David Drinkell

According to the late Reg Lane, when Hill, Norman & Beard rebuilt the Walker (rebuild of a Father Willis) at Lion Walk United Reformed Church, Colchester in 1986, they acquired the last of Walkers' stock of stop-keys for use in the new three-manual console. When installed in the new building, the organ gained an enclosed choir Organ and also had all the reeds duplicated in all the departments. There are thus a lot more stops than it had in the old church. I don't have a preference for the Walker type over any other stop-key, although I know several people who do (if pushed, I would probably favour Willis tilting tablets, which have the most positive motion IMHO). I wonder if the Walker design was influenced by Rothwell's as a result of their collaboration at St. George's Chapel, Windsor. I think that when Rothwells' ceased trading, it was generally expected that Walkers' would take them over, but in the end it was Rushworths' who did so (hence the Rushworth at St. Mary-le-Bow, recently replaced by Ken Tickell - Rothwells' were supposed to build it and Rushworths' inherited the contract). I guess there will be another big Walker stop-key console up for grabs now that Buckfast are replacing theirs. The Doncaster one was much admired. Roger Fisher, for example, reckoned that it had enough historic significance to be retained along with Schulze's tonal scheme. I suppose there were good reasons why it was replaced rather than renovated, but I never heard what they were.

The resultant 64' at Liverpool is effective, as one might expect in a building of that size. If memory serves me, I don't think Ruffatti's 6m at Monreale in Sicily has a proper 32' flue, which is surprising although it isn't actually a really huge instrument, the six manuals being more to do with various bits to control rather than a whole lot of registers to share out. 'Tis said that the big Tuba at York can be heard a mile down the street if the west doors are open. One of my lay-clerks - a Texan and thus enthusiastic about big noises ("I love it when you put the pedal to the metal!") - reported hearing our organ from the harbour, several hundred yards down the hill, one night. Hope-Jones would have been proud. He didn't include a diaphone in this instrument but the Canadian government used them for fog-horns, as I am reminded when the one at Fort Amherst goes off during Divine Service. Pre-Ethernet, but there's a recording of RVW's "Job, a masque for dancing" where the organ was relayed in by Post Office telephone line. I have no experience of the Buckfast instrument, but by repute it had (like all Downes's designs) a great deal of character that was unique to it. Maybe it will be a shame that it is replaced by a big American-style job. There are enough of them around already, fine as some of them may be. Can one get a doctorate in going off at tangents? I might put in for one....

The Sydney 64' is certainly full-length, although when Sam Clutton visited it he said that the reed was only vibrating at half-speed (one could see it clearly through the window in the boot) so it was in fact operating as a half-length 128' stop. I believe the music desk at Atlantic City can be pulled down over the top few manuals if desired. One can do the same thing on many large instruments (e.g. St. Paul's), but the pictures of both Salzburg and Passau cathedral organs in Sumner show no desk at all. Opinions on the musicality of the Atlantic City organ have generally been high, at least among those who actually played or heard the beast. I'm inclined to expect that the result of the ongoing restoration, which should bring the entire instrument into full working-order, will be both musical and impressive. Another thing for the bucket list (along with driving a steam locomotive on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway ).

I remember going to the small HJ at St. Mary's RC Church, Croydon, with the Organ Club many years ago. It was an impressive noise, lacking somewhat in brightness, although not as much as one might perhaps have expected. I think it's still there, but usurped by a toaster. For another remarkable N&B in similar style, if you're ever in those parts, have an hour or so on the organ at Colchester Moot Hall, currently being restored by Harrisons' and due to be re-opened in May.

Yes, it was one of the EEOP organs, not the WOOFIT! Incidentally, a third Old English organ was made a few years ago for a place in Wales, and there has been at least one American attempt at a similar instrument. Pershore Abbey is notorious in the ringing fraternity as the hairiest ringing room in Christendom. In order to give some view of the vaulted ceiling of the crossing, Gilbert Scott (I think) removed the ringing floor and replaced it with a platform supported on a pair of crossbeams and approached by a walkway along one of said beams. The ringing space itself is surrounded with a barrier and wire netting up to a fair height, so there's no chance of falling out, even if something goes wrong, but ringing there is still not an experience for the faint-hearted. The only other really scary ring I know is the RC church of St. Augustine and St. John in Dublin, which is approached by a long open-work spiral staircase which goes through the middle of the organ on the west gallery. I nearly lost my nerve half-way up, but the sight of one of my colleagues standing in the nave smirking was enough to shame me into getting to the top.

Ditto! I suppose the English equivalent was Garth Benson's reply when asked how to manage the swell pedal in a certain passage of Howells: a cough and the words, "Do it when you can." Kenneth Mobbs at Bristol University reckoned there was a good case for notes inegales in the Prelude of the Great C minor, and played it that way. I do too.

I've just checked NPOR, which says that the balanced pedal for the Swell was added in 2000, i.e. the year after Harrisons' restored the organ, but I see it in the leaflet to which you kindly provided a link. Harrisons' also restored the specification back to something more like Lewis left it, so they may have unenclosed the Choir. Oddly, the pre-Harrison NPOR entry mentions a trigger Swell pedal but makes no mention of that for the Choir, although it records that the department was enclosed. I first played the Norwood organ c.1970 while on a course for young organists at Addington. The oddity of two trigger swells was enough to make me make a special note of it, and I remember them on subsequent occasions. It's many years now since I last played there, certainly long before the Harrison restoration, so thanks for bringing me up to date.

Yes, I've played at Shrewsbury and I remember those swell pedals. I would bet that they replaced trigger pedals somewhere along the line. But Norwood is the only one I can recall which still has two trigger pedals.

Idiosyncrasies abound! In this city (St. John's, Newfoundland) there are three four-manual Casavant organs, each with three divisions enclosed. At the Anglican Cathedral, from the left, the pedals are Solo, Choir, Swell, General Crescendo. At the RC Basilica, Choir, Swell, Solo, General Crescendo (one can, though, switch all boxes onto one pedal). At Cochrane Street UC, Choir, Solo, Swell, General Crescendo. The latter two organs were built within a few years of each other. The only example I can think of with two trigger swell pedals off to the right is the Lewis at St. John's, Upper Norwood. I imagine there are others. As handsoff surmises, his right-hand balanced swell must be a conversion from a trigger type. There are a lot around. I hope that, unlike some, his actually balances. Brisbane Town Hall (5m Willis III) has/had a trigger pedal for the Swell in addition to the balanced (or was it Infinite Gradation) one, because the organist claimed to prefer it (some organists did - the trigger type gives a better sforzando). HWIII claimed it was never used. Maybe St. Paul's was similarly equipped at one time. St. Bees Priory has an odd type of swell pedal, but I can't remember how it works! After he resigned, J Kendrick Pyne was playing for a funeral in Manchester Cathedral, where the Hill organ had recently been fitted with a new type of swell pedal. He, apparently played with great emotion, murmuring to himself the while, "He was a great friend...damn that swell pedal!....I shall miss him very much...."

I like regals (I like most rude noises). On Youtube at http//:youtu.be/oh9ytm9zwwY there's a brilliant video of a modern reconstruction of a regal by Wim Dijkstra. I can see the music well enough to transcribe it (although having been a Sibelius disciple for the past twenty years, I've nearly forgotten how to write on a stave with a pen), but I can't make out the title or composer. Can anyone with better eye-sight or equipment than I have enlighten me? Thanks!

I understand the present Willis management has a very elevated taste in motor vehicles

The barriers are, to a large extent, down, but in the past it seemed that there was a denominational bias against British builders (with some exceptions, e.g. Willis built a number of notable organs in RC churches but a foot-in-the-door may have been the amalgamation with Lewis and therefore the Courage connection). Post VAT2, the primary requirements seemed to be "tracker action and not British" and there were some very mediocre, but pretty-looking jobs springing up. But even before that, there were some odd beasts around, such as that by Bettex of Steinsfurt in Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Joseph, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, with its complete set of German gadgets and occasionally hilariously translated names (I bet "Roller Away" had a few people guessing until they worked out what it did). Overall, some of the new jobs look fabulous - Merton College, Oxford and St. George's, Hanover Square (apart from the damn silly console). I bet they sound just as good, too. I was only ever in Buckfast Abbey once and I never heard the organ. From reports, it seemed to be very much an individual so I guess it's sad if it has just been tipped out.

HW III was apparently a notoriously bad driver and I don't think he was a petrol-head, because he mentioned in a letter to G. Donald Harrison, "Got a new car, a little Morris...."

The Harrison organ is not ideally situated and some of its features, such as the 16' Geigen on the Choir were intended to give it more presence, after the ideas of the time, in the church. When it first became in need of major restoration, in the seventies, the decision was made to replace it with a new HNB organ at the west end, using the John Geib case (which had been bolted on to the pedal basses of the Harrison). For reasons of space and economy, the 1974 organ made wide and clever use of shared basses (what Henry Willis IV called "John Norman's bassless organs"). It was well thought-of at the time, and as far as I know, still is. Meanwhile, the Harrison remained because it would have cost so much to take it out, and continued to be used - more so over the years as it became apparent that it was a fine example of its type, that type having been much out of fashion in the seventies. I remember seeing a "Songs of Praise" in which both organs were used, and an advertisement for the post of Organist in the Church Times mentioned the fact that the church contained two fine organs. More recently, I believe that the Association of Independent Organ Advisors visited the Harrison and found it very much worth preserving. So, it's really done quite well to be still functioning, after a fashion, forty years after it was "replaced".

Now there's an interesting job! I forgot - the old organ at St. Giles had them too.

That's interesting. Sumner (or was it Norman?) said that the Willis system was "virtually stepless" but I couldn't work out how that could be true. With any control, like the whiffle-tree, that uses trains of small motors to open the shutters, there's bound to be some degree of steps in the operation, the smoothness depending on how many stages are in the motor. Eight is not enough and I believe some used thirty-two. Willis III reckoned that his system could move the shutters slower than would be possible with a foot operating a conventional balanced pedal. I know that it could certainly move very fast if one wasn't careful. When I first played at Southwark ("John" Warrell was very kind to a strange teenager and let me come in when I wanted), I reckoned that one of the loudest noises heard at the extremely badly-sited console was the swell shutters crashing shut when one forgot about the Infinite Gradation pedals.... One firm, for a joke, had a cartoon ad in Musical Opinion illustrating an "Infinite Potation" swell system work by a series of bottles and jugs. Could it have been our hosts? Although I admire Henry Willis IIII very much, I wouldn't say he was infallible. Only he would have said that.....

I've played a few organs with Willis Infinite Gradation swell pedals - Canterbury, Southwark, Salisbury, All Souls' Langham Place, St. Jude's Thornton Heath and Liverpool come to mind. Of these, I think only Liverpool still has them (the Thornton Heath organ went to Japan, I believe, after Carlo Curley bought it to save it from being scrapped). I remember reading somewhere that "the incumbent organists prefer them". I didn't find them a problem, but I wouldn't go nearly so far as to admit I preferred them! Willis claimed that they gave a more precise control than other types of swell engine, and possibly they were less susceptible to the woes that can beset whiffle-trees and the like (most notably several stages operating at once, with a consequent "whoof" of crescendo - you can hear this happen on the two recordings Belfast Cathedral Choir made for Guild Music). The oddest swell pedal I've met is at Coalisland Parish Church in Northern Ireland, where you press the heel down to open the box and the toe to close it.

I think they're still interested in keeping that one.

The Pearson cases were discarded when Harrisons' rebuilt the organ in 1937 - you can see the bare rows of pipes in pictures of the Coronation. They were replaced, and coloured, when that great architect Stephen Dykes Bower was Surveyor of the Fabrick.

A lot of these Rushworth unit organs were very Compton-ish and this would explain the better effect of upperwork extended from a not-too-quiet salicional. I wonder if Rushworth's acquired some ex-Compton personnel around that time (I know they took them much later).

You don't need sixties mutations for that. We have an annual Blessing of the Animals Service and I've worked out exactly what combinations make the dogs howl

The Purcell Trumpet was moved to the main organ, wasn't it? I remember visiting Walkers' works at Brandon in 1977 and seeing pipework from Bradford awaiting attention. They made some modifications to it at that time, mainly taking the sting out of the mixtures, if I remember rightly. I liked the Maufe nave case - pity they got rid of it.

I don't follow your meaning re "slush-bucketism". Would you care to elucidate?

One fault - to present-day tastes - of many small extension organs is that all the "Swell" upperwork is taken from the flute rank, with the diapason available only at 8'. Compton sometimes got round this by making the dulciana relatively substantial, so that it could provide secondary upperwork and even (as at All Souls, Belfast) some decent mixtures. A similar device is the "long" viola rank found in many Compton Swells. In chorus terms, Compton could provide a more convincing department with a Viola, Trumpet and Harmonic Flute than most builders could with independent ranks. St. Mark's, Dundela, Belfast (for some reason known as "Gertie, a lady of ill-repute" to generations of organists) is an example (the Swell is the best department), and that nice little three-manual at St. Olave, Hart Street, City of London is another.

I think his point, with regard to qualifications, was that he claimed to be the only cathedral organist with a Doctorate in Music by examination. This was included in his biographical notes for the Essex Man Organ Gala held at St. Paul's in 1993 in aid of the Chelmsford Cathedral Music Foundation.