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AJJ

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Posts posted by AJJ

    Length Of Tenure For Organists

    in General discussion

    Posted

    Well Vox, I'd say it's all a lot more fluid than it was. In no way do I mean to imply that this is necessarily a bad thing, because recent appointments have all been excellent ones; but the 'established' route of Assistantship at ****ester, 10 years as no 1 at *******ton and then finishing up with appointment at the age of 50 or so to the no 1 post at *******ford is less certain than it was.

     

    And as far as I can gather there also appear to be at least two posts filled in the not so distant past where the main incumbent has seemed to be as much a singer as an organist. And one of these with a broader educational spectrum to the job as well - school wise that is.

     

    AJJ

    The Next Generation

    in The Organ

    Posted

    How the hell does one learn to improvise? I just can't do it! I always end up with some sort of slushy, lazy-Howells style harmonisation of something on a 4ft flute. as soon as I build up registrations a bit, I totally lose the plot and get all self-conscious.

     

     

    Get some recordings of Nigel Allcoat improvising, read his book and articles and have a manuscript/notebook handy with ideas, jottings, bits of plainsong, structures etc. rather like an artist's sketch book. I put down any useful scraps of tune, chord progressions - basically anything that I like the sound of. I have this handy most of the time and can usually find something to fit the situation. Last time I did an improvised final voluntary it came out like a piece of minimalist music based around a vaguely modal scale. I can not just produce a piece without some sort of 'anchor' whether it be a tonality, a structure, a melody or a rhythmic element hence the above - it works for me. Funnily enough I also find some of the stuff I teach at school of great help - drones, pentatonic and whole tone scales, layered ostinato patterns, 'world music' scales etc. My year 8s have just done variations so I had to do some too to get ides for them! (My year 10s did 'Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles today - 'not sure whether that will work on Sunday though!) Above all - keep going - if you make a mistake incorporate it in the rest of the piece - have a start, middle and end in view and keep away from typical non directional Anglican noises!

     

    AJJ

    Registrating French Romantics On English Organs

    in The Organ

    Posted

    Me too - and Rouen - but only lately re discovered I spent a happy hour yesterday on the new ipod (once the kids had gone to bed) trying to work out what it is about the CC sound that is so interesting. The 'full plus mixtures' etc. is a very complex sound - 'not sure quite what it is about it that makes it so though - maybe the mixture compositions or maybe the tuning! Certainly the harmonics flying about the place certainly make for excitement - the big reeds are only just not too loud! I could listen to Ben Van Oosten's Widor at Rouen over and over again - I've also got Kimberley Marshall playing at Toulouse - odd stuff from Messiaen, Alain etc. but splendid all the same.

     

    AJJ

    Pistons

    in Nuts and bolts

    Posted

    In a large part of Europe the freely programmable pistons are known as Setzer-combinations. Sequencer is a play-memory, a device that records what you have played, so that you can go to the nave and listen to the organ playing what you just played.

     

    In my organ there is an unlimited number of Setzer-combinations, and the number of the current combination (=piston) is shown on a small display over the top manual. So it is really not possible to get lost. It is also possible to save a combination between two existing ones, for example between 1 and 2 there can be 1.1 or 1.224 or whatever. Then there are the combination lists, which are named A001 to Z999. Each list can have an unlimited number of combinations and the combinations can be copied and moved from a list to another like with the Windows clipboard. So it is possible to store every registration of every piece you ever play, and you can get them anytime you want and assemble them for a recital programme, for example. Each player has his unique user name and password, so every time you come to the organ, the console is "empty" and you only have access to your own registrations.

     

    Sounds complicated and technical maybe, but this system is really versatile and I wouldn't change it for anything.

     

    Btw I also have the Divisionals and generals, but they are almost never used. It is simpler to program a straightforward sequence of combinations for every piece.

     

    The organ and console can be seen at http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/marko.hakanpaa/mikaelin-engl.htm

     

    I wouldn't mind this every Sunday!!

     

    AJJ

    New Neo-classical Organ Spec Thoughts

    in The Organ

    Posted

    Thanks for that Pierre - perhaps more a case of 'not using it right' than 'the stop was wrong' - maybe Ralph Downes should have left an instruction book!! They still modified it though and it was not much use to 'us youngsters' then.

    On the same lines an interesting house organ built by Peter Collins has an unusual stoplist including a high Cimbel. See link:

     

    http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=E00810

     

    I have a recording of Roger Fisher playing Bach on it and using this stop as part of a solo combination - having just listened to this (and some Messiaen at Beauvais!) what you say makes perfect sonic sense.

     

    AJJ

    New Neo-classical Organ Spec Thoughts

    in The Organ

    Posted

    'Reminds me of some years back when a friend was playing for a visiting choir at St Albans Cathedral - we could never quite work out what to do with the (very high pitched) Ralph Downes inspired Cimbel III originally on the Swell there - the only enclosed division and therefore one worked quite hard liturgically. It just did not seem to work (to us at least) in the way desired in psalms or the sort of music on parade that day. Since then it seems to have descended little by little (possibly by trial and error, dropping a high tierce rank in the process) to a respectable level as a Mixture III which by all accounts now tops the chorus quite nicely. One wonders quite what it was doing tinkling away in the firmament in the first place so far from it's parent chorus especially as the only mixture on that division. Maybe that is what the 'powers that be' thought neo baroque (or whatever one calls them) organs 'did' in the late 50s/early 60s. The rest of the organ I hasten to say was and is still marvellous in my opinion and will be even better when the planned modifications have taken place.

     

    AJJ

    Pistons

    in Nuts and bolts

    Posted

    A limit of only three free combinations could still give you

    1. Fonds de 8p

    2. Fonds 16 8 4 avec Anches Recit

    3. Tutti (less your brightest Mixtures)

    Just change manuals or add/subtract couplers and that covers most big movements!

     

    This also takes us back to the old pre set Victorian composition pedals which many of us still use on instruments of a reasonable size. A seemingly unexciting set of combination settings becomes all one needs when one considers the stops and couplers one draws (or withdraws) by hand above and beyond these. The section on combination pedals in the essay below by the late Julian Rhodes sums this up albeit on a very small instrument - a particular favourite of mine however.

     

    http://www.ondamar.demon.co.uk/essays/kilk.htm

     

    AJJ

    New Neo-classical Organ Spec Thoughts

    in The Organ

    Posted

    =====================

     

    If we are allowed to double the size of a proposed scheme at every post, why not just settle for Liverpool Cathedral?

    :rolleyes:

     

    MM

     

     

    Fair enough then - what about this? - plus a Tierce on the Great perhaps - not Liverpool but well known to at least one on this discussion board!!

     

    http://www.harrison-organs.co.uk/twyfordspec.html

     

    I'd quite happily have something like this rather than 'neo' anything. Except perhaps neo Father Willis. Below is nice too.

     

    http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N11170

     

    Though again perhaps with a Sesqualtera somewhere along the way - Tierce Mixture maybe.

     

     

    AJJ

    New Neo-classical Organ Spec Thoughts

    in The Organ

    Posted

    I'm afraid this type of instrument leaves me cold. I would much rather go with something altogether more English such as the new Harrison & Harrison organ for St George's Church, Isle of Man: http://www.harrison-organs.co.uk/douglas.html  The west end position would be ideal, of course, rather than buried in the chancel, and housed in a case made of wood from a sustainable source to a contemporary but not brutalist design.

     

    Or even this -

     

    http://www.harrison-organs.co.uk/glenalmondspec.html

     

    AJJ

    Abbreviated Combinations

    in The Organ

    Posted

    [quote=Vox Humana,May 11 2006, 06:07 PM]

    On paper it looks like a not untypical neo-Baroque jobby from the 1960s (a Pedal Schalmei being almost de rigueur back then). It looks like a French-biased spec in a Werkprinzip layout - most odd.

     

    As far as I remember there was no actual Werkprinzip - more like the whole thing chucked up at the back on a shelf. Nothing much fitted 'chorus wise' and the general effect was decidedly thin and top heavy! There was also a bit of a time lag.

    But...they let us play there!

     

    AJJ

     

    I seem also to remember that the Archbishop of Westminster was priest there for a short time in the early 70s - before my time in Southampton though.

    Quint 5.1/3

    in Nuts and bolts

    Posted

    Coincidence! - design details of the Nigel Church organ were mulled over at some length before final layout/spec. etc. were agreed upon and  I was lucky enough to be around at the time - my former piano teacher and for (many years) choirmaster was then organist at All S's. I liked it then though have not heard or played it for about 10 years.

     

    AJJ

    Organ Players

    in General discussion

    Posted

    or wireless... RF, laser, etc.  Why not??  Maybe mental telepathy will be next!

     

    Don't joke - I had to play a wedding recently by telepathy - the choir was so far away and out of sight/sound that they might as well not have been there at all as far as I was concerned! At one point a churchwarden had to come round and tell me that we weren't actually performing together - my reply was that someone aught to tell the conductor to keep with me then as there was no way I could keep with them!

     

    AJJ

    Abbreviated Combinations

    in The Organ

    Posted

    Was the the church of the immaculate contraception on Portswood Road? when I was there, they heated it 24/7 during the winter. Lovely and cosy in early Feb.

     

    I think I've nominiated that organ as one of the worst I've ever played and during my time there suggested they might like to replace it and found them a lovely 3 manual Hill, which I thought would be quite nice for them in the west gallery. But they wanted to spend less than the bare minimum to keep that ghastly thing staggering on and - incredulously - wanted to keep the organist downstairs at the front, too. So, as far as I'm concerned, they deserve that pile of  sh... pipes? ... in the west gallery.

     

    That was it - you must have been lucky with the heat though - maybe your playing was better than mine so they turned it up specially!

     

    AJJ

    Abbreviated Combinations

    in The Organ

    Posted

    I'm lucky enough to have 2 possibilties for a full swell sound, which, given the much depleted state of many Anglican parish choirs, is quite a blessing.

     

    Mini full swell = 4' fugara, 2' flageolet, Dulzian 16' & Hautboy 8'

    Proper full swell = 16' Waldorn, 8' Trumpet, 4' Clarion + IV Mixture (12 15 19 22). Plus, if you like, the principal chorus, but it's rather drowned, as would the choir be if I used this...

     

    I seem to remember the Choir Trompette could also be roped in to help out on occasions too. A bit of fire in the winter when we students diligently trooped down to prepare our pieces before the Collins at the University went in - it used to be perishing down there. The only place worse was the RC church with the horrid little organ at the back - high up and the console at the front. There the whole stoplist was truncated!!

     

    AJJ

    Quint 5.1/3

    in Nuts and bolts

    Posted

    Thanks for the replies. To return to my original question, which concerned the Great chorus, I should have also asked what on earth was the use of the Swell "Horn Quint 5.1/3" that used to be at Ely? 

     

    Oh - and a slight tangent: what does a "Pierced Gamba" sound like please anyone?

     

     

    The 'demo' CD by Thomas Murray of the big Yale organ on JAV has an example of the quint reed on that instrument being used as a sort of 'thickener' to the chorus - giving a darker feel to the whole. There are no odd consecutives etc. due to the subtle voicing. I found the same effect with a Quint 5-1/3 as part of a Great chorus.

     

    AJJ

     

    PS The only Pierced Gamba I have played sounded like an ordinary Great type Gamba!

    Quint 5.1/3

    in Nuts and bolts

    Posted

    Low pitched mutations and Mixtures are -momentarily- out of fashion.

    But the ancient builders used it:

     

    -In the late-baroque French organ as the "Gros jeu de Tierce":

     

    Bourdon 16'

    Bourdon 8' and/ or second 8' Flute

    Gros Nasard 5 1/3'

    Flute 4'

    Grosse Tierce 3 1/5'

     

    Pierre Lauwers

     

    In the 'Dom Bedos' organ at Ste. Croix Bordeaux this is a fabulous sound - for instance in a Couperin Duo or Trio it has all the bite of a a rather rustic Double Bass!

     

    http://www.atelier-quoirin.com/Bordeaux.htm

     

    http://www.store.yahoo.com/ohscatalog/maallicocoon.html

     

    AJJ

     

    PS The rest of it is pretty stupendous too - 32' GO chorus etc. - well worth a visit if you are down that way - and the case could fit into the 'work of art' category of another thread on this site.

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