David Drinkell

There was certainly at least one 17th/18th century English organ - I think it was Durham Cathedral - where the front pipes were washed in beer from time to time instead of being varnished. A popular feature of the peregrinations of the Wetheringsett and Wingfield organs was that local brewers often offered to supply refreshment for the blowers.

Bernard Edmonds described what he called a Road to Damascus Moment when he realised that, although composition pedals on this sort of organ tend give you an unsubtle wodge of stops, you can then push in one or two, thereby gaining a range of decent combinations. Pushing in stops, as he pointed out, is easier than pulling them out, especially with flat jambs and large stop knobs. I think he was right. I played Karg Elert's 'Tenebrae' from Bernard's copy this week. It's nice to have these little mementoes of friends and mentors.

Hmmm - they get up to some very odd things in the United Church these days. Maybe that includes using strange pipes.

The organ at which the two lovely young ladies are posing is the Casavant in the Metropolitan United Church, Toronto, the biggest organ in Canada. It's a wonderful beast - very lush and Romantic....

Regarding the regular tuning of large organs, in my experience it's a hallmark of a really good instrument that it stands well in tune. The Harrison at Belfast Cathedral rarely needed more than a few touches to a few pipes. Following on from this, I think it's also true that a lot of tuning tends to make an organ need a lot more tuning. If the pipes stand well in tune without being touched, they will do so for a long time, but if they have to be tapped around, the stability will lessen and a vicious circle will be set up.

I would agree with you. Grouse is mostly Highland Park, too.

My God! The French may know what they are at when it comes to food, but this shows a distressing lack of taste when it comes to whisky. I speak as former organist of the northernmost Cathedral in the British Isles, within sniffing distance of the northernmost distillery (Highland Park - the manager sang in the the choir).

Birmingham and Manchester have certainly tried, but unqualified praise for the new organs there is hard to find, as it is for some other neo-classical concert organs. On the other hand, I haven't heard anything but good opinions about the scheme, workmanship, sound and fitness-for-purpose of the new cathedral organ at Llandaff.

The late-lamented Carlo had a story of ripping his trousers off as he descended at high speed from the Grove console at Tewkesbury to take a bow, appearing a few seconds later in his full-length fur coat - only Carlo would have had a coat like that.....

Going back to the original post, it would be mighty expensive to add another rank of pipes on a new chest, just to provide a different use for an existing stop-knob or tab. A Unison Off can provide a good deal of flexibility if used with imagination. You can use it to silence a pre-drawn combination until needed, in the same way that Cavaille-Coll organs have ventils to each soundboard which must be engaged in order for the pipes to sound (in other words, Unison ON devices - I believe one American builder provided Unison On stops which had to be drawn before any sound came out). Flipping a stop or combination up an octave is common practice and sometimes more convenient than playing in the higher octave. British organs occasionally have an extra octave at the top of certain solo stops (often 16' Clarinets or Oboes), and quite often a piston to give, say, "Oboe 8'". Harrisons' "Octaves Alone" stop was provided to facilitate this sort of thing (Down Cathedral is another example). North American organs often have extra notes for all stops except the highest pitched. Mine has 68 note soundboards for Great, Choir and Solo and 73 notes |(for some reason) for the Swell, with extra notes for all stops except the 2's (oddly enough the mixtures do have the extra notes). It's surprising how useful this is, even with a 61 note compass. One doesn't for example, have to worry about losing the top end in French toccatas, which tends to happen without the extra notes. Taking the middle out of a combination involving octaves and subs by means of the Unison Off can be very useful, especially in |French music and when accompanying. I've often said this before, but I find a complete set of octaves, subs and unisons, including inter-manual 16, 8, 4 couplers, tremendously useful. I am still discovering new ways to mix the stops, and I've been playing this organ almost every day for over eleven years, so my ideal is the American (or Willis) style of a complete range of couplers controlled by tilting tablets over the top manual. Draw-stops are cumbrous for this provision and stop-keys rather prone to misfire - it needs tilting tablets. Willis ones are more positive in their feel and action than North American styles.

Not a trompe l'oeil, but Rushbrooke Church near Bury St. Edmunds has a whole fake organ case in the west gallery. The entire church furnishings were carved, slightly crudely, by the local Squire and Patron, Colonel Rushbrooke in the nineteenth century, and the interior is laid out like a college chapel, with a set of King Henry VIII arms which, if genuine, would be unique. Cockayne Hatley, Hertfordshire, has a fake organ case, possibly Belgian, and St. Conan's Church, on the shores of Loch Awe in Argyllshire, has fake organ cases suspended from the ceiling like lamp-fittings. I think the empty organ case at West Wycombe has now got an organ behind it.

I have just heard that the contract has been awarded to Harrison & Harrison.

That reminds me - someone once told me that Snetzler was left-handed, so his nicking goes the opposite way from that of right-handed voicers.

It's difficult to say, because if one is one-way-handed, one doesn't know how it is to be the-other-way-handed. Speaking for myself, I took to the organ very quickly and left hand/pedal co-ordination was never a problem. I don't think this was a particular talent on my part, but rather a knack which I was lucky to possess - rather like those who have the ability to add up a column of figures with the flick of an eye (I am no good at all adding up numbers!). Regarding right hand fingering, I suppose we left-handers do have a slight advantage in that we can have our fingers on the notes while writing in the fingering. It doesn't work, of course, for left hand fingering!

Reading The Daily Telegraph online today (life in North America is much improved by access to British newspapers and crosswords - especially The Guardian cryptic - online) I was interested by two articles on left-handedness as I am myself left-handed. How many organists, I wonder, are similarly orientated? I believe Francis Jackson is one and I have an idea that Ralph Vaughan Williams was another. In my year at Bristol University, three of the five first-study organists were left-handed, as were two of the five full-time lecturers (Nigel Davison and Kenneth Mobbs, two of the three organists). I used to get a bit of stick (no pun intended) because I conducted left-handed, but I have always reckoned that those being conducted are either experienced enough for it not to matter or inexperienced enough not to notice. I don't think it makes any difference in terms f organ management, but I'd be interested to know what others think.

I must add a further warning - try not to stub your toe when wearing Organmaster shoes

The RSCM used to have one at Addington Palace. I have an idea it was on loan, maybe from one of the London colleges. It was a smart looking beast and quite nice to play.

I have an instrument which is very similar to Clarabella8's - one rank of stopped wooden pipes at 4' pitch arranged in two rows. There is no bellows and the wind comes in at the treble end, so I assume that this is the optimum position. In such an instrument, I would guess that there might be a danger of the big pipes robbing wind from the trebles if the wind came in at the bass end. Incidentally, I bought my organ from a traditionalist RC priest, the late Fr. Ronald de Poe Silk, in Cambridge, in 1985. I think it was made from a kit, but I have no idea who made it. It is quite a well-travelled instrument, having lived in Orkney, Carrickfergus and Belfast before being loaded into a container and transported to Newfoundland (via Liverpool, Rotterdam, New York and Halifax NS, apparently).

The pedal solo falls under the feet fairly well, in fact the whole piece isn't nearly as difficult as it might sound. As for the chords, shoes with a decent instep make them feasible, but it may depend on the size of one's feet (mine are 10 1/2 British size).

The Driffill Toccata is also on IMSLP - looks pretty good. Thanks for the mention of the Belier Toccata - I didn't know it at all, but I'm going to give it a run at this Wednesday's lunch-time concert. I always find these posts about repertoire very helpful - I've picked up a lot of interesting stuff which I otherwise wouldn't have heard of.

I have the Languetuit and I've played it, but I found it a good deal more difficult than I'd expected.

Leighton's Fanfare was mentioned earlier (I think it was set by AB for Grade VII at one time, but it would have been an easy choice at that level). 'Easy Modern Organ Music' also contains Arnold Cooke's Impromptu, which is a beautiful little piece - Hindemithian but with a leavening of lyricism. Mathias's Chorale and McCabe's Nocturne are worth a look, too. If you like the Cooke, you'll like the slow movements of the Hindemith Sonatas.

I agree that it's right to have the original versions and to play them, but there are times when the occasion or the instrument makes the use of a filled-out arrangement with pedals more effective. I have several examples of the period in both types of arrangement and play both, according to what seems right at the time.

There was a series of articles covering all the preludes by Bryan Hesford (?) in Musical Opinion years ago. One could make a complete list from those if one had access to back numbers.

The Carillon from Pieces en style libre is one of the easiest I know in the French toccata style (the one sometimes known as 'Big Chief Thunderfoot's War Dance'). Boellmann's Gothic Toccata is easier than most. Thinking of loud Dubois, 'Fiat Lux' is effective and not too hard to play. Then there's always Herbert Chappell's 'Songs of Praise'. I know he's not French, but neither was Georges MacMaster, who was mentioned earlier, and this is a very approachable piece. I like the Gigout, but it's very short and there's a bit about two thirds of the way through that always waits to trip me up. The Dover book, edited by Rollin Smith, is very well worth buying - all sorts of valuable stuff in the Toccata, Carillon and Scherzo line (the Scherzos including Gigout's).