OmegaConsort
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Posts posted by OmegaConsort
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a handful of Riegers or Frobeniae over here,
What a great plural!
Mandy's for our hosts?
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Has anyone applied amplification to an organ?
In our church the organ is at the west end and fills the main part of the church quite effectively. However, by the time its sound reaches the choir, it is quite indistinct and lags slightly. Supporting the choir effectively can mean the organ has to be unnecessarily loud with the congregation in between. So I hit on the idea of putting a microphone near the pipes and bringing the sound up to the choir with some well-placed speakers. Of course, we'll need some expert help to do it properly (or not at all!) because we don't want to make the whole thing too loud or destroy the balance and sound of the instrument.
I wondered if anyone has experience of this sort of thing?
We have exactly the same issues at our church. The organ is West end, and divided North and South on platforms with console below. The choir is at the East end of the Church behind the high altar. Lovely for unaccompanied music but not good for organ and choir only as (a) the organ lags and is indistinct and (
the congregation sitting in the middle do not have a good aural experience.We are looking at the following alternatives:
1. A digital solution for the chancel (console and speakers) but with a second set of speakers at the west end for hymns. If we went for this, I must add our fine pipe organ would not become redundant!
2. Moving the pipe organ to the South chapel (speaking into the chancel and west).
3. Moving the choir to the West end, under the organ (decani and cantoris layout). This third option is actually going back to the original layout and design of the church! The choir moved East 10 years ago as part of a minor reordering.
Whenever we sing anything accompanied which is either florid or more complex than the average block-chord stuff we currently move to the west end to ensure balance and ensemble.
Good luck!
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Heva,
you're a star!!! Many thanks indeed!
Think I might make "Which organ is this?! a regular competition!
Thanks guys - and Musing Muso, take a bow for sheer effort!! :-)
Churchmouse
Great idea! "Which organ is this".....someone start us off then!!
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That was someone putting two and two together, and is my fault. Discussions are underway (as they have been, on and off, for 20+ years) regarding the future of the organ. Several firms have been invited to submit their proposals, but no decisions have been made.
The old organ is currently in serviceable working order but its pneumatics are giving up the ghost and certain aspects of the mechanical layout make it difficult to improve further.
Thanks for the info. Would be good to see it in full playing order again one day - there are, as I remember, some wonderful individual ranks on this organ!
Richard
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I remember reading something about this organ and a possibility of a rebuild somewhere on here a while ago, but I now cannot find it! Does anyone know if there are plans to work on this organ?
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.... And for making some fairly unpleasant sounds - at least I thought so when I played it two or three years ago.
it's been a very long time since i played it (30 years!!!) so I dont remember it very well, but I thought it was rather good! Can you elaborate?
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Pedalboards move, particularly electric ones!
Face it, that job was a shambles from day one.
Think of the other troubles:
A Swellbox that refused to give pp until extra walls were erected inside it
Voicers that didn't dare work with Mr.Downes - reeds were voiced by a flue-voicer
Historic front pipes that refused to work on Downes' specified pressures and had to be revoiced (without official permission)
Key actions that didn't work as planned and had to be disabled - made to work in gangs rather than working separately
etc. etc.
Don't forget the three court cases that followed it! Many people have done.
The results of these are public record. HN&B lost and Downes lost, the cathedral won.
Howells was white with rage 'they have smashed up my organ' (he was guest of honour at the Organ Opening)
The Organ Concerto at the Three Choirs where the organ could not match the orchestra (although it had done in previous years) - very unfavourable newspaper reports
Herbert Sumsion invited back to help hold the fort while John Sanders was very ill, refused to go anywhere near it...
I could go on.
Wow! I didnt know any of that! It seems odd that none of this appears in the otherwise excellent book on the organ published recently by John Balsdon
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Many years ago I stopped in Wisbech on my way to Norwich and dropped into the parish church, which is an attractive medieval town centre building of fairly normal proportions. Lurking in the church is a large and fairly comprehensive 3 manual organ (Harrisons 1951) with a 32' Bombardon, Tuba and other wonders!
Here it is on NPOR Wisbech organ
This instrument gets scant mention in Elvin's The Harrison Story, and does't appear to receive honourable mention anywhere else, yet, on paper it looks pretty terrific!
Has anyone played it, or heard it and therefore might have an opinion? The church website is rather poor and doesn't suggest a strong musical tradition at the church.
Best wishes
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Interesting thought - I guess it depends on your circumstances but would that be enough to allow one to indulge one's vocation? We all have to pay the bills!
Well...say your mortgage is £800 per month (some are more some are less, but stick to that), that adds £9,600 per year (after tax, so you would have to "earn" around £13,500 before tax to pay that). Whilst DoM at Blackburn assuming you have no property of your own elsewhere to maintain, you package income would be £47,500 PA. I imagine you could add recital income to this and a few other earners such as the local choral society, one or two private pupils etc, I imagine it would top out at £50,000 or so.
I don't think that is a bad salary for doing something you most likely love and get a great deal of personal satisfaction out of....also, unless I am wrong, the cost of living in Lancs is a little less than down here in Hertfordshire!!
Best wishes
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35K a year and a free house, but only 1 day off in 7 -- reasonable remuneration for such commitment?...
vocation has a part to play I would have thought?
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Peter King does a marvellous job with the choirs and Marcus Sealy is one of the best liturgical organists in this neck of the woods as well as being an acomplished recitalist. They also have a very efficient 'outreach' programme in local schools and a hugely supportive set of parents and friends.
A
I have just realised (rather someone told me!) that this was actually not the live broadcast today!!!! Sorry (I went to iplayer and it was the first to come up so I assumed it was today's broadcast).
Richard
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Just got to the end of the Nunc...What a splendid choir, and I think I am correct in saying they are just kids off the street! Joubert in C is very good - if you missed it, listenon the website. The organ is sounding superb too!
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Although I don't think I've ever actually heard the organ or attended a service there, I have been in the church a number of times (years ago I had a girlfriend who lived very nearby at Fisherton Island, not to mention many SCF's) and I've always got the impression that they took their musical tradition very seriously, with ambitious music lists and an organist who seemed to have been there a long time. I think he had initials GS or something like that.
Fashions in liturgy and church music do change and, certainly in my recent experience, there seem to be encouraging signs of the start of a return to more traditional forms of both. I am sure the church and Mr Heckelphone should be encouraged to do what he is suggesting. If they still can maintain Choral Evensong, despite the competition from the bigger place down the road, they can't be doing too badly.
Malcolm
The GS was a chap named Garnet Swatridge who was an average organist but a very good choir trainer. For some 30 or so years he maintained a pretty good choir of boys and men. I don't know the current organist, but the choirmaster was (many years ago) my school music teacher. We used to hold school services in the church and for my final two years I played the organ for the school carol service. I remember lots of stops, a very gentle tone and a terribly heavy action!
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I have a recording of Paul Edwards playing his Turvey Tuba Tune on it.
Excellent! It is a great little piece. I like a great deal of his music, especially the choral stuff (God be in my head, How shall I sing etc).
Best wishes
Richard
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Following on from the interesting topic regarding the smallest 3 manual organ, and with apologies for stealing and adapting a good idea, what about the smallest 4 manual ever?
I am sure many are smaller, but a few years ago I played the organ in Turvey (Beds) which is very small (see below)....I found it quite delightful and with only 30 stops, suprisingly versatile!
Best wishes
Richard
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Can't help I'm afraid though it was good. Did anyone catch Christchurch Oxford? I felt that the Goodall Mag. & Nunc. was rather too much like background to a 'Dibley' episode and personally felt the way the psalms were done was just a touch odd - especially the ends of each chant 'section'. I liked the overall sound though and the organ sounds better over the air than it should. I'd better stop.....
A
I was wondering if anyone was going to bring up the psalms from Christchurch! I had to pull over and stop the car! Quite extraordinary. I have a feeling there is an ancient psalter (perhaps the old cathedral psalter?) that was popular in the early 20th century and advocated this style of chanting; if I remember correctly in the preface, it suggested that if there was a long "gathering" on the penultimate syllable of each half verse, then the following verse would start together!!!
I dont remember Christchurch singing the psalms this way before - maybe they did it for a dare, but whatever the reason, to me, it made a nonsense of the meaning, let alone the musical flow!
Richard
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Some of us are getting rather tired that every time the Willis name is mentioned you must have a go at them. I would have expected you to have been banned from here by now!
PJW
Completely agree Philip. Why does it have to happen with such tedious regularity! For me it spoils the spirit of the forum.
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I can't remember whether Norwich Cathedral has been mentioned already in this thread, but if not I suppose it part-qualifies as the old organ burned down in 1938, and a substantial part of the new organ was destroyed in the factory during air raids (therefore before the organ was finished or even in situ).
However, there was another organ in Norwich which was also very unlucky. St Mary's Baptist church in Duke Street had a fairly substantial 3 manual built by Norman Brothers in 1886 with work done in 1914, 1922 and 1933. Like the Cathedral organ, this too was destroyed by fire in 1939. Despite the war, work went ahead with a replacement which was completed by February 1941. Like its predecessor, this was a substantial 3 manual organ. It was destroyed 3 years later in an air raid. In 1952 a new smaller 2 manual organ was built (using some of the pipework from the old echo organ in the Cathedral which escaped the fire in 1938). Then, in 1951, when a new church was built, the organ was transferred and enlarged to a 3 manual (by HNB), and there I guess it remains today.
I have never seen this instrument, but plucked the above detail from a great little book called "The Organs of Norwich" by Ralph Bootman, which is an excellent gazeteer of probably every organ which exists or existed within the city.
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Sorry we won't see you Quentin.
What MPK didn't say and what isn't announced on our website is that we've commissioned a Special Brew from the George Wright Brewery in St. Helens, for the occasion and this will be administered free-of-charge to needy travellers! Any members intending to come might therefore consider the train!!
DW
Got a name yet David? What about "Old Father Henry"?
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More importantly. it is probably time for another Mander open day. I Thouroughly enjoyed the last one which was packed with enthusiasts.
Any news John ?
Colin Richell.
sigh...............why do I get that feeling that this posting regarding a Willis open day is now going to deviate into something unpleasant?If we want another Mander open day, then start a new post for it please.
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Found this on YouTube - might be fun for 9 Lessons.. Anyone done it before?...
Wow! That brought back memories....I did that as a boy in a concert somewhere. Can't remember where though it would have been somewhere in or around Salisbury. I do remember being told over and over again not to speed up though!!!!
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Does anyone know where Matthew Martin, Assistant DOM at Westminster Cathedral, is going? His post is advertiosed in this week's 'Church Times'.
Don't know, but did you also see the vacancy at All Saint's Peterborough where the organ looks particularly interesting....."a small but flexible tractor-action organ in excellent acoustic"!!
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Why should he? Most forum members are, I'm sure, quite happy accept what MM has said without further justification.
Some of the posts here are too close to a personal vendetta for my taste.
Couldn't agree more. I've always found MM to be entertaining and informed, and have not enjoyed some recent comments and tone here very much at all.
sigh...............why do I get that feeling that this posting regarding a Willis open day is now going to deviate into something unpleasant?
Introduction
in General discussion
Posted
Ditto! Good to have you on board, and interesting to read your comments on what we talk about (and you are right, it does seem that those 3 cathedrals take a disproportionate amount of postings!).
If you liked the sound of the Hereford Willis, then hurry to Salisbury and then down South further to Truro - you won't be disappointed!
Best wishes