David Drinkell

It seems to me that any electronic reader will have one grave disadvantage when it comes to sticking it up on the desk and playing from it - how are you going to put in fingering, registration, arcane signs and whatever else? Shades of the Essex Girl with Tip-Ex all over the monitor....

I remember visiting this one with the Organ Club about forty years ago when HN&B had just had a go at it. Some nice sounds, but terribly boxed in. It had a mixture called 'Old Furniture'....

I read somewhere that when J.J. Binns died, they found a rhinoceros hide in his store. I wonder what he was going to do with that.....

Yes, that's disgraceful, but quite on a par when it comes to the present regime's way of operating. There is only a handful of people in Ireland capable of tuning an organ that size, let alone carrying out the rest ofthe maintenance, and you and I know that expecting a firm from outside to come in and do it never works out.

The 2001 scheme included mostly new pipework for the Great chorus. The existing pipes had been worked over and rescaled, but in many ways the effect just didn't come off. As you say, the Choir Cimbel is an excellent stop and really clinches the presence of the organ in the building. Unfortunately, many visiting players failed to grasp this. I understand your opinion of the new Swell sharp mixture. The 2001 scheme aimed to exchange it with the Vox Humana so as to get it on the main soundboard, where it would be more amenable - always assuming that we could still 'trem' the Vox! There was also to be a new Principal 4 in the Swell in place of the Octave Gamba, which was just that bit too thin to support a bigger chorus (it is, in effect, a Geigen Principal). When adding upperwork, so much depends on what is already underneath. I would be loth to alter the Swell chorus reeds. They are fine examples of their type and were voiced by W.C. Jones, as were all the reeds. The Tuba I found fine enough, but it needed the octave coupler in the completed building and with the new upperwork. There was a plan for a Fanfare Trumpet in the opposite triforium (with promises of donations for the soundboard and pipes), which would have capped things off when needed. It sounds a bit extravagant, but Belfast Cathedral has a lot of civic and military services where it would have justified itself. The Great Trombas are extremely fine - not as loud as some (e.g. Redcliffe!), but surprisingly adaptable. I mentioned that they capped off the Positive chorus perfectly - they shouldn't have done, but they did! Philip Prosser was anxious to add new reeds to the Great, with the trombas in a secondary role. I was always uneasy about this and think that a really good principal chorus would have served more than adequately. I, too, used to use the Solo (particularly the Orchestral Oboe and Viole) a lot to 'rough up' combinations, especially in stuff that was written with a Cavaille-Coll in mind. I think I was proved right one year when two candidates played the Franck Second Choral for an LTCL exam. Both played more than competently. One used the registration I cooked up for him and passed, the other played it like any old English organ and failed (he passed the next time, using my stop combinations). I think the reason for the 32' Wood failing to sound properly was its elevation - I believe such stops are very fussy about location. We did find that it was speaking on static wind and added a new reservoir to give it a more appropriate pressure, which helped things somewhat. In my opinion, the 32' reed was too much of a good thing and should have been shaded off a little in the bottom octave. Was it you or Peter Thompson who used to use it in the Gloria of Bairstow in E flat at boys' Evensong on Tuesdays??? I sometimes used it without the 16' - e.g. towards the end of the St. Anne Fugue. I think that the tweaking Philip carried out during my time made the best possible effect from what was there, but one still had to avoid certain bad spots. The 2001 scheme would hopefully have removed these and resulted in a finer and more tractable instrument - and because Philip had such a long and treasured connection with the place, the price was more than reasonable. In the present circumstances, I think it could be another twenty years before another attempt is made.

It's amazing how often people forget that you need a sub coupler for big French Romantic stuff. It makes all the difference. At Belfast Cathedral, the object of the coupler was to complete the reed chorus, which it did very well. Colchester Town Hall also has a Great Sub Reeds. You're right, of course, that the effect on a lot of English organs would be unacceptably turgid, but it's like trying to get the effect of 'fonds' - one has to register with one's ears and find out what works. I have Sub, Super and Unison Off on all four manuals here, and use them all frequently. I'm quite convinced that the octave couplers are an integral part of the tonal scheme on a lot of organs.

Absolutely! I remember it well! The Isle of Man was handy from Belfast - about 20 minutes flight. It was a good place for a short break and had some great eating-places, apart from being very pretty and having a character all of its own. I took the choristers there for a week one summer and we sang at quite a few churches - but Jim is right, I really wanted to go because of the trains.... No railways in Newfoundland, more's the pity. These days my puffer-nuttery is gratified only by the occasional jaunt on the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch when I visit my sister in Kent. It's always been my favourite railway, from when I was a kid and we used to holiday in that part of the country. I reckon it's one of the few places these days where you can experience steam engines working hard - they may be small, but 30mph on 15" gauge is pretty damn fast! Incidentally, the locomotives were built at Paxmans in Colchester, right across the road from St. Leonard-at-the-Hythe, where I used to be organist.

The organ was taken out in the late sixties and I think a lot of the work was done then, but the transept took longer than expected to complete and the rebuilt organ didn't go back until 1976. In 2001, we replaced the couplers which had been lost at the rebuild: Solo Octave, Sub and Unison Off, and Great Sub Octave Reeds. I guess we'll just have to agree to differ about Calne!

Quite magnificent if you took the trouble to work out how to drive it, but infuriating in many ways. The original organ was installed at the east end of the south aisle of the nave, which was the only part of the building completed at the time. It was a three manual, consisting more or less of the Great, Swell and Solo plus the Pedal without the 32' reed and the upperwork. The idea was to move it to a loft in the south transept with the console on the other side. In the event, there was a long wait before the north transept was built, so the console went on the south side behind the organ. Nearly all of the old organ was retained (against a fairly influential amount of advice to scrap the lot and start again), with the following alterations and additions: Great: Rohr Flute substituted for Hohl Flute (I never understood why - the Rohr Flute is quite plummy), Harmonics reconstituted as Mixture 19.22.26.29, Cornet V added on new chest, Sub Octave Reeds coupler scrapped(big mistake). Swell: Mixture 26.29.33.36 added on new chest Positive: all new, in ruckpositiv position (although the console was downstairs), plus the Great reeds and Cornet borrowed. Solo: Clarinet revoiced as Cromorne, Octave, Sub and Unison Off scrapped(very big mistake). Pedal: Quint 10 2/3, Fifteenth, Octave Flute, Twenty Second, Mixture 22.26.29, Bombardon 32, Fagotto 16, Bassoon 8 (44 note unit) and Shalmei 4 added. [uOpen Wood scrapped[/u] and the 16 and 8 derived from 32 (another big mistake). There was a certain amount of revoicing, deleathering and rescaling, although the organ had originally been conceived for the completed building and scaled accordingly. The worst part of it was the Great chorus, which was gormless. The big diapason was fine, but the second one not particularly pleasant and the Principal rather characterless. The Mixture was pretty filthy and the whole thing suffered from an unsteady wind supply. Philip Prosser revoiced the Mixture as well as could be, and the wind was improved by changing the wire from the bellows-top to the chopper valve to cord, which quickened the response quite remarkably. There were some really splendid Great stops, particularly the Geigens 16 and 8, and the Trombas, although smooth were not overbearingly loud. The new Swell Mixture worked reasonably well (the old 12.19.22 one was retained), but was a b***** to tune, being on its own soundboard. Thank God they didn't ditch the Vox Humana to make room for it! Altogether, the Swell was a very distinguished department, but the build-up of the flues in the completed building lacked firmness to a certain degree. The new Positive was as unlike the rest of the organ as chalk is from cheese. Everyone will know the sort of thing, but this was a textbook example. No nicking, light, spotted metal pipes. The 8' Diapason had a whacking great chiff at the console, although down the church it was much more civilised. The lack of a 4' Flute was very noticeable, and the 2' was a very big-scale open metal flute which didn't fit in with very much (it would have made a good Tibia if corked). However, if you coupled the Positive chorus to the Great chorus, it sounded very fine indeed. Because of the less favourable position of the rebuilt organ, the Positive had the effect of drawing the sound into the building, booted firmly in the behind by the Full Swell. Oddly enough, the Positive chorus with the Trombas added was a superb sound, for players who were imaginative enough to discover it. The octave couplers to the Solo were sorely missed, particularly for use with the excellent Viole. On the Pedal, the loss of the big Open Wood was unfortunate, although the ensemble had just about enough weight (on a visit when I wasn't around, I believe David Wyld said it was the weakest set of pedal basses he'd ever heard, which I think was an exaggeration, but not a complete one). In its new position, the 32' octave of the Double Open Wood could never be got to speak properly on some notes. The Fagotto unit had insufficient presence to be much use and the Schalmei was too soft to be accompanied by anything decent on the manuals (again, many readers will have been here before!). Nevertheless, once one learned how to get around the awkward bits, it was a superb sound, in a huge acoustic (7 seconds echo), and very adaptable to different styles. As Philip Prosser once mentioned, 'With this organ, you know you're in the presence of a bit of class'. The trouble was that too many players registered with their eyes rather than their ears and sometimes it didn't yield its full potential. Some of those who got the measure of it included Stephen Cleobury (the best Liszt BACH I've ever heard), Yanka Hekimova (quite remarkable altogether) and Roger Fisher (although, oddly, he liked the Great chorus!). Others who know the instrument may well disagree with my assessment of it, but I played it for a lot longer than anyone else (apart from Ian Barber, the excellent Assistant Organist, who had already been in post for some years when I arrived in 1988 and is still there), so I reckon I had the measure of it pretty well. Interestingly, over the years as Romantic music came back into fashion, a number of recitalists said they preferred it to the Ulster Hall. It might be born in mind that the rebuild took place at a particularly nasty period in the Northern Ireland Troubles, and it was remarkable to have got it done at all. By the end of the century, a growing number of minor action faults pointed to the fact that an overhaul was going to be necessary sooner rather than later. A lot of the work had been done when the organ came out in the sixties, rather than when it went back in in the mid-seventies. Bearing in mind that in Philip Prosser we had one of the UK's most accomplished voicers, Dean Shearer agreed that we should also try to improve in the areas where the tonal scheme had proved not quite right. A scheme was evolved which would have rebalanced the Great and brought the whole job into better cohesion. Unfortunately, it got as far as installation of the new action and cleaning of the Great and Swell when Dean Shearer died. The organ would have been his last big project before retirement. The powers that be then sank the whole scheme, the new regime was not disposed to be friendly to it, and thus it has remained ever since. At least we got back the couplers which were lost at the rebuild....

Pardon the digression - it was Preston who wasn't too far from the truth. The trouble with Cregagh is that it's built to the east of the chancel behind a false (fabric) wall, complete with artificially illuminated stained glass windows, and you just can't get any power or life out of it. It's a hefty three-manual, too, with a 16-8-4 Tromba unit and reasonably developed choruses. Wells-Kennedy, who tuned it, said it wasn't a bad organ when you were inside it, but that's no comfort when you're sitting in the loft at the other end of the building trying to play the thing.... Back to Calne - although it's a big organ for the church by UK standards, the donor left money for its upkeep and also for the organist's salary. Unfortunately, no one then could foresee the sort of inflation that has occurred since.

I guess we can agree to differ about the qualities or otherwise of Calne PC, but if I was in charge of the lottery allocations, I'd give them enough money to restore it to its original state for the sheer effrontery of the concept, although it's quite a big church and a sixty stop organ isn't altogether excessive for it, even outside the USA. Incidentally, Conachers' built the first Positive division in Ireland, at Belmont Presbyterian Church, Belfast in the 60s. It's a good one, too, although the organ is let down somewhat by a rather lumpy Great with tierce mixture. They also built Cregagh Presbyterian organ in the same city, which Simon Preston is alleged to have described as the worst organ he ever played (he may have been in a bad mood because he left his organ shoes in the loft while he went for tea before the opening recital and the verger thought they must have belonged to a tramp and threw them out, but he was not too far from the truth).

The best I can afford is to offer them a free recital next time I'm in the West Country. You'd think that an instrument like that would qualify for Lottery money, wouldn't you?

Yes, I hope that at last something will happen. Even a few years ago, the instrument was not highly regarded - it was out of fashion and people were more likely to remark on the tired action than to notice that the sound was actually rather splendid. Reg Lane had a story about the plumbers who came to connect the water supply to the humidifier. They ran the overflow pipe out just above the pavement in the High Street (you can still see it there) and when they tested it they drenched some poor woman who happened to be passing. If the beast behaved itself as well as it did when I was in a couple of years ago, there would be a good argument for risking a recital on it to show what it can do - although I suppose it would then be said, 'Nothing much wrong with that to justify spending half a million'.

It's a long time since I played at Calne (1977), but I wouldn't go along with most of the criticisms. Conachers' may not have been Harrisons or Willis or Walker - or even Binns - but they turned out a respectable product. They were the dominant builder in Ireland and I can think of some extremely fine jobs (as well as a lot of run-of-the-mill stuff). Kildare Cathedral is one. There are certainly a few passengers in the specification, but I reckon the main choruses are fine enough and there are some lovely soft effects. I don't know what sort of connection the donor (Harris) had with conachers' or why he selected them to build his 5m house organ, which led to them getting the parish church as well, but I think Calne PC organ is a worthy monument and worth preserving.

Resurrecting a post that is several years old, but this is a fabulous organ - I don't know of another quite like it. Colchester is my home town and as a teenager I used to attend the monthly Saturday afternoon recitals. I think the last time I heard the organ was in the mid-seventies when it had been overhauled and the Choir Organ positivised. I am afraid that I was responsible for a piece of misinformation in NPOR (N08698) in saying that the action had been electrified, and I am contrite. A few years ago, ex-mayor Nigel Chapman started to agitate for the organ to be restored. William McVicker visited and reported but hit a bad day when the organ was in such a state that a fair impression of its capabilites could not be had. Nevertheless, he considered it a'hidden treasure'. I went along a couple of summers ago and Nigel took me into the Hall. Hewent to find the key but said that the organ was unplayable. Switching on, I must have been lucky. Bottom D on the Great was off and the Great Clarion wasn't working, but otherwise everything functioned. Having not heard it for so many years, I was absolutely blown away by how fine it was! As Dr McVicker mentioned, it gives the impression of having twice the resources that it actually possesses. It is a devilishly clever scheme, concentrating on essentials - for example: Great: Double Open Diapason, Grand Open Diapason, Claribel Harmonic Flute, Octave, Hohl Flute, Fifteenth, Mixture 12.15.19.22, Posaune, Clarion, Sub Octave Reeds This is quite remarkable for 1902, but was during the short time that T.C. Lewis was with N&B. It seems very likely that he had something to do with the scheme. I can't think of another N&B of the period with such a straightline Great. There is now a formally constituted 'Friends of the Moot Hall Organ' and Heritage Lottery funding is being sought. They have a website- www.moothallorgan.co.uk - which includes a picture of the case (by John Belcher, the architect of the Hall). If anyone passes through Colchester, it's worth contacting Nigel Chapman. All comments are grist to the mill.....

The article in 'The Organ' states that the parish church organ at Calne was built in 1908, but the Castle House instrument was 'erected some ten years before the one in the church'.

If you're going to re-order the layout, then installing new electric action must be the obvious course. If you were leaving it as it is, or restoring it to something like its original condition, there would be an argument in favour of retaining the old action. That happened at St. Thomas, Belfast, when our hosts restored a Hill organ slightly larger than Shrewsbury Abbey's, but otherwise much the same. I never found the Belfast job very inspiring, but I was told that the upperwork had been toned down in the thirties and the Heritage people wouldn't let it be opened out again. Shrewsbury sounded much more lively - at least at the console.

I don't know that one, but old Bevingtons are interesting. There is one very similar to this at Hilborough, Norfolk (NPOR N06363), but it also has a Sesquialtera 17.19.22 on the Great. What fascinates me about it is that the case appears to be a lot older than the organ and is very similar, but on a larger scale, to the old case (formerly attributed to Father Smith) at Staunton Harold. The Great is in the case, but the Swell is tacked on at the back. I've never met anyone else who has thought about this particular example, which strikes me as being potentially a lot more important in historical terms than has been realised. Incidentally, it's a nice organ too, and features on the BIOS soundfiles.

Some nails firmly hit on the head in the above posts regarding mutations on the wrong manuals! Can someone tell me the origin of the name 'Larigot'? Is it something really obvious which I've been too thick to notice, or is it so arcane that no one else knows? Didn't one organ connected with Bach have a 'Largo'?

Salisbury is the way it is because Sir Walter Alcock disliked a row of rocking tablets for couplers, describing them as resembling a set of false teeth (according to the 'Percy Whitlock Companion'). The old console at Canterbury also had an all-drawstop layout and I think Alcock had been consulted about it. It's all down to personal preference and what one is used to. The first 'big' organ of which I had charge was the Willis at St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall - not all that large (3m, 42ss), but a more or less full set of couplers by rocking tablet. I liked it - the provision of couplers opened up a far wider range of registrations than would have been possible any other way and you could see at a glance what was on. I missed the couplers that weren't there (C/P4, C/G16, S/C16, S/C4). The Harrison at Belfast was all-drawstop, couplers with the departments they augmented, octave, sub and UO on Swell, working through. Fine, but not as versatile as the Willis provision. My present console (Casavant) has 34 couplers by tablet over the top manual, including a few unusual ones (G/C, G/So, S/So), Octave, Sub and UO on all four manuals and extra top notes on the soundboards (68 on G, C,So, 73 on S). They all get used frequently and the organ would not have the potential it has without them. I think the Willis style of tablet is slightly more user-friendly - the tablets are shaped so as to make it less easy to jab the wrong one and there is a degree of vertical movement. I am glad to be back with the North American style and much prefer it. The desk is no higher than on the Harrison and the console is low enough to see over.

Some cathedrals are very good at providing a list of hints about balances and allocating certain piston levels to visiting organists. If possible, get in the place early when it isn't full of tourists or guides, and extemporise yourself around the various combinations. Muso mentions that North American organs don't have 'Great & Pedal combs coupled'. That's true, but in my experience one is more likely to have separate thumb pistons (under the Great, to the left of G/P) for the Pedal Organ than double touch pistons. This is quite handy once you get used to it. Clarion Doublette is right that much more use is made of the General Crescendo pedal. Diane Bish is reputed to have given a whole recital on the four manual Casavant in a United Church down the road from mine without touching a stop and hardly any pistons. I tend to regard them as a damn nuisance, although I use mine very occasionally (Nimrod). There is, as has been mentioned, a lot of difference between the way organ-playing is regarded in various cathedrals. At St. John the Divine, New York, most of the adults of Belfast Cathedral Choir spent the time between Eucharist and Evensong wandering about the place and the vergers said, 'We hope you're going to play the organ - don't forget to try the State Trumpet'. I can't imagine that happening in St. Paul's....

May he rest in peace. He let me loose on the organ at Selby when I was a callow youth of 14. Francis Jackson let me play at York the same week, and Peter Sykes at Bridlington Priory.

I think that the Broadcasting House Concert Hall Compton has a Neuvieme, and the New College None was predated by a year by Peter Collins at Shellingford, but the Shellingford None has long been converted to a Sifflote 1'. The 1970 HN&B at Holy Trinity, Kingsway, London (NPOR N16499) had Sesquialtera 12.17, Septieme and None and Sharp Mixture 26.29.33 on its eight-stop Swell (designed by Simon Gutteridge), but as far as I know this was modified in 1992 when the church closed and the organ went to Latymer Upper School, Hammersmith. As left by Rushworth & Dreaper in 1963, St. Ninian's Cathedral, Perth, Scotland had a Septieme 1 1/7 as the only mutation on the Choir Organ, which became a Twenty Second during Alastair Pow's time as organist there. St. Mary's, Bury St. Edmunds, as rebuilt by HN&B in 1931, had a Septieme 2 2/7 in addition to nazard and tierce on the choir. It was still there when I played it in the late sixties, but has gone now.

It was said that, because Dupre had promised Widor not to allow it to be altered in any way, the organ at St-Sulpice was in such a state during his time there that the mixtures were too starved of wind to speak in full combinations - but this may have been when the reeds were on. Harry Coles, who had a life-long association with Southwark Cathedral (as chorister and later lay-clerk - he sang at two Coronations), used to tell of an assistant organist who worked the Lewis up to terrific climaxes but never drew anything above 4' pitch. I'm not sure that uncovered mixtures were quite as unusual as is sometimes maintained. Some writers, such as Reginald Whitworth, used to say that the 17.19.22 mixture 'led to the reeds', which infers that it was drawn at least before the chorus reeds (but maybe not before the Oboe), and Harry Bramma certainly used the Harmonics at Worcester without reed support. However, since it was the norm to have the Swell coupled to the Great (I suppose this originated with Cavaille-Coll and was passed on by Father Willis), it would have been unusual for the Great mixture to come on until a fair amount of Swell, including the reeds, had been drawn.

I think the Larigot was intended to 'smooth over' the effect of the Cornet - didn't Dom Bedos say something like that? Similarly, with the more exotic mutations each one tops off the previous one - the Septieme tops off the Tierce, the Neuvieme tops off the Septieme, etc. I think John Compton pointed that out. Although there are quite a lot of mutation stops around that are badly conceived - too narrow, too soft, too loud - I find that much depends, not on the mutations themselves, but on the supporting flutes (or whatever). A bit of imagination can often improve the effect of unpromising mutations. I'm particularly fond of a jeu de tierce without the 2' stop - 8,4,2 2/3,1 3/5. I find it often sounds more piquant - possibly for some reason like those quoted above about one mutation fulfilling the previous one. I also like combinations omitting the 8' altogether, relying on the resultants to provide the ground tone. One can often get away with using a wide-scale Nazard on its own. With appropriate accompaniment on another manual,it fools the ear into thinking the ground tone is really there.