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Henry Willis

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Everything posted by Henry Willis

  1. A good point - we're hoping that there will be space to include one and if there isn't, I've been considering whether the 10 2/3 would be better replaced by a 6 3/5? Colin's point about the Solo is also a good one: there is no choral tradition at St. Matt's and the present Organist is a fine improviser - I was given the brief to ensure that the organ was best suited for recitals and specifically improvisation - so that's what we decided on. Always the same I suppose, what to leave out and what do you put in - especially when there is a limited budget. DW
  2. I think not - where have you taken that rubbish from? There will NOT be any manual extension at all in the new instrument and certainly not any 'German Baroque Style' Trumpet(s) As for the present St. Matthew's instrument being "quite a good organ" - it isn't! The acoustic covers its multitudinous sins - you could scrape a chair across the floor in that building and it would sound good. Only the remains of several original Willis ranks from the existing St. Matthew's organ are being reused for the sake of their history there and the resonators of the (English-made) 8ft part of the reed added by Croft are presently being considered for use as part of the Trompette Militaire on the Solo. I really do deprecate this sort of ridiculous speculation without any basis in fact. http://www.willis-organs.com/auckland_general.html David Wyld.
  3. A very special Lewis is here: http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N10959 I used to play this as a lad, early teens, and in comparison with the other, leaden stuff to which I was allowed access.....! Unfortunately I understand that the future of the church may be in question as a very high percentage of the population of the old Parish is of a different faith. Notwithstanding, they appear to have divided the church and to be using the rear portion of the building for other community pursuits, so all may not be lost. DW
  4. Indeed - records that already by then actually belonged to me under the terms of the agreement entered into with their Liquidators: we purchased the building, contents AND all of the paper records, supposedly. He also made off with the Clock from the tower! Unfortunately, as Barry will know, when one buys anything from a liquidation one buys "Without Guarantees or Warranties" and so there was no recourse to law. What is even more galling is the fact that he is still advertising under the name of Rushworth & Dreaper - a Company liquidated - as though they are still in business, still doing organbuilding work and STILL using pictures of the interior of MY factory!! But then again, he always did have more front than Selfridges. Try 'googling' "Rushworth & Dreaper"! DW
  5. As most will already know, HW&S still holds the 1901 registration number (70718) which was originally the Lewis & Co. number: This has actually been written about several times and in several places over the past ten years - anything that Bruce "knows" is only known from the same records material still available to anyone, at the Works. I placed the Lewis records with BIOS some years ago, on indefinate loan, but we now have a full copy for use on microfilm. Pierre is also correct in that we still have all of the Lewis metalshop stuff - the Lewis casting bench is now in our current metalshop in the Liverpool factory. We also have all of the scale templates for reeds and flues - whether we would ever want to use them again is another matter of course! DW
  6. It doesn't clarify - or signify - at all unfortunately. ALL Tierces are tuned 'perfect'. The discord of the Tierce, as you put it, doesn't exist when tierces are drawn from the tempered ranks of a unified (or extension) instrument, so actually that is the exact reverse of your statement. We still include Tierces (my choice entirely, as I love them): the new organ for Florence [http://www.willis-organs.com/florence_general.html] has one in the Swell Mixture and the new organ for Auckland has a Tierce Mixture and a separate Tierce in the Choir. As Pierre comments, the voicing must be gentle and, in our case, the scale is slightly modified. DW
  7. Who says it's 'Beyond Repair' and why? DW
  8. Back on to the topic? One of my favourite (actually I don't know if 'favourite' is exactly the right word, but certainly one of the Works which really makes my neck tingle- EVERY time I hear it) is Sir Walter Alcock's 'Introduction and Passacaglia'. The Bairstow Sonata is very fine indeed and I've always valued the piece and will always remember the recording sessions with FJ when I made the recording at York, but the Alcock piece really does hang together just that teeny bit more securely (in my view!). FJ's 'Diversion for Mixtures' is also high on my list. DW
  9. Well if this is so David, we are still one of the few and far between! 'Kopex' or other 'cardboard' types are definately not being used in any situation at HW&S on MY watch! - I'll qualify that: on any NEW jobs. If we take on an overhaul or a 'rebuild' where there is a ton of it, some of it might have to be kept due to too much stuff having been earlier queezed into too little space! DW
  10. Dr. J.H. Reginald Dixon - ah yes! I too was a "follower" MM- I met him in 1972 I think, when I was taken by Mr. Glen to see the organ at the Cathedral, with the permission of the good Dr. D. I vividly remember a 'Pirate' earing - and bye the way, did he or did he not wear a small amount of eye make-up, even at that advanced age? The console at Lancaster was then still in the middle of the Gallery (prior to the hideously-bad 1975-ish rebuild) with it's french-style, terraced layout. He was adroit at playing without any registrational aids at all. Thirty-three years later, I'm involved in rebuilding it again - he may have been amused at that I think. I have a signed copy of his Baroque Suite which was given to me by Francis Jackson, which he was given by Dixon - inside it is a letter from Wilfred Greenhouse Alt to Dixon, praising the opus in the most sincere way. He was a good musician and served Lancaster Catehdral well from 1909 until 1975 when he died. David Wyld.
  11. Of course, you are right. Much heavily-damaged stuff is quite restorable, given the means and the will. The reference made (yet again YAWN!) to Ally Pally stuff is completely transparent, and incorrect - the photographs which he notes "We" have aren't from Liverpool at all - these were taken many years ago in Petersfield. If he (or those that pull his strings) had any knowledge of which they speak, one might aprreciate any gravity which they attempt to impart. Sadly there isn't any. Aside (but not really ) - has anyone else noticed that the ONLY time that he raises his head is when I've made a posting?
  12. Perhaps it's 'inappropriate' to rebuild the church.
  13. Absolutely! Referred to by John Pryer as "Disposable briefcases". DW
  14. The nicking tool is one of a set which we're told have all been in the firm since the first days - the handles are certainly VERY old and the largest of the tools has what we believe to be the original bit whereas the smallest may be a little like George Washington's Ax (sic).! The one which Michael Aspel was fondling is, we think, the one pictured in the famous photo of HW1 voicing a pipe, dressed in a rather smart light grey frock coat (him, not the pipe)! Jonathan has been with the firm since 1998, first as Office Manager and then, after Peter Cobon's retirement, Financial Director - Stephen Bicknell once commented that "Jonathan could run a small country!". As Peter DeV. says, he also has a very fine Tenor voice and sings with the Phil Chorus in Liverpool (as well as doing quite a lot of solo things for various choirs in the area of late, including for the Prof. at the Cathedral in the Passions etc..). He was a Choral Scholar in Richard Marlow's choir at Trinity College Cambridge, where he gained his (second) degree in Music - first degree in "Business Stuff" from Aston. It was decided that he would do the Roadshow thing as I was away for that weekend in Italy, but as he's far more photogenic than I.......... I'm with MM when it comes to the heart-stopping moment in seeing the photographs of the damage done to the pipework from Georgy Hall - there are quite a few of these photos, all incredibly upsetting and even more so when you realise that that damage wasn't caused by anything to do with the War! I'm also with Richard Astridge in his assertions that HW4 worked some small miracles with pipework - especially with restored stuff. The unfortunate reputation (given by others, for whatever reasons ) is somewhat defied by the realisation that virtually the whole of St. George's Hall organ was in that state, all restored and ALL voiced by HW4 or those working under him at that time. What we hear today (or rather if we were allowed to hear it) is what THEY did in restoring that pipework. I'm sorry - I would have mentioned the fact that this was being broadcast if I'd remembered. DW.
  15. Chromium certainly should ring bells: Chromium Sulphate - not Chromic Acid - is used in most 'Mineral' tanning. Though, at the time we're thinking of, most tanning was 'Vegetable' tanning (employing Tannin or Tannic Acid), before the mineral tanning process came in. The main reason for the change being time - several weeks for the Vegetable method over a few days for the mineral method. Tannins are astringent (polyphenols) which are capable of shrinking proteins - in the case of leather, Collagen. Tree bark was the usual source of the tannin. The term 'pickling' isn't something peculiar to Binns, Abbott or anyone else for that matter as it is a standard term for one of the processes involved in tanning generally - the leather is treated with a mixture of Sodium Chloride and Sulphuric Acid. The fact is that leather was better tanned then than it is now and, depending on where he got his skins, they might have led him to believe that he was getting something 'special', leading to his saying that HIS leather was 'pickled' - as indeed everyone else's was! David Wyld
  16. Gray & Davison Kingsgate Davidson Different names. DW
  17. Absolutely! - notwithstanding one note which doesn't work on the Swell!!! DW
  18. I don't disagree with you - it is usual for us to carry out the many small repairs as you suggest, virtually every week in one-or-more of the 1000-or-so organs which we maintain - so we are, actually, quite "client-focussed", as you put it. MY point is that sometimes, this methodology backfires quite seriously on those that do try to assist in this way. Let's not fall into the error of suggesting that only the organ builders are at fault! Some churches rely on their tuner to 'go the extra mile' at each visit even though they won't expect to pay anything for the additional time spent at each visit to rectify faults which are due entirely to age and wear and which should receive fuller attention. One rather extreme example of this is one instrument in Derbyshire (a large 3-manual, all pneumatic, around 1910 vintage, never re-leathered, never cleaned) which has had several ceiling falls within the organ during the past twenty years: they have no insurance and so each time it happens, we have to spend extra time in cleaning out the stuff which has fallen in. As a firm we have been writing to them for nearly 40 years to suggest that the organ really does need to be extensively cleaned. Nothing is ever done. Following the Christmas tuning visit just over a month ago, the lady Organist telephoned to complain that a note on the Swell which went off in October, STILL hasn't been repaired - the note in question is 'off' due to one of the flower stands which gets stored at the side of the instrument being pushed so hard into a space which wasn't actually big enough, crushing its way through the action tube. So, it seems not to matter how much we DO do, as this never seems to be enough. However, we are grateful for many wonderful clients who, apart from anything else, send us Christmas Cards - almost 150 of which we've just taken down!
  19. I've only just noticed this earlier contribution from Ron Poole, with which I really do need to take issue, on several points. It can be (and regularly has been) fatal to do work on the limited basis that you suggest and, in this case, I'm afraid that the naivité may be on your own side: Imagine - a few motors releathered, a hole in a bellows gusset patched, a few broken trackers replaced or a couple of Pedal Bourdons put back into service... etc., etc.. The organ is then fine, for about a year, until there is a change of Vicar/Minister and a change of PCC/Elders, at the same time, some OTHER motors which weren't done with the few which were done last time, give up the ghost. Urgent meeting takes place at the church and the following day an harrumphing letter is fired off to the organ builders stating that, as their organ has only just been RESTORED by said organbuilder, they (the Church) are extremely displeased and have therefore decided to take the organ from his care and to give it to the nice man 'down the road' who is much cheaper and who has promised that he can fix the organ immediately. Naive? I don't think so. You have no idea of the sort of things we have to deal with like this, on a fairly regular basis! David Wyld.
  20. We have had three 'Emergencies' since coming back on the 2nd of January- in all three cases, lead flashings stripped from the roof over the organ. The demographic isn't informative: two in the Southeast and one in the Northwest. Unfortunately, this then also begins to shew the limitations of the insurance arrangements: only the church in the Northwest has full insurance which will adequately pay for the remedial works required: the other two are under-insured and will only receive relatively small payouts against quite high remedial costs. In one case, only the roof will be paid for by the insurers. The perpetrators are unspeakable. The (still) relatively small amount which they will receive from the sale of their booty - totally out of proportion with the heartache and general nuisance which they've caused in the process - really does give a clear indication of their money-grubbing selfishness. DW
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