstate the case! However, there is a recent item of news which I think that we shall be making a little noise about and that is that we recently signed contracts for a new organ for a church in Florence - 24 stops, mechanical, with Willis 'Floating Lever' action.
One thing that has always amazed me is the attitude to, and received opinion of, the firm, certainly during the period before my coming in - on a pretty much daily basis we see stuff (some of it recent) which is beyond belief and so much worse than anything Willis's ever did and yet these perpetrators, who are still very much around, appear to walk away from their doings apparently unscathed and with the blessing of their local 'Experts'! Perhaps its just that HW4 presented a full-on and rather easy target?
Now, as to the Mirabilis Records side of things: I started Mirabilis in 1989 because I was completely sick and tired of listening to recordings of music which I knew, possibly all-too-well, on organs which I knew didn't sound like that! I didn't need to hear any undue amount of detail - in fact, I didn't want to hear any more detail in a recording than I would have heard had I been there in the building. So I'm sorry to Paul that his reasons for not liking what I did are my reasons for doing it!
As to microphone placement, well, where do we begin? Certainly NOT by placing microphones of any size, description or type, on the ground - where did that one come from? Head height in the building was only ever what we did - the only part to stand on the ground, was the stand.
However, I do think that I know how Paul has picked up on the 'ground' point: Bass frequencies like flat surfaces and long, smooth, flat surfaces at that, in order properly to propagate the wave and a part of my explanatory talk to various groups (who were kind enough and generally interested enough to invite me to speak to them with my views on the subject) attempted to demonstrate this point. The fact that one's microphone was placed closer to the ground at head height than it would be at, say, 25ft on a montrous stand, within 10 feet of the front of the organ case will, I am sure all will see, result in a higher (and dare I say correctly-balanced) bass response.
All of my recordings were also produced in (full) UHJ format, including height information where anyone reproducing the sound might have the correct decoding equipment properly to realise it. On normal, simple, two-channel Stereo equipment this will tend to increase middle to bass response too. I only ever listened to these on UHJ surroundsound equipment, so I make no apology - I still think that these are real performances in a real acoustic and not what I would prefer to hear.
Martin Monkman only took on the Bairstow recording and I was happy to let him have it, as my respect for what he was doing and how he was doing it allowed me to think that he wouldn't try to 'improve' it.
Other unpublished recordings of my friend Richard Marlow at Trinity College Cambridge, have since been issued on other labels (ASV and Conifer).
It wouldn't do for us all to like to same things and Paul's requirement for detail is understood while not being agreed with by me - there is plenty of stuff available which provides exactly what is required there. All I would say, possibly in my own defence (if that is required) is that in 16 titles we never had anything other than first-class reviews.
A final point: in 1990 when I approached a fairly well-known organisation to arrange distribution I was fairly giggled at for my views on single microphone technique and the 'don't fiddle with it' approach to recording. I was more-than-slightly amused to see that, within a short period they had adopted more-or-less the same technique and had even plagiarised our description of it in their own advertising materials. C'est la vie, n'est ce pas?!
Big Hat number 1 off- Biig Hat number 2 on:
If anyone would like to come to the works, just let me know;
If anyone would like a copy of a short brochure (21 pages) we produced last year (to give out to members of visiting Organists' Association's etc.) please send me address details and we'll post them out;
The out-of-date website has been mentioned - sorry for this, we have simply been too busy to deal with updating it! However, there will be changes very soon so keep looking.
Sorry, this has gone on a bit - but better to have it all out at once I suppose, to prevent any degeneration.
David Wyld
HENRY WILLIS & SONS LTD.
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My understanding is that Mr Wyld bought the Willis firm with financial assistance from someone in the Channel Islands, and at that time he was the secretary of the APOA.
The Willis premises are in Liverpool and the Company is still trading.
Mirabilis Records seem to have disappeared unless someone else took over the Company.
Henry Willis V1 was a real character, and it was a great pleasure to meet him at Ally Pally.
Colin Richell.
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Whilst never having had the privilege of meeting Bill Davies, I have known and owned, admired and envied the talent displayed in, his recorded performances, at first on LP and subsequently on CD, for over 30 years:from his very individual use of the Royal Festival Hall organ to "A Retiring Collection" from Howden-le-Wear. They have given me, as I am sure they have given innumerable others, enormous pleasure. and will continue to do so. It is a legacy of which anyone can be proud. My sincere sympathy to the family members at this sad time.
Brian Childs
So sorry to hear of William Davies death.
I never heard him play live, but nigel Ogden frequently played his recordings.
I am sure that Wiliam played at one of Carlo Curley's concerts, with the Allen organ at Alexandra Palace in the 1980's ? and he was just fantastic and full of life.
Colin Richell
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The moderator is here ...
I am disappointed that the moderator should consider that I have contributed to any acrimonious debate relating to the Ally Pally theatre organ.
My original intention was to find out information not readily available to me, and I hoped that the moderator would allow this thread to continue under "Ivon Barnwell's book.
I feel that my messages have been courteous, and at no time did I mention the Willis organ other than in positive terms, even though I was more concerned with talking about the theatre.
For anyone to suggest that the restoration of the theatre is a waste of time etc is unfortunate and unneccessary, and perhaps I might have become a pro-theatre and an anti-Willis organ person, were I not so committed to both projects.
I have spoken to Fred Clarke but he is now 85 years of age, and could not really help, but I am still keeping my fingers crossed.
Once again my assurance that I have not attempted to upset anyone.
Colin Richell.
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An even better idea....move the RCO there as well, and get them to put funds into the work on the Willis organ.
MM
Some time ago I e-mailed Len Rawle (An organist) suggesting that the South Bank Wurlitzer could be reinstalled in either, Hornsey Town Hall, the old Gaumont Palace theatre in Wood Green. or the Ally Pally Theatre. At that time I had no idea that the theatre had contained an organ !
The idea doesn't seem so crazy now !
None of my ideas were considered, presumably.
Colin Richell.
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Both [the Willis organ and the theatre] are uniqe to the Palace, and I have worked as hard for the organ as I have for the theatre. I want to see both restored. ... the theatre contains unique stage machinery found no where else, and English heritage are offering match funding for the renovation of this machinery. The theatre is worth saving and will be saved.
I find it refreshing to work for the theatre and the organ, and I shall continue to do so.
In the meantime I will continue to research the theatre organ.
Incidentally English Heritage have listed the stage machinery wheras the Willis organ has not received such recognition.
Colin richell.
(Edited by moderator for "heat".)
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The second organ was in the small concert room, situated in the North west corner and now demolished, with the goods yard on the site now. The theatre never chad an organ, and is too small anyway.
All best,
R
Richard
I do not know if you have seen the theatre but it is half the size of the Great Hall and certainly is as large as many west end theatres.
There is room for 4 organs !
I would be happy to send you a printout.
best wishes
Colin
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Richard,
I knew Bert Neale also, and as I have a friend who lives in Swansea, I am aware of that organ.
I can only repeat what I keep on saying, that last week I decided to have a look on the NPOR and BIOS web site, and inserted the words "Alexandra Palace". Much to my surprise the title "Alexandra Palace Theatre" came up.
I am not senile either and I have a part print out of page 2 , and I have provided the information on that print out previously.
The NPOR and BIOS are very respected and wise organisations and I believe what they are saying.
Have a look inder the Hoar Collection, because I was unable to find anything.
I am sure that we will find the answer, and remember we were advised of the church to which the organ was transferred.
Perhaps I will have a word with my dear friend Fred Clarke.
Best wishes
Colin.
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With respect I think you are wrong.Richard. A Willis organ was installed in the concert room at Ally Pally, but this was removed to a church in Finchley. The theate Willis was moved to a church in Wood Green.
I put the name of the Church onto the Internet, but found nothing,
There is a church in Trinity Road, but this is a Greek Orthodox church, but from its appearance it could have been Methodist originally.
As explained previously I discovered the existance of the organ on the NPO Register, and this page includes the stop list of the organ.
It is suggested that further information is available under the Hoar Collection 1569 but I could not find anything.
Also mentions under update history 1947 Fda OSD 1946 incorporates AO1106 (DELETED) Its all Greek to me.
Many thanks for your help.
Colin Richell.
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I wonder where that went? Any takers?
Alexandra Palace Organ
in The Organ
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Feroka have apparently signed the contract as preferred developer, and the Charity Commission are now awaiting comments from the public.
Then we will see what the plans are for the organ theatre and tv studios,
Welcome back Mander web site, we have missed you !
Colin Richell.