David Drinkell
-
Posts
1,355 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by David Drinkell
-
-
Hello,
the following picture shows a portative organ with paper pipes made by a German amateur in 2010.
Cheers
tiratutti
There's a German portative in the Victoria and Albert Museum with paper pipes. I've seen it attributed to the sixteenth century, but I'm not sure it looks quite as old as that.
-
Yeah... I do agree with you about the couplers - every conceivable octave coupler on a draw stop makes for a confusing console. I suspect that North American standards were insisted upon - ie no swell toe pistons but general ones instead.
The instrument itself is like many rebuilds of it's time, it was revoiced throughout and a lot of it is previous pipework where new pipes should have been made. However, when you sit in the nave it sounds glorious when played by the right person, unlike so many north american organs it isn`t too loud and doesn`t snarl at you. The soft colours are very pleasant too. It`s been improved greatly recently in 2008 when the swell chorus reeds were taken away to the factory and revoiced to make a broader and more romantic sound than before. Hopefully the auxillary reeds and the horizontal trumpet might one day get the same treatment.
Thanks to Cynic for his comments once again. We will keep a close eye on this matter and with luck something may be done before long.
That's interesting - I'm sure the treatment to the swell reeds must have improved them, and it would be good if the fanfare trumpet were to be broadened. An organ like that really needs a tuba, don't you think?
Good point about the volume - it's loud enough but not too loud.
-
I know your Casavant rep in Toronto is a first-class guy, but I get the feeling sometimes that the company is not whole-heartedly into maintenance of dated technology, especially when it isn't theirs. In any case, I would feel inclined to get a second opinion on such things.
I had a bash on the organ in Giles Bryant's time, five years before I came to live in Canada. A fine instrument, as you say, but rather a wild mix of this, that and the other. Maybe next time it needs major work, it could be pulled together a bit. I found the Walker console rather intimidating. I like a full set of couplers, North American style, but when they're all controlled by drawstop it's a heck of a job to remember what's on. Couplers by tab over the top manual are much easier to work with.
-
I played the King's College, London, organ before the Bishop rebuild. It was, I thought, a decent Willis III rebuild but not outstandingly memorable. Ernie Warrell maintained that the chapel and its acoustics had been ruined when the ceiling was lowered.
I believe King's used to sing a weekly choral matins on a Friday morning. I don't know if this is still the case, but in Ernie's time there was a more than very decent mixed choir. I have, somewhere, a cassette of an Advent service, which is very pleasant indeed - nothing outrageous, just good repertoire sung lovingly.
I mentioned elsewhere on this board that Ernie Warrell used to let me go and play the organ at Southwark Cathedral when I was a young teenager. About fifteen years later, I managed to delude the examiners into giving me an ADCM. The King's choir, under Ernie, sang Evensong at the diploma giving at Lambeth Palace and it was very good to see him again.
-
Philip Prosser looked after the organ at Belfast Cathedral while I was there - and still does, as far as I know. He once told me that he was assigned to Gloucester because of the voicers available he was the one most likely to be able to work with Downes. He is a fine voicer, and did some sterling work on the rather unsatisfactory Great chorus at Belfast (the revoicing at the 1976 rebuild left something to be desired, but to have done anything at that point in Belfast's history was quite heroic). He is also one of the best tuners I have ever encountered, exceptional on mixtures and much better on reeds than most. We had a scheme worked out to pull the entire organ together and balance it as well as could be done for the completed building, but everything was thrown out when Dean Jack Shearer died suddenly in early 2001. The organ work would have been his last major project before retirement. Perhaps this year, with a new Dean to be appointed, Philip will at last have the opportunity to finish the organ in accordance with his vision.
On the subject of consoles, I quite liked the HN&B style. I even liked the sugar-lump pistons, especially since they were least guaranteed to stay straight. The old RCO organ, although tonally infuriating in some ways (that 2' flute on the Great!), was at least a comfortable beast to drive.
-
Oulton Parish Church, Norfolk (NPOR N06564) has a small two manual organ built by an amateur called Archie Chaffey in 1940 in which nearly all the pipes are made of cardboard or papier mache. I believe it's still going.....
-
Wouldn't it have been better to put the keys in, even if the pipes ran out?
At St Paul's Birmingham (1964 HN&B console) the Great runs out at F, but the rest of the keys are there. It has caught me out though! At least it's more obvious, to those who don't know the compass of the soundboard, to find yourself playing on wood infill!!
I seem to recall Truro runs out of pipes before it runs out of keys too...
Less embarrassing than starting a piece and running out of notes. It happened to me at St-Roch in Paris. I thought I'd play Mulet's Carillon Sortie as I think he was organist there once, but it goes up to F# and the organ only goes up to F. Same thing at Mendlesham PC in Suffolk, although there the manuals had 61 notes and the soundboards 54 (cheap rebuild, not there any more), and I got caught in a Handel concerto at Ferns Cathedral in Ireland (Casson Positive one manual - not all Irish cathedrals are big). Music goes to D, keyboard stops at C....
-
Queen's College, Cambridge has a really fine three-manual Binns in a Bodley case (although not as fine as the slightly larger one not far away at the Old Independent Church, Haverhill).
The Bishop at Christ's College was one of the nicer early attempts at the 'old' style. (I claim to have 'opened' this, having demonstrated it to the Organ Club just before it was completed. The Pedal Mixture hadn't been connected and the draw-stop came off in my hand and shot across the chapel).
One couldn't imagine the King's sound being what it is without the Harrison....
I agree that the Ken Jones job at Emmanuel is a fine piece of work. Not so keen on his one at Great St. Mary, but I rather liked its predecessor, mongrel though it was.
If we're not confining ourselves to colleges, the HN&B in Cambridge Guildhall is, in my opinion, underrated.
I'm told the new Tickell at Little Mary's is pretty damn good.
-
Arising from previous posts:
Binns, Fitton and Haley - I was told that when this firm went toes-up, they had the organ from Lisburn Cathedral, Co. Antrim, in the shop, and the organist took a van over and collected it before the bailiffs got hold of it. It's currently a Wells-Kennedy rebuild, fairly early and rather more neo-classical than they would do now, but cheerfully impressive all the same.
German pipework - it wasn't unusual for English builders to use imported pipes. A.H. Miller (Miller of Cambridge) used to holiday in Germany and stock up on wine and pipes. I think some of the Orchestral Gambas in the firm's organs were German, and possibly the doppel flutes too.
Wasn't there a long-running row about Hindley years back, one side saying Pendlebury had revoiced it on a higher pressure (his new action running on the same wind) and the other side (including Pendlebury) saying he hadn't?
When the Organ Club went to Ulm in about 1971, we were conducted up to the west-end loft of the then new five-manual Walcker organ by its designer, Walter Supper. He sat down at the console, put out his pipe in the adjacent ashtray, and said, 'There is a service going on at the other end of the church. This is the full organ with the chamades.'
-
Many years ago I, too, hit my head on the same stone arch, the flow of blood being too excessive to play without serious damage to the manuals and I am only 5ft 6ins!
Martin Owen
Not the organ's fault, but about twenty years ago I took six Belfast Cathedral choristers to sing with the choir at Worcester Cathedral for a week. I played for a number of services, including Sunday Evensong (Donald Hunt was away and they were between assistants). Minutes before the service, I caught my thumb in a bolt and it bled like a stuck pig. I got through the psalms without using it, but the setting was Stanford in A. At the end, the console looked like an abbatoir - blood over all four manuals as well as the stops. After the service, I asked the verger for a wet cloth, but what it really needed was a hose-down.
-
I have fond memories of an Organ Club visit a quarter of a century ago, at which a truly splendid tea was laid out on tables in the north aisle, during which the President, Jonathan Rennert, provided high-decibel accompaniment at the console.
It wasn't quite 'foie gras to the sound of trumpets' but it was certainly 'pork pies to the sound of Trombas'.
JS
That was the time I played it! I blush to admit, as an Organ Club member, that I had forgotten about the tea - although I remember the Tuba!
-
Weirdly creepy - pipes that move!
A
Some years ago, a little before Nicholsons' restored Gloucester Cathedral organ, I was in a lunch group at a Cathedral Organists' Association conference when David Briggs was outlining the ideas for the work. He mentioned that they were considering the addition of a big solo reed, but placing it was a problem, including in which direction it should fire - down the Nave or up the Quire.
Someone suggested it should be on a turntable - actually, not the daftest idea I've ever heard....
-
I was privileged to give an organ recital for the Wisbech Music Society about a dozen years ago, and around that time I recorded this instrument for volume 4 of my Benchmarks series. The instrument is basically a late example of 'high romantic' H&H, and the local story goes that its generous donor had only two requirements, that it should have a 32' reed and be blxxdy loud!
It certainly is.
Bishops worked on it at some point, changing aspects of its character substantially, and more recently Richard Bower has improved it (IMHO), the thick original Trombas being tamed to make respectable and blending trumpets. I seem to remember that both the case and the console woodwork are later additions, indeed the console panelling came from the relatively short-lived J.W.Walker rebuild at Sherborne Abbey.
I enjoyed playing the instrument though this is seriously difficult to do cleanly because there is no acoustic at all to cover the inevitable tiny defects in a live concert and the organ tone is both full and pervasive right to the west door. One of the pieces on my Benchmarks CD (Arthur Wills' Song without Words) I remember I was unable to use any stops on the Great at all, they were all simply too loud, even for a piece that easily reaches mf. To go from even fullish choir with swell coupled onto even a single Great 8' flute was a noticeable jump!
The organist for many years was a Mr.Bruce Wegg and he used to guard the instrument carefully. I could not say if he is still in post, though he certainly could be. The truth is, the place is a little off the beaten track, combine that with an age in which it is often unsafe to leave a town centre parish church open and it is pretty inevitable that anyone other than locals will not have heard much of it.
Elvin wrote this organ up in 'The Organ' Vol.35, No. 139, January 1956. He claimed that it was the largest entirely new organ built in England since the end of the Second World War. It was new apart from a few ranks or part-ranks of pipes, including a Samuel Green Stopped Diapason on the Great. The Choir Organ, as built (but not mentioned in NPOR)was:
Contra Dulciana, Open Diapason, Harmonc Flute, Viole d'Orchestre, Dulciana, Gemshorn, Concert Flute, Harmonic Piccolo, Orchestral Oboe, Clarinet, Tromba (Gt), Octave Tromba (Gt), Tuba.
I played it about thirty years ago and can confirm that it is loud! Very traditional Harrison for the most part, but rather clearer - more 'looseness', as Elvin used to say. I'm not sure that it was a good thing to pep up the Choir Organ, but everyone was doing it in those days. Certainly a tremendously fine beast, but off the beaten track - no one goes through the Fens to get elsewhere!
-
Ah well, (100% honestly) how else was I to get onto that fabulous organ? I've been trying for years without so much as a sniff of the console. I'll never forget when I went up there with The Organ Club; we were based in Newcastle for a few days and visited and (with that one exception) played all the organs of consequence that lie between Gateshead and Carlisle. We paid for the privilege of a recital for the Club at Durham from the Organist and Master of The Choristers. It was impeccably played, lasted 25 minutes and contained nothing from these shores. And no, we weren't allowed to see the console, not a single one of us. Oh, and the public got in free, of course.
I think sometimes there are rules laid down by Dean and Chapter, and sometimes the pressure may get too much, but generally it's a shame when custodians of famous organs decline to allow others near them. I believe that many years ago when the Organ Club went to York Minster, Francis Jackson insisted that every member try the organ, even those who couldn't play. Freddie Symonds, the secretary (a non-player), told me that even he had to sit on the stool and hold down a chord. My own experience, at the age of fourteen was 'of course you may come and play the organ'. I sat up in the loft while Francis accompanied Evensong (an experience that is still vivid in my mind) and afterwards he let me loose. I had similar experiences with the likes of Allan Wicks and Simon Lindley. I resolved then that if I ever had an large or important instrument in my charge, I would let people play it, and I've always stuck to that.
-
Any trigger swell pedal that covers the top parts of the pedalboard... A pain in the backside!
There could probably be a separate thread on the iniquities of certain swell pedals, and not just triggers either. Balanced pedals that don't, balanced pedals that cause your heel to depress a sharp when closing, swell pedals that disappear into the bowels of the console when the pivotal bolt comes adrift, swell pedals that catch the pedal rollerboard and cause notes to sound when open, pedals that are in holes too small for big feet.....
Swell pedals on electronic instruments that make you wonder if you've switched on when closed, or if Armageddon has come when open, and which are so sensitive that you can't get your foot on them without a crescendo.
Coalisland Parish Church in Northern Ireland has a swell pedal which closes the box when the toe depresses the top half and opens it when the heel depresses the bottom half.
There are three four-manual Casavants here in St. John's, Newfoundland. At the Cathedral, the swell pedals go Solo/Choir/Swell, at the Basilica Solo/Swell/Choir, and at Cochrane Street United Church Choir/Solo/Swell. Daft, or what?
-
Prompted by the remarks on the Oxbridge thread about a lethal finial, I am wondering about examples of instruments with features that make them awkward to approach or play.
I remember Bromley Parish Church in Kent (geographically if not administratively speaking) having a very poky console area for someone who is just under six feet tall.
At the Fenland church of Stuntney, Cambridgeshire, there is a very small one manual Miller (Cambridge) organ of about 1880. When playing I could rest my forehead on the impost and there was only just room on the music desk for an organ copy of Hymns Ancient & Modern, Standard Version, which is ten inches high.
After eight years, I still occasionally bang my knee on the edge of the (Casavant) console at St. John's Cathedral, Newfoundland when jumping off quickly, e.g. Play Howells Coll Reg Agnus Dei, bang knee while going to conduct motet, try not to swear loudly, return to organ, play communion hymn, Howells Gloria, last hymn and Vierne Carillon (Big Chief Thunderfoot's War-Dance), cursing like mad. It's a tough life sometimes.....
-
I heard it last autumn and was not impressed.
And I have been similarly unimpressed with that company's products.
I consider these two brands to be considerably over-priced compared with their European competitors.
The solution adopted at Salisbury last February was unique and - from the reports I heard - very successful.
The Bradford computing organ which was used in the Nave at Worcester after the little Harrison had gone elsewhere could sound impressive, and the Allen at Chichester, when it first went in, was quite an eye-opener. We had a standard Allen for a few months in Belfast Cathedral while the Harrison was being worked on, and certain aspects of it were surprisingly good, as was a big one imported for a Carlo Curley spectacular. I think it's definitely true that Allens in particular have a North American character - especially as regards smoothness of tone - prompted by the heavily draped and carpetted acoustics which are common here.
In all cases, the more speakers, the better the sound. But no matter how good they seem at first hearing, they pall very quickly, whereas my present mongrel (Hope-Jones/N&B/Casavant) has its own special character. You can turn it inside out and it says, 'This is fun!', and there are individual voices (like the Hope-Jones Violin Diapason) that you could listen to for hours without getting tired.
-
A sad loss to the world of film music - he was up there with John Willians and Jerry Goldsmith as a composer of scores for "fantasy" films. I do not know his piece "pray to the Lord". Is this compilation still available? On another thread I recounted how I played his Moonraker theme as a concluding voluntary for my mother-in-law, a huge Bond fan.
Peter
Yes, 'Fanfare for Francis' is published by Banks. There's some interesting stuff there.
-
John Barry, one of the world's leading composers of film music, died on Sunday 30th January. He wrote a little piece called 'Pray to the Lord' for the compilation 'Fanfare for Francis'. I played it in a lunch-time concert today. Maybe others might feature it as a tribute to him. He was born in York and was at one time a composition pupil of Francis Jackson.
-
Hi
At least your programme got broadcast. The church I was at back in the '70's was scheduled to do a Sunday Service for ITV. Due to industrial action, it didn't happen!
Every Blessing
Tony
I remember that period! We were recording a 'Songs of Praise' at St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall and a wee runt of a technician came up to the console and said 'Are youse EmYew?' We said, 'Why?'. 'If youse are EmYew, ye cannae play. The EmYew's blacking the BBC.' I said I didn't give a snuff about the MU, but as organist of St. Magnus Cathedral I was going to play anyway. We had a bass in the choir at the time, 6'3", from Fife. 'I'm MU - what ye gonnae do about it?' Exit technician.....
-
On the subject of having fun, at twenty eight stops (or maybe more, or less) comes this:
http://www.bhamorgan.org.uk/organs/031.htm
with the proviso that it is in an organ builder's home and he evidently swaps stops around according to what he finds (or needs to pass on) at the time!
Wot, no Tuba?
But you're right - it does look like fun.
When I was a lad, c.1969, I played a small (36 ss) four manual at St. Paul's, Cliftonville, Kent (NPOR N14621). Brindley and Foster, with some modification by Tunks. It was in a dodgy state then, but sounded quite good. I see from NPOR that it's gone now.
-
Wasn't Hexham only a 4 manual, with the Echo played from the Solo keys? (Doesn't Hereford Cathedral have a similarly designated top manual, as does St. Mary Redcliffe, although in neither case is the 'Echo' distant from the rest of the organ?).
Calne Parish Church has been mentioned - a fine old beast sadly shorn of its fifth manual - but there was another five-manual in Calne, at Castle House. Both were built by Conacher to the order of Henry Harris, who made a fortune from bacon. The Castle House job had forty-two speaking stops, including some by Weigle of Stuttgart. NPOR (N10302) wrongly states that the organ had four manuals, but there is an article in 'The Organ' Vol. XX, No. 77, July 1940, which includes a picture of it, and there were definitely five! NPOR also suggests that the Solo Organ was prepared-for, but the article states that it was there, but inoperative due to water damage. The writer (Edward Caple) was able to inspect it, including the Weigle Stentorphon.
-
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the 18 stop four manual Bishop organ which ended up in Paston College, Norfolk. Built for the musicologist W.J. Birkbeck at Thorpe St. Andrew, Norwich, it had seven previous homes (including Oxford and Ely Cathedrals and Booton Church) before being installed at Paston in 1938 by Hill, Norman & Beard, rebuilt by Williamson & Hyatt in 1959 and modified by Richard Bower in 1992. The Williamson & Hyatt rebuild reduced it to three manuals, but before this it had:
Great: Open Diapason, Stopped Diapason, Principal, Twelfth, Fifteenth
Swell: Violin Diapason, (Stopped Diapason Bass), Vox Angelica, Suabe Flute 4, Hautboy
Choir: Open Diapason, Stopped Diapason, Flauto Traverso 4
Solo: Harmonic Flute 8, Harmonic Piccolo 2, Cremona, Trumpet
Pedal: Bourdon, Bass Flute
There was a Swell Tremulant and couplers:
Swell to Pedal
Swell to Great
Swell to Choir
Swell octave
Choir to Great
Choir to Pedal
Great to Pedal
Solo to Pedal
Choir Sub Octave to Great
The Choir Open and Great Stopped were of Snetzler pipes.
Not by any means the daftest scheme I've ever seen. I think one could have fun with it.
-
I was a student at Bristol University 1975-78 and I well remember Clifford Harker's piston settings. I also remember Garth Benson's at St. Mary Redcliffe, which were similarly Edwardian. I had lessons from Garth and he gave me a few recitals and services. The Redcliffe pistons were adjustable at a switchboard, but it was difficult to talk Garth into lending the keys to the cabinets.
'What do you want to change the pistons for? I never change them.'
I could understand his point of view, since it takes a while to set up a big four-manual on a switchboard, but I couldn't quite work with what he had set up, although I think my generation were beginning to get tired of neo-baroquery and was appreciative of Romantic organs and the way to register them. I certainly learned a lot from Garth's registration, and also from listening to Clifford accompanying the psalms at week-day Evensongs.
I believe that one channel at Redcliffe is reserved for Garth's settings.
One does learn, even from odd lines in conversations. I remember the late Richard Galloway (Holy Rude, Stirling - the best example of the oft-heard adage 'Rushworth's could really do it if they wanted to') saying, 'My dad used to like using 16' stops on the manuals', and finding several new dimensions to my own playing as a result. Similarly, sitting next to Francis Jackson at Evensong when I was fourteen and watching him accompany the psalms had an effect which is still with me forty years later.
Getting back to 'Doubles Off' - I find this very useful when it's there. I first got used to it when Ernest Warrell used to let me loose at Southwark, a very generous gesture towards someone he didn't know.
HUNGARIAN MUSIC AND ORGANS - jump aboard the bus again
in The Organ
Posted
Forgive the deviation from the thread, but since Clifton Cathedral organ has been mentioned,I have a query. I was a student at Bristol University 1975-78 and got to know the organ quite well. I then didn't hear it again until about 1996 and it struck me that it sounded a good deal less spikey than I remembered it. Was there some revoicing done, had the hand of time mellowed it, or (most likely), had my perceptions changed?