David Drinkell

Slight tangent - although it's often said that Forster and Andrews were influenced by Schulze, when it comes to power I find their organs rather modest compared with those of their contemporaries. Binns of course, but also Bevington or even Henry Jones produced a more exciting sound. I'm thinking mostly of smaller instruments (there are several F&As here in Newfoundland, directly comparable with similar sized Bevingtons), but even the larger ones lacked bite. I never heard All Souls, Haley Hill, Halifax, which was reputed to be very fine, but Hull City Hall was criticised in its original form and many felt that it only really came into its own after the Compton rebuild. As for Norman & Beard, I'm naturally prejudiced but go to Colchester Town Hall to see what they could do in 1902 with only 28 speaking stops. www.moothallorgan.co.uk PS: Welcome back, Muso, it's been a long time and we've missed you.

There is much cause for rejoicing at Thaxted in the restoration of the Lincoln organ, which was in a parlous state when I first knew it over forty years ago and, from what I heard, had been not much better when Gustav Holst used to play it fifty or so years before that. Maybe there's something to be said for the longevity of these old tracker jobs after all (wicked grin). The Flight at Harwich was in a shocking state for years and years, but kept going until Peter Bumstead restored it some years back. The west end G.P. England organ was found, restored and installed at Thaxted by the local builder Cedric Arnold, who had a sympathetic touch with little old organs. It is, however, mounted on a beam and played from a detached console because it is in the tower arch and could not obstruct the ringers' circle. It was used more often than the Lincoln for most of its life, the latter being very quietly spoken and well out of the way in the north transept (I wonder if it has come up brighter and more assertive after the restoration). The England, although small, had more presence in the church when it came to leading hymns, etc. Omega is right in his surmise about the toaster. Maybe they wanted something with more variety to accompany choral music, or maybe the England organ needed work. The toaster was there when I was last in the church about five years ago. Re Saffron Walden, it was said that the last HN&B rebuild came about because a rich wedding couple requested a certain piece and the organist demurred on the grounds that there was no Tuba - so they paid for one, although it materialised in the form of a horizontal trumpet (also available on the Pedal at 16'!).

The Colchester Moot Hall opening concerts seemed to go down well. Congratulations to Firstrees, a member of this forum, whose piece "Moot Points" came first in a competition for a new organ piece organised as part of the festivities.

I had supper with the Harrison team after the opening concert at Colchester Moot Hall last week. King's came up in the conversation, and I don't think I'm divulging any confidences to say that more of the Pedal is being brought "upstairs" than was previously the case. This is all to the good because it will help co-ordination between departments. I'm glad they've scrapped the tierce in the Pedal Mixture. Tierces in the bottom of mixtures always sound odd to my ears. On Saturday, I was at King's for Evensong and the concluding voluntary was Alain's Litanies. I thought, as I have before in the last few years, that there was less brightness to the sound than there had been previously. It might have been the registration, of course....

A first-class electric action will last longer than most electronic organs, even the better ones. I notice that a number of tracker organs from the sixties and seventies are giving trouble now, whereas some very fine electric-action jobs continue to soldier on. There are examples to the contrary too, of course! Norwich, by the way, had a previous attempt at installing a larger pipe organ. The 1904 3m Norman & Beard from St. John, Lowestoft was dismantled and stored for some time, with a view to its being rebuilt in the cathedral, but that never happened. In the end, it was rebuilt in Gorleston Parish Church by Wood, Wordsworth, replacing a very ordinary job by Binns, Fitton & Haley.

I couldn't find it! I would find it useful for weddings, too.

Longman & Broderip. They were purveyors rather than builders. They supplied the organ at Wymondham Abbey in Norfolk, but it was built by James Davis.

Sunday 24th May at 4.00pm. Inaugural Concert on the organ of Colchester Town Hall, which has been restored and returned to its original specification by Harrison & Harrison in consultation with William McVicker. Admission free. The programme is rather populist, because it is also being given the previous Thursday evening for an invited audience - Mayor, Corporation, etc - but it includes the first performance of "The Art and Industry of Pipework" for organ and electronics (recorded in a diesel engine factory!) commissioned from local composer Julia Usher. Toccata & Fugue in D minor BWV 565 - Johann Sebastian Bach Variations on "Ei, du feiner Reiter" - Samuel Scheidt Master Tallis's Testament - Herbert Howells The Art and Industry of Pipework - Julia Usher Lotus - Billy Strayhorn, arr. Alec Wyton Elizabethan Serenade - Binge Suite Gothique - Leon Boellmann The player is myself. I'm rather chuffed about this because I thought they'd get someone famous. Also, I gave my first ever public performance (on the piano) in this very hall in 1963 at the age of seven (they've taken their time asking me back!). The organ is a remarkable and little-known example by Norman & Beard from their best period, built in 1902 with everything on the grand scale and sounding much larger than it is www.co.uk/NPORview.html?RI=N08698. The building is a magnificent example of Edwardian baroquery, possibly the finest provincial town hall in the country. There is an exciting and ongoing series of events celebrating the organ's return. For details, see www.moothallorgan.co.uk

You're right. I just looked it up, too! According to Jonathan's book, the organ was used weekly for choral evensong services and once a month for the series "Melodies of Christendom" with the BBC Singers.

That's most interesting and new to me. It makes sense, because there's certainly mention of the organ being used, e.g. during Walford Davies's radio talks (Thalben Ball extemporised his "Elegy" during one).

I don't think the Broadcasting House organ ever controlled a piano, although the Langham Place theatre organ probably did. There was certainly an article on the latter in "The Organ" - I think it was by Leslie Barnard.

It was Reginald Foort who had the Moller, not Quentin MacClean. The latter moved to Canada - the organ he played in his church job there is now in St. Michael's RC School in central Toronto. I understand that the Maida Vale organ was, and is, used quite a lot. It was reckoned to be a very successful instrument, despite using more extension than was Compton's normal preference. The Broadcasting House organ was never used as much because of sound leakage to other parts of the building, especialy (and unfortunately) the news studios, which were in more-or-less constant use. It was well thought-of, although not as good as Downside, according to the old boys in my youth. I hadn't heard that it was unusable, just generally out of use. I have an idea the Shepherd Brothers looked after both instruments.

One must remember, though, that Skinner was outspoken in all that he said, never minced his words, fell out with a lot of people and sometimes put rather an extreme spin on past events. He did, however, write, "Damn Hope-Jones!" in a letter when he was hoping to entice Donald Harrison to come and work with him. As we know, at first Harrison was the blue-eyed boy, but later Skinner vilified him to such an extent that he was lucky not to have been taken to court. H-J worked with many firms on both sides of the Atlantic. He was with Ingram of Hereford when he was forced to leave England, leaving 'my' organ (St. John's Cathedral, Newfoundland) half-finished, and he was with Austin for a period when he first arrived in the States.

The Norwich job is a decent specimen by Norman & Beard which originally stood in an RC church in Maddermarket. Gt: Open Diapason, Clarabella, Stopped Diapason (bass), Keraulophon, Principal, Lieblich Flute, Fifteenth, Mixture 19.22 Sw: Open Diapason, Stopped Diapason, Salicional, Vox Angelica, Principal, Piccolo, Oboe Ped: Bourdon 3 unison couplers 3 composition pedals to Great trigger swell Not a big cathedral organ, but it stands in an open position in a good acoustic and sounds bigger than it is. An oddity is that the plate is dated Norman & Beard 1876, which was before George Wales Beard joined the firm, and it is a palimpsest, with James Scott of West Tofts on the reverse side.

Each to his own - I thought the Solo reeds stood out from the rest of the organ like a pair of sore thumbs. But I agree entirely that the organ could speak with a French or English accent. I hate to admit it, but I don't really know the Coventry Harrison. I've heard it once or twice accompanying Evensong, but that's it. I'd be interested to know people's opinions on how the two compare.

It does sound more Tuba-ish than anything I can recall from a week I spent there with Belfast Cathedral Choir in 1998 (incidentally, Windsor is one of the most friendly, helpful and pleasant places for visiting choirs and they publish - or published - a really helpful list of how to go about a visit and what was expected). I thought the organ was quite outstandingly fine - apart from the sausage-frying Solo reeds!

The Lemare and Nauss are on IMSLP, although the latter is in "old" with funny clefs....

I think Wrexham used to have a Compton in a remote chamber, relayed into the building electronically. Can anyone confirm this?

Amen to Colin. I remember hearing an absolute pig's-ear of a noise in King's some years ago. I was quite shocked! I don't think the player would have been capable of accompanying a service anyway, so I don't know why he was let loose when the building was open. This makes me somewhat off-topic, though - sorry. If one practices with discretion, visitors often say how much they enjoy it, and vergers tend to be pleased.

It depends if you're aiming to cultivate at least a quorum of properly produced treble voices with a good head tone. At Belfast, we used to be able to work up to Great to Mixture with Full Swell coupled, box open and 32' reed on the Pedal at the end of the Gloria to Bairstow in E flat on Tuesday boys' Evensongs. The ruling factor should be balance and loudness of individual stops in relation to the room. A chorus of moderately-voiced stops is more useful than one where everything is just that bit too loud, and that applies to the upperwork, too. Stopped Diapason, Salicional 8, Principal 4, Nason Flute 4, Fifteenth 2, Mixture 19.22, Pedal Bourdon 16, maybe. More than double the potential if you have a good electric action and octave couplers. I ponder sometimes as to whether a well-built extension organ voiced by an artist is the best bet. Extension organs and electric actions are let down by the number of bad ones produced by cheap firms. One could get an amazing variety of sounds out of a small Compton.

Sounds like Norwich RC to me.

It's difficult for cathedrals which attract large numbers of visitors. They want to cater for them as best they can (and they need the income), and it can be very off-putting if the organ is being used for practice. Then again, some cathedrals actually attract people who want to go in and pray.... There's a difference between practising and playing through stuff. The former can be extremely trying, but the latter can be uplifting. I remember a verger at Norwich many years ago getting driven nearly demented by a visiting organist rehearsing all the verses of the psalms for the day, and I think he had a point. For myself, I hate having to do stop-and-start practice when there are visitors in and I tend to do mine late at night. But it is different for a visitor who doesn't live close to the place, and the more understanding foundations are flexible about requirements and practicalities.

On my second visit to Fanakirke, just outside Bergen (first time with St. Magnus Cathedral Choir, this time with Belfast), there was a service between our rehearsal and concert, for which the resident organist reset all the free combinations, much to the consternation of our organists, neither of whom had previous experience of that sort of control. Speaking of Norway, I see they've restored the very big Steinmeyer at Trondhjem. Good for them - I wonder what the new Willis solo reeds sound like....

No, unless it replaced the instrument listed in NPOR. The one in the Abbey is definitely a Casson. The case design is unmistakeable, as are other features such as the key-fall. The instrument in NPOR has no Cassonian features and looks typical of the builder to which it is attributed - Gildersleeve - as far as I can make out from the information available. The original Gildersleeve was trained by Willis and set up in Bury St. Edmunds. His organ at Garboldisham in Norfolk has round-fronted sharps in the Willis fashion (I'm sure it's one of his, despite NPOR suggesting it's by Mack of Yarmouth). There are a number of organs by him around Suffolk and Norfolk, generally cheerful little village jobs if not always particularly fascinating (excepting the very odd one at Drinkstone, which has more mis-spellings on the stops than I've seen outside Germany, a number of weird compasses and possibly some very old pipework).

Yup - that's definitely a Casson. One of the firm's standard case designs, as featured also (for example) at Bulmer, Essex and Beighton, Norfolk. This one has the front pipes stencilled, which I haven't seen before in this design of case, and either the woodwork has been painted/stained or the photograph has given it a pinkish tint - the whole thing looks kind of strawberry-flavoured, but not at all unpleasant.