David Drinkell

Although continental builders have tried a few Tubas in recent years, and (as a senior British organ builder remarked) had been "aching to have a go at a really big diapason", I don't recall any of them producing a Cornopean yet. I'm probably wrong and wait to be corrected! The effect I mentioned of the Swell coming through the Great is helped, of course, by the Swell Mixture being at least one pitch higher than that on the Great and this is useful in other ways also. I don't see much point in a Swell Mixture that is more grave than its partner on the Great, unless there's an octave coupler. Another point which really does mess up the accompanimental potential of many instruments is the provision of a flute as the Swell 2'. This deprives the player of a bit of useful sparkle at a dynamic level which is needed very often. It also means that the mixture comes on with a crash and/or stands away from its support. The Swell 2' needs to be a principal, or at least a bright gemshorn or flageolet. Of course, a lot of this is dependent on the voicing, but the 2' flutes found so often (especially on continental organs) fail to inspire me.

The weather channel here mentioned funnel clouds and tornados around Howden, Manitoba, today. That's one problem that Howden, Yorkshire doesn't have to deal with.

The organist, Heathcote Statham, was playing, and only became aware that his organ was on fire when a lay-clerk appeared in the organ loft with an extinguisher. According to Gordon Paget (not, it must be admitted, the most reliable of sources, although he was on the spot at that period), quite a lot of the old organ survived, although the photographs after the fire suggest a complete wreck. It's worth mentioning, in the context of other threads, that the present Norwich organ is doing well on most of its original mechanism, despite the passage of seventy or so years.

I'd go for a trumpet. With a good box, it would fulfil most of the functions required of a Swell reed. The Cormorne could go on the Great, where it could be a reasonable chorus reed as well as a solo. The problem, as I see it, with many recent schemes which lack anything more than an oboe in the Swell, is that you lose most of the potential for bringing a fair amount of Swell through a good bit of Great by opening the box - an effect which is worth having in many types of music.

Yes, it was odd, the revamped version as well as the original. I wouldn't call the Flentrop exactly normal - it emphasises certain aspects to the exclusion of others and therefore looks odd itself. From the look of it, the most exciting and interesting modern organ in Cambridge seems to be the St-Martin at Girton - 26 stops spread over four manuals. With a spot of imagination, this could be a truly inspirational beast for many types of repertoire. But I guess it's pretty odd, too!

The present organ originally also had a Violin Diapason in the Swell which would presumably have added to the possibilities, but it was always a slightly odd scheme.

It looks a bit bloated on the Great compared with the Swell, if they're intending to accompany a choir with it. The Salcional would warm up the Roerfluit nicely, but I think a bit more reed tone in the Swell is more useful than the quint and cornet on the Great.

If I earned as much per hour as the excellent guy who services my car, I would be a good deal better off than I am now, especially if paid by the hours I put in rather those for which I am contracted. Not that I'm complaining.....

It was a three manual Rushworth of 1930, divided north and south in respectable cases. If it was anything like their similar instrument in St. James, Antrim Road, Belfast, it would have been a very fine job. John Jackson of Leeds rebuilt it in 1984 with some modification - Great Mixture, Choir Block Flute, etc. NPOR has details and I have no reason to believe that the instrument is not in good shape. I was in Howden last September, but unfortunately got there too late to visit the Minster. The place is of interest to me because my family tree shows that Drinkells, who seem to have been of Viking origin from Jarvik (York), drifted eastward over the years (we are good at ambling) and settled in Howden for a time before winding up in Grimsby. Today, anyone with this name, or various variations thereof, will be from the Grimsby area or with recent antecedents from there - in my case, my grandfather. I always feel sad looking at ruins and imagining what once was, and that view of the great central tower at Howden seen through the empty window of the ruined quire, is one of the most poignant scenes I know. I should like to play there some day.

Very interesting - thank-you. So presumably the shutters of each were under separate control/ Or not? The console had three pedals, which I understood to be Swell, Solo and Crescendo.

Did we mention Christ's Hospital earlier? It certainly still has 5 manuals. not quite up there with Holy Rude, Stirling, but a fine organ all the same. It was at one time fashionable to compare it unfavourably with the old Hill in Big School. Personally, I liked the Rushworth and didn't care for the Hill, but I am not a great Hill fan (with certain very notable exceptions). They have a Father Willis Model Organ as well, and used to have a Casson rebuilt all neo-classical by Nick Plomley.

Gosh, yes! I'd forgotten about that one. Radley had a Precentor, the Revd. William Singleton, who served for a vast number of years and kept persuading the authorities to add bits to the organ. There's a picture in "The Organ" of him sitting at the five-manual console. East Hagbourne Church has the Choir case.

Manchester Cathedral had five manuals until rebuilt by Harrison in 1934. There are photographs of the Willis III console at the Colston Hall. It had four manuals. Thornsby's "Dictionary of Organs and Organists", first edition (1912), corroborates that the Boustead organ had five manuals. The Holmes/Fort Augustus organ had four manuals. There are organists in Scotland who remember it. Likewise, Hexham had four manuals. There must be quite a few who remember it. Paul Derrett has the five manual Tewkesbury console, as mentioned earlier.

I was going by the blurb on the back of the "Great Cathedral Organs" lp, which said something along the lines of the Secondary Swell being "enclosed in the main swell-box", also by the description of there being balanced pedals to Swell, Solo and General Crescendo and a picture of the console showing three pedals. Clutton wrote the organ up in "The Organ" - he liked most of it. Although he described the Secondary Swell as "useless", he didn't mention double enclosure.

I've got that booklet and it doesn't show a five-manual console! In any case, there are enough people around who remember the old organ to be certain. My predecessor at St. Magnus once claimed to see six manuals instead of three, but he had been to a rather good party the night before....

The London house organ in question is probably that of Nathaniel Holmes, who had a very large organ built for him by Bryceson in his house in Regent's Park, which subsequently spent most of its life at Fort Augustus Abbey on the shores of Loch Ness, where it was reduced to three manuals by Rushworth, and wound up in St. Peter's RC Church, Buckie. However, like Hexham, I think Holmes's organ only had four manuals, with the Echo floating. There is, as far as I know, no picture of the console to help us, but the scheme, especially of the couplers, suggests four rather than five.

Sam was ahead of his time for much of his life, and his enthusiasm was extraordinary, but he had fads which sometimes had more influence on him than was maybe healthy. I always thought St. Paul's was right in virtually every respect, but I had doubts about Ely. In either case, of course, one will never know how much of the scheme was down to Sam and how much to the resident organist and the organ-builder. As a wealthy bachelor, he was able to travel a good deal, and he opened the eyes of many to the value of instruments in other traditions.

Cecil Clutton, during one of his enthusiasms, wrote that the Willis III Cornet could do virtually anything except make the tea - it was a good solo stop, it could give the impression of a chorus reed and it could act as a chorus mixture. I believe that there are a few Sesquialteras and Cornets around which work as chorus mixtures, but they generally need the octave coupler to bring off the act. The Swell mixture here is a Cornet IV 8.12.15.17 from bottom C right up 73 notes to give the extra octave for the coupler. Without the octave, it is more of a colour stop, with the octave it works nicely in chorus.

It was. Sir Frederick Bridge had a hand in the design of the organ, and he liked Echo Organs. I believe the pipes were left in situ when the new organ arrived and, for all I know, may be there still, like their equivalent at Westminster Abbey.

If it is, I guess not. Even if it isn't, probably not! I can certainly see the point of alternating octaves in the repeated pedal Ds, although not of putting in extra notes earlier on. If I were playing in front of a crowd that size, I would avoid riffling through the pages to find the piece before getting on the stool and channel-hopping on the sequencer afterwards (I notice he flicks through the pistons after selecting the channel - I don't blame him: I don't trust those things either!). I would also have asked la fille aux cheveux de lin to tenez la gauche before starting to play rather than just afterwards.

Rather a lot of faffing about before he started, and a number of liberties taken with the notes, don't you think? (e.g. extra twiddles in the triplets in the second line of the toccata and transposition of pedal notes in the fugue).

Getting back to the point somewhat - how about this for a useless collection of stops: Manual: Open Diapason 8, Dulciana 8, Flute 4 Pedal: Bourdon Twillingate Anglican Church, Newfoundland. Norman & Beard, so a classy piece of work, compared to the worthy but workaday Bevingtons, Cassons and Forster & Andrewses which were ordered from catalogues and are more usually found in small communities here (although most don't have pipe organs at all). However, the Open is too big for the Flute to have much of an effect apart from thickening it slightly, and the Dulciana is too quiet to support the Flute.

I remember Harry Grindle telling me that when he took over at Belfast Cathedral in 1964, his predecessor having retired after 60 years at the age of 88, he caused quite a rumpus by conducting the choir 'out front' instead of from the organ console. Ian Barber related a similar circumstance at Derry in the early seventies, where one lady was so incensed by the idea that she took to planting a large flower arrangement on the spot where he would be standing. I believe that one reason why Peterborough Cathedral choir was so outstanding in Stanley Vann's time was that he conducted much more than was the norm in those days.

AJJ: It wouldn't be the first time that Fisk proposed something which looked startling but, in the end, worked out. I guess we shall have to wait and see. pcnd: You mentioned the old organ at Llandaff. I thought the Secondary Swell was in the same box as the rest of the Swell, not separately enclosed within it. The stops were only separated so that they could be transferred to the bottom manual as a small Choir Organ. I'd be interested to know if that was the case.

I have an idea that Barry Rose began the custom of conducting everything, partly because it was the only way to get a repertoire up and running in the time he had. There's no doubt, though, that a conducted choir makes a better job of a larger repertoire than an unconducted one. Unless they're King's..... But I was there a few weeks ago (my first fix for years!). The Boss wasn't there, and I thought the choir wasn't taking too much notice of the organ-scholarly carving.