Henry Willis
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Posts posted by Henry Willis
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but aren't flat and concave mutually exclusive?
Quite so, you've passed the observation test!
I meant, of course, Straight and concave.
While we're on the subject, I'd probably take issue with the comment earlier that it costs a fortune for the two extra notes - It doesn't and I have always been at a loss to understand why 58 (or, worse 56)-notes and 30 notes of pedals are the usual compasses for modern, new instruments. Seems like penny-pinching to me.
DW
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Slight tangent, but what about other countries - e.g. Germany, France, Netherlands, USA? What pedalboard layout would you expect to find on new instruments in these countries? Do they have national standards?
Let alone Italy: the new organ for St. James's, Florence we have provided with a flat, concave pedalboard - much to the surprise of many, needless to say!
My reasoning was that most of those playing it will be not-English (for want of a better description) and therefore it would be unfair to have them wrestling with a concave and radiating pedalboard, however traditional to our firm (being the inventors!
) DW
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I assume that AutoCad comes complete with a library of pipe styles - metal flues, wooden flues and similarly for reeds.
We use AutoCad and Vellum. Nope, no such library as far as we know, at least not until we drew it!
DW
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Isn't that a speedy return from the US?
It is.
DW
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Any recent news of anywhere, anyone? One likes occasionally to keep up to date.
Huw Williams - Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace.
DW
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Another clue to the organs origins could be the pipes, Each lowest 'C' pipe in metal in each rank is named and serial numbered, 'C' Rohr Flute No. 576 B Hirst, 'C' Open Diapason No. 577 and Dulciana No. 579 B Hirst. Not being expert in the history of these makers, I presume B Hirst was the voicer, but did he work for Conacher's, or is this a clue that the organ could have been bought in or parts made by Compton? The matrix relay in the console is almost identical to one pictured on the Cinema organ society's website, and is labeled ther as compton as well.
I hope you can help shed light on some of my questions,
Ian
Brian Hirst was a Pipe Maker at Conacher's in Huddersfield: I believe he is still alive - I last spoke to him on the telephone four years ago and he sounded very lively!
DW
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As to the out of tune reed - is it just a build-up of dirt? Or some other damage? Free reeds rarely shift much in pitch.
Quite right: take them out and soak them in Horolene - try here
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trk...-All-Categories
DW
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Since when? Our cathedral choirs have toured the USA several times in the last 13 years, and this is news to me.
Since when is, if you are doing it for money - If you ARE doing it for money and you're not going in on the correct visa, watch out!
Try this:
http://faq.visapro.com/P1-Visa-FAQ2.asp
DW
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new Immigration law of which I (and my colleagues) were unaware, requiring me to have a specific "Certificate of Sponsorship" in order to play my recital tour.
We will all run across this at some time or other! We have recently taken on a pipe maker who is Japanese but was working for Paul Fritts in the US: first, American Immigration refused to allow him to stay there and so he came to us and we have to pay the UK Government £300 for the privilege of asking for a certificate of Sponsorship and then, after we find the person we wish to sponsor, we have to pay again actually to sponsor - it's the usual UK rip-off I'm afraid. Oh yes, and it's renewable, it doesn't just run on , so there are repeat fees!
But looking at this a little more objectively - surely, Mr. Laube's situation is no different at all from that of any UK/EU Organist or other musician of any note wishing to do a 'recital tour' or otherwise working in the US where one has to have a visa to work, and it's been like that for years. Even individual members of visiting Choirs have to apply and pay for a P1 visa.
Free country(ies)? Not on your life!
DW
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Peter
See http://www.desktoplawyer.co.uk/dt/browse/l.../S75861-34108X/ which hopefully will clarify the position. I wouldn't like to go back to work if I didn't feel fit, especially if there were any risk to other people.
R
It is quite improper for ANY employer - be it the often-at-itself NHS, incompetent Councils or all us other poor souls who actually have to run businesses - to insist on a return-to-work-date if certification has been obtained. Make sure that the details of the conversation are properly recorded with time, date, circumstances etc. for later reference.
DW
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At the risk of opprobrium being heaped upon this ignorant head, I feel that withholding the chalice has an air of hysteria about it. And of course, to catch an infection from another, that other has to actually have it in the first place.
Chris Baker - The Incompetent Organist - Durham UK
Bravo!
You are quite right, there IS an air of hysteria but it is also more cynical I think: the constant assurances which we all receive regarding how much all of the 'Agencies' are doing to protect us is one thing, but the withdrawal of the Chalice is really nothing to do with preventing us from getting it (the 'flu , that is), it's more to do with them being able to say we didn't get it there because, they also, did as much as possible to protect us - of course they didn't, as you relate above!
A brief look at various information sources will reveal that 'Flu is with us all of the time and the deaths due to it are high in number each year, with some years being just a little more generous. In a really bad year we might expect more deaths from 'ordinary' 'Flu than we are told we might get from this bout.
Personally, I'm more concerned about the numbers dying from other things each year, most of which those who pretend to protect us are not even vaguely concerned about (and in the case of Smoking-Related diseases, the Government tax-take is enormous).
I was heartened to see that at least one clergy person mentioned in these discussions thought it sensible to treat her communicants as sensible adults. This protection thing is getting out of hand (actually, it's already way beyond that I think) and, as with the 'protection' issues in airports etc., at what point does their protection of my person become assault?
DW
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I found this tonight..
http://www.televisiontunes.com/All_Gas_and_Gaiters.html
P
(I must get out more)
Ha! So should I - I've got all of the (surviving) programmes on the video set!
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I would not attend a concert because a particular make of organ is being featured. I am more interested in the Recitalist, venue and the condition of the said organ.and this does not seem to be understood looking at some of the postings.
Colin Richell.
I think you'll find that It is fully understood.
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Alexandra Palace, Sunday, 3pm, Francis Jackson.
DW
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Recital at 8pm this evening at St. Peter's Collegiate Church, Ruthin by Colin Walsh
Next week (15th), Neil Wright (Farnborough Abbey)
DW
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QUOTE (alan taylor @ Jul 2 2009, 01:31 PM) *
The Blackpool Tower has a pipe organ.
Alan
Albeit considerably electronically amplified........
Is It?
Why?
DW
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May I alert you to notice of the Opening Recital on the new organ in St. James's Episcopal Church in the great Renaissance city of Florence (Italy of course!):
Saturday 19th September at 8pm, by Colin Walsh (Organist Laureate, Lincoln Minster).
There are a limited number of free 'House' tickets available on a first-come-first-served basis - please contact me privately asap if interested.
DW
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Er, the replacement for the church destroyed by bombing was only completed in 1958, so this doesn't seem to tie up at all.
Paul
Sorry, there's been a bit of confusion here - Organist12345 called earlier and spoke to our Office Manager who shouted a question across the office to me as I passed through - I thought that the job in question was the other thing talked about this week - where is it, oh yes, the 'TUNKS' job!
Right, the file is out, here we go:
A new church begun in 1954 designed by Adrian Gilbert Scott, temporary Church in Allen Street and we put in a second-hand organ by Vowles of Bristol, 1874, lately of St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Edinburgh - we have photographs of the job, presumably in its Edinburgh home.
The church authorities were somewhat confused in what they wanted for the new church, they were quoted for a new organ (by us and several others) but they finally settled on simply moving the Vowles into the new church.
Three Manuals and Pedals (58 / 30), Pneumatic throughout.
Great:
Open diapason 8 (Spotted Metal)
Gamba 8 (Spotted Metal)
Clarabella 8 (Wood)
Principal 4 (Spotted Metal, cone tuned)
Twelfth (Spotted Metal, cone tuned)
Fifteenth 2 (Spotted Metal, cone tuned)
Trumpet (Sp. M., Hooded)
Swell:
Double Diapason 16 (Wood & spotted Metal)
Open Diapason 8 (Spotted Metal)
Vox Angelica (Ten c) (Spotted Metal)
Dulciana 8 (Common Bass to St. D.) (Spotted Metal)
Stopped Diapason (Wood)
Principal (Spotted Metal, cone tuned)
Piccolo 2 (Spotted Metal)
Cornopean 8 (Spotted Metal)
Hautboy 8 (Spotted Metal)
Choir:
Dulciana 8 (Spotted Metal)
Lieblich Gedact 8 (Wooden Bass, rest Spotted Metal)
Harmonic Flute 4 (Spotted Metal)
Clarinet (Spotted Metal)
Pedal:
Bourdon 16
Violincello 8 (Wood)
Dulciana 8 (Spotted Metal)
Couplers: Gt-Ped; Sw-Ped; Ch-Ped; Sw-Gt; Ch-Gt; Sw-Ch; Sw-Gt Oct.
We had the care of it until 1972 but know nothing of what happened after that time.
Sorry about the confusion earlier,
DW
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Many of the stops are useless, including a lot of the great organ, which (except for the ear-splitting trumpets!) is quite soft. I still wonder why when H&H did work on it they didnt revoice or replace those disgusting reeds with more romantic trombas or posaunes on a lower wind pressure, and possibly added a more suiting Choir Tuba.
The 1872 organ was obviously lost by fire in 1953, but who the bloody hell was "TUNKS" who did things to it in 1924(?)
DW
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Any members in the Midlands (or thereabouts!) may be interested to know, if they don't already, that Olivier Latry is giving a concert tomorrow evening at Emmanuel Parish Church, Wylde Green, Birmingham: 7.30pm start.
DW
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If the organ already has a tierce and a nazard/twelfth, one would be able to produce approximate septièmes at three different pitches, viz (if I have got my head round this correctly!)
- a 2' stop playing up a diminished seventh (or a 4' stop playing up an octave plus a diminished seventh, etc)
a twelfth/nazard playing up a minor tenth
a tierce playing up a tritone(!)
Anyone care to hazard a guess as to which is closest to the true septième? I think I know which it is, but I'm not sure I trust calculations carried out at this time of night!
Of course, this is only possible with 'stops' which are ALL on unit chests or on individual note chests of any kind - it can't be done on traditional slider soundboards (before anyone gets too excited!!).
DW
- a 2' stop playing up a diminished seventh (or a 4' stop playing up an octave plus a diminished seventh, etc)
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On David Briggs' website there is a link to a Youtube clip of a piece of his that he is playing on a rebuilt instrument in Germany. He refers in his 'blurb' to a laptop perched on the top of the console from where Manual and/or Pedal Divide, Sostenuto etc. can be accessed and presumably programmed. However - it is also indicated that Tierces, Nones, Septiémes, Neuviémes (or whatever iéme one could ever wish for singly or in combination) can be accessed from any rank of pipes playable wherever one chooses. The possibilities of this could either be amazingly exciting or hellishly ghastly - the thought of it clicking in accidentally during 'Shine, Jesus Shine' for instance...!
I can imagine the possibilities that this offers to a serious and accomplished improvisor could be tremendous - also to players such as Jean Guillou whose artistic boundaries spread far further than many of the rest of us. However - what are people's thoughts (if any) - from a musical point of view - on the capacity to completely reprogramme the pitch of any stop and location of any stop on an instrument.
I have a feeling that ND de Paris can do similar things for instance but has anyone here used this facility there or anywhere else?
A
This sounds exactly like the system at Notre Dame de Paris.
~DW
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At least one theory is that the ventils were there to shut off any division that might have a cipher. Not really very convincing, as it would be just as efficacious to push in all the stops!
B
Only on a slider soundboard! But then I guess that that's what you're all talking about, rather than Roosevelt or other 'individual pallet'-type chests?
There are some English organs (Conacher especially) where the Pedal action is working the notes permanently and the stop just controls the ventil which either has the wind in the chest or not. In the case of Conacher, specifically, the ventil is usually in the form of a pallet inside the bellows which open to let the wind into the trunk to the chest, operated by a long tracker from the drawstop.
DW
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I would be stunned if a serious professional organ builder would persistently vent their irritation, on a lack of success in winning high profile contracts on a public forum. They do not do so because important new potential clients would be completely put off by such uncontrolled and amateurish remarks.
The organ builders that I know have pets and talk instead to them (rather than the internet) about their disappointments.
This is precisely why this sort of 'discussion' is dangerous - the misinterpretation made possible by words on a screen instead of spoken makes it difficult to express any opinion or to ask a simple question.
I say 'discussion' in inverted commas as often there is no possibility of discussion: every word said is interpreted as criticism. My initial question was quite simple - Why Klais? I was interested to know.
There is no question of organbuilders' disappointment in my comments I assure you: our 'New' work is all outside the UK at the moment and therefore we could face the same sort and level of comment as that above.
I apologize to Mr. Saunders if he has interpreted MY comments as anything other than observation - they are certainly not griping. Leeds Cathedral IS a difficult situation and I genuinely hope that the solution is given by the current project.
DW
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Sub And Super Octaves (and Unison Off)
in General discussion
Posted
Not on ours they don't!
To answer Innate's earlier question as to whether there has been a recent technological breakthrough.... No, we've used an old technology, but one that works and which doesn't interrupt the direct mechanical link between key and pallet.
http://www.willis-organs.com/floating_lever.html
DW