David Drinkell

I believe the original stop was developed by E.M. Skinner who, casting around for a name, asked a German employee what came to his mind on hearing it. Henry Willis III produced something similar but called it Sylvestrina, sometimes with a celeste. I've never heard a Holtkamp Ludwigtone, which was described as a doppel flute voiced as a slow celeste. It sounds like an interesting idea.

Very best wishes to David Stevens as he prepares to take up his new post at Belfast Cathedral. He has a daunting task head of him, but I'm sure it can be done!

But this scheme was as rebuilt for Hoar Cross, wasn't it? It never stood in Bangor like that. It will be interesting to see how the restoration turns out.

Maybe Faversham? I think I read something about that sometime. Incidentally, they still have a good choir there.

I believe I found out about the New College webcasts on this forum. I've been listening regularly and I'm terribly impressed. I knew the Choir was up there with the best, but over the last few months I've been mightily struck by how good the organ sounds in accompaniment. I've never been one of those who regarded it as a freak, or a child of its time, and I've liked it on the few occasions I've heard it live, but I'm quite bowled over with both it and the way it's handled on these broadcasts.

I've got three swell pedals and a general crescendo - what do you think I am: some sort of Hindu god??

But wouldn't it be great to have a choir and congregation that needed a Pedal Mixture 19.22.26.29.33.36.40.43 just to keep them happy in the hymns?

There has been quite a lot written about Hope-Jones's innovations in the way of dividing an organ between various locations and providing a detached console. I like to see mine as the logical outcome of such ingenuity. The light-house is about a mile away as the gull flies (a lot further by road, as the harbour gets in the way), so a console in the Old Ship Tavern would seem to be a reasonable compromise.

Love it! I think one reason for the Bourdon/Bass Flute provision was so that the 8' acted as a helper to the 16', giving it definition and depth. One should still, as you say, couple down under most circumstances. There are some papers in the Cambridgeshire Record Office relating to the rebuilding of the organ at Stapleford Church in 1925. The main rivals for the job were the local firms of Miller and Bedwell (HN&B quoted a price three tmes as high, and Harrisons' suggested Walkers' might do the job well for a lesser sum!). Called to advise, the organist at Ely Cathedral, Noel Ponsonby, wrote that the 8' flute was 'essential' and also recommended complete basses for each stop. W.T. Best, in his notes about the Bolton Town Hall Organ of 1874, wrote concerning the Pedal Organ: The Clarabella Bass 'furnishes a soft octave tone to the 16' stop and thus supplies organists with what they often complain of not being able to get, even on large instruments - a soft 16ft and 8ft bass uncoupled.' The other 8' stop specified was a Violoncello, so I think he was thinking of definition above everything else. Maybe Best's Clarabella Bass was envisaged as having a little more character than the Bass Flutes of slightly later years, so uncoupled use might be a more musical practice.

Dixit Muso: 'I really don't undertand why a complete and independent pedal organ should be incompatible with anything; assuming that we are referring to a "small cathedral scheme."' 'What exactly is so special about the accompaniment role, that it renders an independent pedal chorus redundant?' Isn't the sticking point the limit of 35 speaking stops? An organ which is principally used for accompaniment will arguably be more useful if it majors on manual stops and not on a full Pedal chorus. If the reckoning was in ranks rather than speaking stops, one could compromise with an Open Wood, a metal unit from 8', a Bourdon unit and a reed unit, some of those possibly also available on the manuals. 'Meanwhile, Thomas Hill and T C Lewis were building PROPER organs, but few recognised the fact.' I would rather have a Willis than a Hill. With one or two exceptions (like Chester and Cork), I don't find much excitement in Hill organs, especially the later ones, so I would be happier with (in the same general area), St. Peter's, Brighton (http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N00951) rather than All Saints, Hove (http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N15507). Or St. Augustine, Kilburn (http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N17146) rather than All Hallows, Gospel Oak (http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N17086) - although the latter is one of my favourite Hills. When it comes to Lewis, unless an instrument was above a certain (quite large) size, you have a stonking Great chorus but nothing much to balance or counter it. Wonderful sounds, but not the easiest beasts to drive. I love St. John's, Upper Norwood, though. This could be a contender on this thread, as it only has 36 speaking stops, but see where the leeway for plenty of accompanimental stops is obtained - by pruning the Pedal down to absolute basics (as left by Lewis, it didn't even have a reed). How about St. Giles, Cripplegate? Allowing for duplication of the Great reeds and Cornet, and the slightly over-large Great, it would almost come within the parameters - it would do most things well and it has a proper Pedal Organ. http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=N17641

I have the Tibia, but the Diaphone is on the other side of the harbour just below the light-house, so ensemble is difficult.

He went to school with one of my contemporaries at Homerton College, Cambridge in 1979, so that puts him in his mid-fifties. Didn't he head to Scandinavia in search of proper sdalaries and tracker actions?

Oh all right then! But it could do with a tuba as well! :angry:

I have a box of CDs of Dutch baroque organs which I keep in the car and of which I never tire (and Canadian roads are long), but on the evidence of the Harlem clip, I would say that the Pedal mixtures stand away from the reeds and the whole Pedal stands away from the manual. I'm a terrific admirer of the Harlem organ in general, but maybe it's a one-off, like Liverpool Cathedral (where also they tend to avoid the Pedal upperwork because it obscures the texture). Alkmaar sounds much more cohesive (the performance, although excellent in its own terms, is too slow and detached for my tastes). I'm told Howells sounds wonderful at Harlem, too. But before I run for cover, I should imagine that anything would.

I've heard Coventry a couple of times at week-day services, but never 'let out', so I can't form an opinion. If, however, it's anything like its stable-mate at Windsor, I can well believe that it deserves the praise it gets. When people complain about British organs, it's usually on matters of balance, and Windsor (and presumably Coventry) manages to retain the tradition but with good balance throughout (I never liked those Solo reeds, though!).

I think Muso's opinion of British organ music does it less than justice, but I love Howells, so thank heavens we don't all think alike! If we're going to have full choruses on the Pedal, is it acceptable to have at least the unisons in unit, with at least separate quints for the mixture? Didn't Donald Harrison reckon he could provide a full chorus in less space and for no more money than EMS's extended woods? I'm inclined to think that anything less than a flue chorus up to mixture is not much use, because otherwise you might as well couple anyway. My own organ has a Stentorphone on the Solo which could give me 8 and 4 on the Pedal if I coupled it down, but I hardly ever do this (it's not such a monster as the name suggests and I use it more as an alternative to the Great stops in chorus building). I could never see much point in the old British idea of hefty 16s and 8s with a 4' flute taken off the bourdon, although a 2' flute could be useful. This organ, which I've quoted before, has one of the most effective Pedal divisions for its period that I've met, but it's a remarkable instrument in so many ways, anyway: http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=N00613 My mother tells me that 'Songs of Praise' this Sunday is coming from this church, although how much it will show off the organ remains to be seen (I could tell you some horror-stories about certain recording engineers!). This discussion about Pedal organs is very interesting (I particularly appreciated the link to the new Bach organ at Arnstadt) and has made me think a good deal. If I'm honest, I would have to say that a full Pedal department is more desirable in theory than in practice. I would find a good selection of melodic upperwork useful - in practice, isn't it better to have a 4' reed on the Pedal than to tie up a manual in order to couple? There are a fair number of big new organs around that don't have such a stop. Even more frustrating is the 4' Pedal reed that is too soft to be accompanied on the manuals. Bristol University and Belfast Cathedral both have these (the latter also has/had a Fagotto unit that is too thin and quiet to be of much use at all - but the Ophicleide is relatively civilised). Incidentally, I used to find the Octave Wood at Belfast (not such a pervading voice as some) to be spot on as a Flute 8 in Couperin, etc, and the Tibia Plena here does much the same thing. For a 'cathedral' organ with the number of stops suggested, St. Bees Priory comes pretty close - everything one could dsire for the period but with about twenty less stops. http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=N01634 If the 35 stops didn't include pedal extensions, one could probably work out something with less constrictions.

Yes - it was some considerable time before I noticed that!

OK, here goes: Hope-Jones & Ingram 1904, Norman & Beard 1915, Casavant 1927 Op.1178 Great(68 note soundboards): Double Open Diapason 16A, First Diapason 8, Second Diapason 8, Doppel Flute 8, Hohl Flute 8, Gemshorn 8, Octave 4, Flute Harmonique 4, Twelfth 2 2/3, Fifteenth 2, Mixture 15.19.22.26, Tromba 8, Clarion 4, G/G 16.8.4, S/G 16.8.4, C/G 16.8.4, So/G 16.8.4 Swell (73 note soundboards): Lieblick Gedeckt (sic) 16B, First Diapason 8, Second Diapason 8, Clarabella 8, Bourdon 8, Viola de Gamba 8, Voix Celeste (G8) 8, Principal 4, Traverse Flute 4, Piccolo 2, Cornet 8.12.15.17, Double Trumpet 16, Cornopean 8, Oboe 8, Vox Humana 8. Tremulant S/S 16.8.4 Choir (68 note soundboard, enclosed): Dulciana 16, Violin Diapason 8, Chimney Flute 8, Spindle Flute 4, Nazard 2 2/3, Flageolet 2, Tierce 1 3/5, Clarinet 8. Tremulant. C/C 16.8.4, G/C 8, S/C 16.8.4, Solo/C 8 Solo (68 note soundboard,enclosed, including the Tuba): Stentorphone 8, Grosse Flote 8, Viole d'Orchestre 8, Viole Celeste (full compass) 8, Harmonic Flute 4, Tuba Mirabilis 8. Tremulant. So/So 16.8.3, G/So 8, S/So 8. Pedal: Double Open Diapason 32C, Tibia Profunda 16C, Double Open Diapason 16A, Bourdon 16D, Dulciana 16, Lieblick Gedeckt 16B, Tibia Plena 8C, Stopped Flute 8D, Tromba 16, Trumpet 8. G/P, S/P 8.4, C/P, So/P 8/4 5 thumb pistons each to G, S and P 3 thumb pistons each to C and S 5 general toe pistons Reversibles to major couplers Full Organ reversible General Crescendo General Release Compass: 61/32 The organ occupies two bays on the south side of the Quire, with the Choir Organ opposite on the north. There is a pair of identical cases, supposed to be by one of the Gilbert Scotts, but I don't think they are. There layout is very similar to Blomfield's case at Southwark Cathedral, but the style is different. Pictures on our website: www.stjohnsanglicancathedral.org Thre are some very quirky features, quite apart from some aspects of the specification. The Pedal reeds are not in unit, but two 32 note ranks. The Pedal Dulciana is independent of that on the Choir and stands in the case, less than eight feet away from the manual stop, which is enclosed. It's not a scheme which anyone today would specify, but it's amazing how well it works. There isn't anything that wouldn't be missed if it wasn't there, including all those 8' flutes and the two Swell Opens. My two previous organs were a Willis and a Harrison - quite notable examples of their respective breeds - but I enjoy this one much more than either of them. The surviving Hope-Jones work is unique in Canada and inspection of the pipes suggests that it includes the Great Second Diapason and Hohl Flute, Swell First Diapason, Principal and Vox Humana, Choir Violin Diapason and Clarinet and Pedal Tibias. It was the last English-built Hope-Jones, as Ingram apparently caught HJ in flagrante in the voicing shop during its construction and the latter had to flee the country, turning up unannounced in Newfoundland shortly afterwards trying to sell the Vestry a different organ by Austin. Norman & Beard pipe-work includes the Great Double Open, Swell Second Diapason and Pedal Dulciana. The Choir Chimney Flute, Spindle Flute, Nazard and Tierce were supplied by Casavants’ in 1997, replacing Hope-Jones’s 8’ Wald Flute and 8’ Dulciana and Casavant’s 8’ Quintadena and 4’ Traverse Flute. They work in very well indeed with the older stuff. At the same time, the Great Mixture was reconstituted and the Tromba and Clarion revoiced (they are now quite fiery - like a mid-period Father Willis). An article by Charles Stobie appeared in "The Organ' in the seventies, but it is peppered with inaccuracies (including the specification) and gives a mistaken impression of much of the effect, including the balances between various stops.

This looks like a slightly slimmed-down verson of mine (I have a Great Mixture, Swell Double Trumpet, Choir mutations, a good fake 32' and one or two minor oddities, none of which I'd like to be without). In other words, Casavant from the first half of the twentieth century. In my experience, one area in which North American organs have the edge is that everything blends with everything else, so the total is a lot more than the sum of the constituent parts. From some of the writings about German organs since re-unification, it seems that you can indeed play Bach on anything, and what he may have had in mind might surprise us. I should have recognised DW's scheme, but got side-tracked into thinking more French than it was - I even looked up the old organ at Blackburn. One should bear in mind the sort of thing a cathedral organ is required to do, and from there devise what is needed to do it. The most effective jobs allow you to use a lot of organ (sometimes) to accompany the choir, without drowning them out, but at the same time have enough wallop to bear a large congregation along without over-indulgence in the big reeds. Position has something to do with this - if the pipes are relatively high up, you can get away with using more. You need a weighty, fairly anonymous Pedal bass. It doesn't have to be over-loud, but it needs gravity. You can colour it with other stops if you need to. You need a good sprinkling of 'quiet ginger' (Norman Cocker's phrase) - in this respect a proper Fifteenth in the Swell is well-nigh essential, even if you have to fake it with the octave coupler. You need voicing that will be stable and not wearing on the ear with prolonged use. Most of all, you need players who take the time and trouble to seek out what the beast will do. Looking through the other end of the telescope, all members will have met small organs which reflect the ideas of cathedral organists a century ago - quite a lot of pretty stuff, flutes, strings, oboe, which he would use to accompany his choir, and a big diapason for congregational accompaniment. These days, I would hope we would design an instrument as an entity, rather than as a collection of useful voices.

I think it's just the name and the memories that get me..... I know it's against the laws of physics, but when it comes to a resultant, playing the 4th below for the top seven notes of the bottom octave can be more convincing. The lower notes take the 5th above as usual. The Sub Bass on the Willis at St. Magnus Cathedral does this.

If you type 'Compton%' on the NPOR builder's search, you get more entries - nearly 300 - including Holy Trinity, Hull and Ilkley, but not Pudsey. You must, therefore, be right in suggesting that the list is incomplete, although this may be something to do with how the search engine works. The NPOR list gives seven entries for Norfolk, but three of them are electronics. This leaves Morley St. Botolph (2 rank Miniatura), Freethorpe Methodist (3 rank Miniatura), Great Yarmouth PC and Great Yarmouth Methodist Central Hall. The latter was one of two with electronic basses (the other was Church House, Westminster, which was blitzed shortly after completion) and is now at the Mechanical Instrument Museum at Cotton, Suffolk, along with a rather nice Wurlitzer). Suffolk only gets three mentions, St. Mary's, Bury, Levington (which I don't know) and Stowmarket PC (an early rebuild, since replaced). There are also the aforesaid ex-Yarmouth Methodist organ and a 3-rank Miniatura at Mildenhall RC, acquired by an amateur from elsewhere, installed in a decent old case and finished by Holmes & Swift. North of Skipton - aren't you being just a little unfair to Carlisle, Newcastle, St. Bees, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Durham?

I wonder if the total is, in fact, all that big. If you start with Downside, there was only a little over thirty years of Compton pipe organs. I know Compton was working on his own long before this, but I doubt whether his output during that time was particularly large. Taking another firm as a comparison, Miller of Cambridge built organs for about 90 years, and in that time built or rebuilt about 100 instruments. Compton was on a much bigger scale, but nevertheless I think it might be reasonable to expect that the firm's output would not compare with, say, Rushworth's. Compton provided more theatre organs in the UK than anyone else. Did this output compromise his capacity to do church work during this period? There is also the question of economics. I come from East Anglia, and it is interesting to observe the difference between, say, Suffolk and Norfolk when it comes to organs. Norfolk tended to be the domain of rich land-owners and there are a lot of eighteenth and early nineteenth century instruments there, but less from the later nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries. In Suffolk, there were more small, moderately well-to-do farmers, so there are less cast-off chamber organs and more late nineteenth and twentieth century jobs, especially by the cheaper and middle-range builders. There was, it seems clear, more money available in Suffolk than Norfolk (so there are about twenty Casson Positive organs in Suffolk, but about thirty in Norfolk, where money was tighter). In any event, by the time Compton started to make any impact, rural counties such as these simply could not afford new organs. There are therefore very few Comptons in either county (four in each, as far as I know). Leaving aside Norman & Beard, who were well placed and equipped to provide excellent instruments at reasonable prices, few of the other 'big' firms did much in the area. I think this reflects the situation in other rural counties. Therefore, Compton's work will be found mostly in urban areas - perhaps thre was a good trade in Miniaturas in new churches on housing developments (although Spurden Rutt snapped up most of the work on the Becontree Estate in East London). It would indeed be interesting to know of hitherto unrecorded Comptons, but I wonder if there are that many of them around?

This looks like a good church organ, which would also give a convincing account of a large repertoire. The absence of an Open Diapason on the Great does look a little incongruous, bearing in mind what else is suggested, but I think it would work, especially as you could fake it with the other stops. It's amazing how one doesn't miss the 8' principal if it's not there! If you're going to have octave couplers on the Swell, you could have a sub on the Great and fake the Open that way, especially if you wired it to take the Stopped Diapason in the bottom octave (I am assuming electric action with all those couplers). Similarly, the nomenclature of the Pedal stop strikes me as out of place in the context. I understand what you're after, though - maybe what bugs me is a personal memory of this organ:- http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=D01379 This struck me as a classic example of quite nice pipework not used to the best effect (the tierce mixture on the Great, taken from the salicional, was a filthy sound), and in particular there was no weight at all in the bottom of the Quintaton, which messed up everything else. I have difficulty shaking off the memory of it when I see 16 Quintatons on the Pedal! I wish makers of extension organs could have learned from the master (Compton) and used a broad viola which would have provided decent upperwork. So many of them have Swells up to a Piccolo, which is of little use. A viola fifteenth would top things off so much better and the same rank would make a nice little mixture.

Ian Bell, in"'Fanfare for an Organ Builder": 'I remember....going into the office at Compton's, and saying I was leaving to Clifford Hawtin, the Technical Director - essentially the Managing Director....he said 'Where are you going?' And I said 'To Noel Mander'. 'Oh no - anywhere except to Mander', he said!' There are also a handful of snap-shots in Maurice Grant's "Twenty-One years of Organ Building" of groups at the Second Congress of the International Society of Organbuilders in Strasbourg in 1960. One shows a very jolly gathering comprising Walter Goodey, Jack Davies, Clifford Hawtin, Maurice Forsyth Grant, Barbara Willis and Henry Willis 4; and on the next page there's one of Roger Yates, Clifford Hawtin and Walter Goodey (other pictures include Henry Willis III, Otto Steinmeyer, Ernest White, Alfred Kern and Josef von Glatter-Gotz, so it must have been a fairly high-powered do!).

Didn't Clifford Hawtin take charge after Jimmy Taylor's death? Among ex-Compton men, Gerald Carrington, (St. Olave, Hart Street - a nice job - is one he finished), as well as running 'The Plough' at Great Munden in Hertfordshire, with its Compton theatre organ (alas! now long gone!), did a certain amount of organ work and usually had an ex-theatre job or two in store out the back.