Nick Bennett

A discussion (on another thread) about the thermal expansion of pipes has led me to wonder whether pipemetal has the same physical properties in both directions. Do pipes have to be made the same way round in the metal, or can some be made along the length of the sheet and some across it, if you see what I mean. If somebody were to cut a piece out of a sheet of pipemetal and leave it on the bench, would anyone entering the room and picking it up be able to tell which way round it was on the bench when it was cast?

The frequency a pipe produces is proportional to the speed of sound divided by the length of the pipe. Increasing the speed of sound increases the frequency, because the waves get from one end of the pipe to the other in a shorter time. The approximation that only the length of the pipe is involved is fine provided you are comparing the pitches of various pipes in a body of air that is all at the same temperature and pressure. Once you allow the temperature and pressure to vary, as it does from day to day, you have to take into account the effect of the speed of sound. If, as the temperature rises, the proportion by which the speed of sound increases is greater than that by which the pipe lengthens, the pitch will rise. This will normally be the case, because the speed of sound increases by 3.5% between 0C and 20C, whereas a pure tin pipe will have lengthened by only 0.06%. A pipe will expand in diameter by the same proportion it expands in length. Thus, to a first order approximation, its scale won't alter.

Ah yes, inferior tonal quality. If only Hill had built the instrument!

Point of information. Your information is just a tad out of date. Roger Wright replaced Nicholas Kenyon as Controller of Radio 3 in 1999.

The Girton instrument is Swiss (Orgues St Martin) and that at Selwyn by Letourneau of Canada. Nobody has mentioned the wonderful Metzler at Trinity. There's a superb romantic organ in OLEM, of course. Take your ear plugs if you are intending to go above piston VIII though. If the students can't find something decent to practice on it's because they can't be arsed.

Students are allowed to practice on the instruments in other colleges too! And at least two eminent organists (Andrew Millington and Martin Baker) were organ scholars at Downing, which has a very small instrument indeed. The present organ scholar there, David Pipe, doesn't seem to have any problems when it comes to playing large instruments - far from it, in fact.

David Liddle and Ian Hare are both former King's organ scholars. Wasn't John Bertalot, too? Daniel Hyde, now director of music at Jesus, gave a brilliant recital (Bach, Mendelssohn and Wammes) at the Klosterkirche, Steinfeld as part of the IAO congress last week. The list for John's would include: John Scott Adrian Lucas David Hill Stephen Cleobury David Lumsden Brian Runnett Jonathan Bielby Andrew Lumsden Andrew Nethsinga Philip Scriven Iain Farrington Robert Houssart

Are you telling me you really don't know the difference between, on the one hand, a digital recording of a human being reading the score and playing the music, and, on the other, a computer reading the score and playing it? And what I said was I wouldn't go to a recital to hear a computer playing an organ: I'd be damned annoyed if I went to one and found they put a CD on.

I think the main contribution to the dearth of organists is nothing to do with the RCO and RSCM, but rather the decline in church-going. Because of this, people - and especially children - no longer hear the music, no longer see the organist making it, and thus no longer think "I'd like to have a go at that." Where children do go to church, there will tend to be teenage organ pupils. Embrace the technology? Well, maybe, if it's appropriate and, most importantly, contributes to the music. But I for one will not be sitting through any recitals given by computers.

There is a 32' Contrebasson on the Recit Expressif of the van den Heuvel organ at St Eustache, Paris.

Well I am getting to grips with the first movement of the second sonata. It's certainly good practice at reading flats! I've got the Amadeus edition. It's good, but it does have the occasional weak moment. However, the last page is splendid - including a chord of B double flat major!

You mean Salad Fingers as in "rusty spoons"? They are incredibly creepy.

We used to have a verger who was the bane of visiting recitalists' lives. In fact, she could be relied upon to be the subject of half an hour's animated discussion in the pub after the recital. In particular, she insisted on nothing above mp if she was in the church - which she often was until 10 pm or beyond. Now, as it happens, the person to blame for this is none other than our friend Andrew Lucas! Apparently, whilst she was the verger at St Vedast's, he made the mistake of telling her it was possible to practice the organ with no stops drawn at all. Such is the authority of Mr Lucas on these matters that she would entertain no opinion to the contrary, no matter how eminent the person expressing it. I forget which cathedral organist it was who told her to bugger off when she told him to keep the noise down whilst he was preparing for a recital. We don't have a verger any more. It's safe in there now. But there isn't as much to talk about afterwards.

I thought I ought to learn some Rheinberger sonatas. Which are the best? Which are the least difficult?

Don't forget the half-draw stops.

Set it to meantone temperament and play Rachmaninov

I can't wait for Nigel Allcoat to share his opinion with us

Friedrich - you referred to this piece as Ultra-Buxtehude in the previous thread. I wonder if you would like to expand on this description. I have certainly noticed its structural similarity to a Buxtehude Praeludium. Do you see any other parallels? Nick

A number of people mentioned it as a possible "greatest work not by Bach". I, too, think it's a great work - but what is it that makes it so great? And why does it hardly ever get played? It's a piece I have known of for many years, but only last year did I get to hear it (Christopher Herrick's CD). And that's in spite of decades of going to recitals. Is it exceptionally hard (it looks it!) or are recitalists reluctant to programme it because it would frighten the horses?

John Bull spent the latter part of his life in the Low Countries, and apparently made the acquaintance of Sweelinck. Now - is it possible that any of his music was composed with pedals in mind? There are quite a few of his works with the cantus firmus in the bass, and with the parts spaced so as to be very difficult to manage with two hands only. They work quite well played as if they were Sweelinck, with a penetrating 8' stop on the pedal. But could this by any stretch of the imagination be considered authentic? I would certainly be interested to hear what Nigel Allcoat has to say on this.

I suspect we all have a tendency to think that, to be a great work, an organ work would have to: 1. Be quite long 2. Get quite loud at some point, preferably the end 3. Be highly emotionally charged. But why can't the Fantasy for Double Organ by Gibbons count as a great organ work, or, say, In Nomine XI by John Bull (the one with the time signature that makes it look like something from Mikrokosmos book 6)?

I do disagree about both Commotio and Durufle's works. It's only quite recently that I have acquired any Durufle scores but I have loved his music for decades without seeing a dot of it. The Prelude and Fugue on the Name of Alain would be up there with the best for me. It was a test piece at the semi-finals at St Albans in 2003. I didn't tire of it even after hearing it played five or six times in two two days. Commotio is structured like a massive Buxtehude praeludium, complete with two fugues; I find it a fastinating work with enormous drive. I will grant you that Nielsen's harmonic language takes some getting used to, and his works can seem rather directionless until you get used to the idiom; but once the penny has dropped - wow! I agree with you, however, about the Elgar sonata: the middle movement has some lovely moments. but the piece as a whole doesn't make sense on the organ. I also agree in putting Buxtehude well up the list - perhaps the C major BuxWV 147. Messiaen's L'Ascension would get a vote from me as well, especially all that purple in the third movement

Of course, there is a darker side to Hull - see Devvo's Corner, but it's not for the faint hearted.

Yes, showmanship doesn't do it for me either. I wouldn't cross the road to hear Wayne Marshall or Carlo Curley again. Their tempi are far, far to fast to make music of the notes. On the other hand, David Briggs' recital on the rebuilt Blackburn Cathedral instrument the other year was both musically excellent and highly entertaining - especially his explanation as to why he was playing only the toccata of BWV 540.

It's quite close to Beverley.