Brian Childs

I have been following the discussion here with some interest. Personally, whilst acknowledging that such a plethora of stops will rarely be required (or even employable), I agree with MM that it is fun to have them and no great harm is caused by the existence of a few mega organs. However, I am slightly puzzled by two things - 1. If, as is often claimed, the single most important stop on an organ is the building which houses it, how profitable is it to draw up extensive lists of stops without providing ANY indication of the design features, and potential uses, of the building in which the finished instrument is to be housed ? One would have thought that knowing whether the building had accoustic characteristics which more nearly resembled St Paul's or , on the other hand, the Festival Hall would come fairly high on the list of essential information any designer would need to know . 2. If there is actually money available in the US for such projects why is first call on it not for the purpose of restoring what actually exists, namely the Atlantic City Convention Hall instrument ? I do not think it is indicative either of narrow mindeness or hostility to the concept of mega organs to ask what is the point of constructing another whilst the one that exists is desperately in need of funds for restoration. It seems to me a bit like setting out to errect another Great Pyramid at Giza , using money that might more sensibly be spent to preserve the one that is already there ! Brian Childs

Dear MM, Thank you for the reference. I have just spent half an hour looking at the site and ordered the Bach CD, so I hope the organ lives up to your recommendation Brian C

. Was there no space for REAL bells ? Well . as far as I am concerned, the electronic variety are better than none at all, so while we have all had to read the specification, not ALL of us seem likely to have the same complaints about it. I thought I had a CD of this organ somewhere but I cannot seem to find it. Anyone know if one actually exists or is my SD simply getting worse ? BAC

I doubt you need to worry too much. Individuals undoubtedly have their personal preferences but one of the particular pleasures of this site is the fact that debate is invariably carried on in a civilised fashion, with due respect paid to the rights of others to hold an opinion which differs from one's own. Which is not to say that attempts are not made to persuade others of the errors of their views. However, I am a little surprised that you would say that the division between those who support evolution and those who support creationism is "pointless". If this difference is of minimal significance then it is difficult to conceive of many that would have a point that was significant. Best wishes, BAC

The answer is YES albeit that the railway terminal is no longer used as such. A 1929 E.M Skinner from a disused Philadelphia Church has been relocated to the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal Cincinnati, Ohio. It has been recorded by both Peter Richard Conte and Tom Murray.

Thank you Barry. Not really surprising but unwelcome news nevertheless. I suppose that the size of the present congregation means the burden of maintaining two organs is unsupportable. Once again thank you for the information.

Thank you for the information. Do you happen to know what the current state of play is in St Mary's , Stafford, an instrument in which I take some interest since my wife is from Stafford. Brian Childs

Hi That's why we are trying to keep NPOR up to date! (A never-ending task!) Every Blessing Tony <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Your work is invaluable but I would have thought it beyond the resources of any organisation reliant on the voluntary co-operation of others to be able to maintain its records in a state of total accuracy in real time. It would be quite unrealistic to expect it. Whilst you can reasonably hope to maintain accurate stop lists , it would surely be unreasonable to expect to rely on the register in order to discover that the church was vandalised last night and pipes from the choir clarinet stolen, or that the swell is out of use because of water damage from a leaking roof. Indeed I assume some transitory faults (like blown fuses or rodent damaged wiring) would not be sensible to record since they might well have been corrected before the entry recording their occurence was made. I am sure that much of this information is passed on without problems, particularly where a discernible event has produced a clear consequence. I suspect that the source of most difficulties result from the processes of decay in an instrument whose maintenance has not been as thorough as might have been desirable, perhaps through shortage of funds. Suddenly an incipient problem asserts itself and becomes a very noticeable fault. Only those intimately connected on a regular basis with an instrument are in any position to give an accurate account of what the situation is NOW, at the time when the hapless visitor arrives to perform.

up a programme. David Coram's Scherzo theme might just get by, but too many of any one thing tends to get monotonous - I would be with Musing Muso and his Heinz programme. Variety being the spice of life I too would support the "Heinz 57" approach. It is possible to have too much of a good thing so that even all JSB recitals can pall unless planned with exceptional care and performed with outstanding flair. For lesser lights, it is seldom going to be possible to provide a programme where each individual piece is clearly distinctive and incapable of being confused with another. Better not to try, especially if the objective is to encourage more people to attend organ recitals and take an interest. Here would be my suggestions for making your programme easy to enjoy: 1. Contrast between items is vital, but it needn't be too dramatic - Buxtehude and Messiaen next to each other, for example. Buxtehude and Mozart would be a wide enough distance apart! 2. For goodness sake, vary the volume levels! Two pieces of fullish organ next to each other tend to make the organ sound less rather than more impressive. Heartily agree. I also think that Sumner's advice that it was usually a mistake to begin with a very loud work (he advised something requiring a moderate level of power) because the ear then adjusted to this as "normal" volume level reducing the options available for later remains valid. Personally I find the power of a really big organ produces greater impact the more restraint is applied to its use. Likewise such procedures as coupling solo to great to add the tubas to full organ share the same tendency to an inverse ratio between frequency of use and impact on the listener. 3. Try to sneak some Bach in.... even on your typical English organ, it is what real music lovers like to hear (assuming you can play it cleanly). Even then, I have heard some poor playing over the years, but Bach's greatness always gets through - even if you follow the latest silly band-waggon and finish the G Major Fantasia on 8' echo flutes! Agree Bach's genius transcends the medium but he is entitled to help from the executant. Contemporary reports suggest (at least to me) that Bach went to considerable lengths to explore the resources and capabilities of any organ he encountered and then played to its strengths. Someone playing his music on a typical English Organ should surely follow his example and make the best use of the instrument they are playing rather than try to achieve the impossible by making a 1930s Harrison sound like a Silberman, an illusion which while possibly capable of being achieved for a moment of time is not, I think, capable of being sustained throughout the entire length of BWV 582 or BWV548 4. There should definitely be some lighter moments - these need not be all Lemare/Hollins/Ogden/Rawsthorne/Lefebure-Wely - though these are all good for encores. A Handel Organ Concerto with sparkling solos is light enough for anyone. Well perhaps most people rather than everyone 5. Try to include something English. Hear Hear If this sounds terribly 'organ-fancier' logic, I would point out that the more colours we give an audience, the more likely they are to enjoy the instrument and the overall experience. [i]Variety again. Equally valid as with programme planning If I can add a couple of comments from the perspective of the man in the stalls rather than at the console, I would say that players need to give more thought than some appear to do to:- (1) the likely composition of the audience - all OAPs are unlikely to appreciate a programme consisting entirely of Reger, Messiaen and Hakim (2) The resources that they are going to have at their disposal. I know for a fact of one instance where a quite famous player of a former generation turned up to give a recital expecting a 4 manual town hall organ to be confronted with a 1960s 3 manual neo-baroque ultra low pressure job. I venture to think that anyone who is expecting an audience to pay to hear them play owes that audience the courtesy of taking the trouble to find out the nature of the organ on which they are going to be performing and should refuse to agree to play until that information has been provided to him or her. While information is in the public domain about many organs , especially over the internet, that information is not necessarily up to date. To give an example of what I mean, anyone agreeing to give a recital at Holy Trinity Hull needs to know whether the tuba is actually still off,so that they know whether there is any point in programming the Cocker or Lang Tuba Tunes. I do not doubt for a second that that information would be provided by Paul (which is why I felt safe using it as an illustration) but I know it is not invariably available, though the extent to which the fault is one of not asking for it as opposed to those who are asked not bothering to respond is something on which I have no information. (3) The need to be entertaining. Going to any concert is supposed to be for pleasure and relaxation. If the experience does not provide that the audience will vote with its feet. In fact the problem may well be, given the sort of attendance that many recitals get, that it already has !! If you want to attract them back then a mixture of Merulo, Muffat and Messiaen probably wont do the job!Someone fairly recently in an interview (maybe Dame GW) described a good programme as a meal... I reckon that's not a bad analogy. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I knew that he had given the recital, though not that he was the only theatre organist to be so "honoured". Strange since I believe he did not hold any Diploma from the College, unlike some of his compatriots, such as Foort or George Blackmore . I have never heard Olivera live but I have a couple of his CDs and they are pretty impressive. One is on an electronic instrument which presumably ought not to be mentioned on this site, but I will anyway ! And incurr more wrath by admitting to preferring to listen to a top of the range electronic in the hands of a master rather than a third rate pipe organ played by a county standard player who will never rise to test level. Brian

Dear MM, I have come across McClean playing Rhapsody in Blue on the Organ but never heard before of the Grieg. Just out of interest does it actually exist? (Or is this another MM wind up ?) My technical knowledge of recording really extends no further than a vague knowledge that recording technology progressed considerably in advance of the technology for reproducing the sound, so that stereo was being experimented with well in advance of the second world war yet had to wait till the middle 50's to become a reality as far the public was concerned. Thus I lack the expertise to enable me to know for sure whether what you assert occured was technically possible. OF course Mac survived until 1962 but I have never come across anything recorded after he moved to Canada, which is not to say it does not exist. If he were still to be active even during the 1950's then presumably it would have been possible for him to double track in that way. Also I think I understand your point about the ability to "edit" or perhaps "compile" Welte Rolls, but I might have got this wrong too. I am correct in taking you to mean that they were not necessarily a reflection of a genuine live performance, am I not ? Brian Childs

I agree with the comments quoted about the virtues of Kevin Bowyer's performances BUT I cannot help feeling it might have been wiser either to vary the instruments a bit or else go for one that was rather larger than the one actually used (nice though it is), simply for the sake of increasing the possibilities for registrational variety without being forced to be different for the sake of it. Especially since this was such a VERY COMPLETE complete set incorporating a considerable amount that other "complete sets" do not. That of course is a relevant issue to be factored into the ultimate choice. Just how complete do you want to be ? Will it be enough to have only the established core or is it desirable to have everything that is possibly by , or has ever been attributed to, JSB along with the works about which there is a pretty broad consensus as to authenticity ? Brian Childs

and not having Tubas on 100 inches : Dear Richard, Apart from Atlantic City, where can such stops be found ? Have they been recorded ? I would soooo loooove to have Norman Cocker's Tuba Tune played on a Tuba with attitude rather than the restrained specimen at York Minster used by Francis Jackson for his several renditions of this work !!!!

I hope your friend included at least one example of the work of Lionel Rogg, a name I thought conspicuous by its absence from the cornucopia of worthy suggestions provided, but perhaps he has fallen from favour. Also there are the Naxos recordings of Wolgang Rubsam, though my personal opinion is that these are a step back from the LP Boxed set which he recorded for Phillips . Brian Childs

Brian, I agree - my message wasn't intended to establish any sort of proposition that Mr Baker's wizardry is the norm. I was referring to his success when faced with the problem of getting any time at the console there, due to the enormous pressures of timetabling concerts, rehearsals, sporting events, degree presentations, and all the other multitude of events which the RAH hosts. DGW's CD of the organ there was recorded between 1am - 6am on three consecutive nights in 2004 (see CD inset) - surely not through choice! Graham That seemed to be the time made available to Paul Hale too when he did his write up in Organist's Review . Perhaps that could explain some of the flaws that have been identified in DGW's recording. Almost no one is at their best at three in the morning, as I have discovered when I have been obliged to work through the night. It would seem highly skilled organists who suffer from insomnia should head the list of those invited to record it, for I do hope there will be more recordings. Anyone up for another version of the Ad Nos to add to those by Gillian Weir, Jennifer Bate and Nicholas Kynaston ? Or perhaps a programme of transcriptions which may be what it will do best ? Or a Bach recital, though who today is sufficiently secure to perform Bach in a style appropriate to the instrument rather than attempting to emulate the sound of a Silberman. From what has gone before Mr Baker would seem an obvious choice provided he has no objection to doing the night shift. Brian Childs

I am not sure if an improvisation is the fairest test since by definition the appropriate registration for the music has to be what the player selects ! They are, after all, the composer. Apart from that it is surely not seriously contended that anyone apart from superman, even somebody as talented as Mr Baker, can have fully explored all the resources of the refurbished RAH organ in ten minutes ? Therefore, he cannot have been working on the basis of knowledge of what would actually happen, but on the a priori principle of what should happen if he registered in a certain way, using knowledge of what the instrument was like before and information about what had been done to it. It clearly worked for him but then he does have the advantage of considerable familiarity with another large instrument from the Harrison stable which had been recently rebuilt. That must have provided useful insights. The fact that he was able to produce the impact that he did on those who heard him after so short a period of familiarisation is eloquent testimony to his talents but certainly falls short of establishing the proposition that this is the norm to which others who aspire to play the instrument can be expected to conform. Brian Childs

For the avoidance of any doubt I personally have no desire to be censor of what people say or the form they choose to express their thoughts. The world has moved on since R v Penguin Books (the trial of Penguin for publishing an obscene libel in the form of Lady Chatterly's Lover ) and I certainly do not say "Oh Dear me, how very painful" when I hit my thumb with a hammer. Style and taste are personal matters and the moderators of this Board are the arbiters of the extent of acceptability here, and one censor is all that is necessary. Or perhaps two , if we include self censorship as well. Certainly anonymity acts as a considerable disincentive to self censorship since the chickens have a much harder job in finding their way back to the roost ! Conversely, the knowledge that what one says will be attributed to one is an incentive to restraint and to an attitude which might be encapsulated as "Please engage the brain, before putting the fingers into gear..." As a lover of Sherlock Holmes and the English mystery novel in general I would love to know how MM deduced that Edna was not Stephen Cleobury after only one half pint of beer. Inspector Morse usually needed (or perhaps just wanted) more. Perhaps as Christmas is approaching in the spirit of Dickens's Christmas Books he could write a short tale explaining how the mystery was solved and publish it here. Or perhaps this is another aspect of English culture for which he has no particular fondness. As to the RAH organ, unlike many here I have never heard it in the flesh, only on records, which are not always truthful as has been pointed out here by more than one person. However, I always understood that GTB quite liked it. One obvious explanation for the problems identified by several is that an instrument located in a busy venue will enable only limited opportunities for practice and exploration. If you combine that with the fact that most of those who play it in public will be visitors with no regular relationship with the instrument , it is not so surprising if all the musical subtleties and fine nuances of registration and organ management which can be displayed by a titulaire in regular, sometimes daily, contact with an instrument are not so much in evidence when the performer has had only a few hours to familiarise themselves with the beast. And the bigger the instrument the more difficult the task is. In the UK they do not come any bigger ! Brian Childs

Living where I do it was never likely that I was going to be able to be present for the recital, much to my regret, but it was hardly necessary to be there in order to take issue with some of the comments made on this thread. 1. The date of birth of Gillian Constance Weir is a matter of public record for those possessed of even so basic a reference work as Chambers Biographical Dictionary and Roffensis owes the lady an apology. Far more surprising is the fact that some manifest such considerable astonishment at the fact that there were some apparent errors or misjudgments in her playing. I have yet to attend a live recital at which the player delivered a 100% faultless performance and I have heard live not a few players who enjoy(ed) international reputations ! Surely those complaining did not allow themselves to expect the same level of accuracy to be found on a recording ? Recordings ought to be edited, it seems to me, because the serious fluffs in a live performance are no more tolerable on repeated hearing than would be the accidental going off of the fire alarm or the crash of a door allowed to slam by an inconsiderate latecomer . Heard live these are momentary annoyances which can be quickly forgotten. Those players like Cunningham and Melville Cook who enjoyed reputations for highly accurate playing made fewermistakes than others - not none ! It would be very interesting to know the views of Paul Derrett, a participant here who has made a number of highly acclaimed recordings, what his approach to the editing of his recordings is. 2. I tend to side with MM and Pierre in terms of the criticism of the organ itself. It seems that some on this thread are not paying enough regard to the difference between what is and what ought to be. Any car owner is surely fully conversant with the fact that complex machinery, however expensive, and however well made develops faults when taken from the box and used ! The RAH organ according to a number qualified to judge sounds and functions better than it has done for a very long time, which is not to say that it is , or should be expected to be, perfect. On the other hand the AP organ with which some unfavourably compare the RAH organ has not been heard live in the state in which it acquired its legendary status by anyone who was not alive in 1944 ! That certainly disqualifies me and I imagine a few others on this site. The RAH organ is: all that can be said of the AP organ is that it ought to be or we very much hope it will be again. 3. I also agree with Pierre on the issue of pen names and am not persuaded by the reasons so far advanced for this practice (though I might be by others). The fact that people have jobs or work for companies in an area relevant to this site surely does not deprive them of their right to hold and express a personal, private opinion, provided of course it is made unequivocally apparent that the opinion expressed is a personal one and not associated with their professional position. That is what a right of individual free speech entails. If in modern Britain we no longer enjoy that right, we have no business going around the world foisting democracy on others which we do not practise ourselves. Not being permitted to speak is, of course, quite different from finding it embarassing to speak because of a certain lack of coherence of position, as, for example, would be the case with a clergyman who preached on the 7th Commandment on Sunday and on Monday was discovered checking into a hotel with a lady who was not his wife. That is certainly a reason why individuals would wish to shelter behind the cloak of anonymity : it does not follow automatically (though a convincing case might be made) that it is a sufficient reason to grant that wish. Brian Childs

Hi, Label was Qualiton (a division of Decca) Number is SQUAD 106, released in 1971. I do not know if there was ever a cassette release. My copy is an LP. Good luck with the search. Brian Childs

I would not presume to speak for Barry who is fully capable of giving his own reasons but it does seem to me that you cannot deduce people's attitudes to what they read from the fact that they read it. The approach of ignoring any thing or any information which is unpleasant, disturbing or downright offensive to you is commonly associated with the ostrich, along with the adoption of a posture which presents your enemies with a target that is difficult to resist. Therefore the fact that there have been 7,000 hits on the site provides very little information about how those readers reacted to what they read. Some, perhaps even many, may share Barry's reaction to what they read but still have a great interest in seeing the restoration of the AP Organ and therefore be anxious to know what is going on, in the same way that many who are deeply distressed (upset) at witnessing the destruction wrought by Nature in Kashmir or Man in Iraq nevertheless continue to watch the TV news bulletins because they prefer information to ignorance. My own reaction to what I have read is one of considerable sadness that so much energy on both sides has been diverted from productive activity in support of an objective that both sides appear to value equally highly to activity which is of no discernible direct benefit to that objective. Indeed, its influence is much more likely to be negative, if others react in the same way as I have done, that is to say, deciding that there is no point in giving financial support to a project so beset with difficulties, especially with so many competing calls on one's generosity after all the disasters of late. Brian Childs

Being old enough to notice when a coat is being deliberately trailed I shall not rise to the bait.However, there is one glaring problem with the JJ argument which is incapable of denial, namely that this forum is chiefly for those who are interested in the organ and its music, although it may be some sort of testimony to the catholicity of taste encouraged by the RCO syllabus that those people have a much wider range of interests as well. Whilst the organist can move, the organ generally does not , unless you are old enough to remember Reginald Foort and his touring Moller (I am not!). So for the purposes of this forum those who want to hear Liverpool Cathedral, Hull City Hall, Truro , Lincoln, or even the Ulster Hall have to go there. And I do not think it is plausible to deny that many of us here are interested in hearing specific organs as well as specific works. Therefore to make the JJ argument plausibly relevant to this site, its basic premises will have to be reformulated as (1) there are almost no organs in the UK worth bothering to go and listen to outside London (2) there are almost no players of world class status who can be found performing regularly in the UK outside London I would be interested in seeing the evidence advanced to support either of those propositions , because to the best of my knowledge it does not exist. Brian Childs

Since the United Kingdom has four countries in it, I thought I might mention in addition Edinburgh- which has some sort of annual Festival I am told - and Belfast which has - the next biggest after Edinburgh, - the Ulster Orchestra (whom at least Chandos thought worth recording on a number of occasions) - the Ulster Hall organ which Dame Gillian Weir seems to think quite highly of but I do not think I need to go on. Brian Childs