MusingMuso

============================= I think, from what I've seen and played, theatre organs were generally made to a very high quality, and many continue to function perfectly with a little bit of care and attention. MM

I've re-worked mine and cut it down in size. Think Lewis/Schulze with big scales and decent HN&B style reeds, but without terraced dynamics. Would need some very effective swell bozes. Great Organ 1 Open Diapason 8 2 Rohrflute 8 (Big scale) 3 Principal 4 4 Open Flute 4 5 Cornet (12:15:17) 6 Grave Mixture II (12.15) 7 Fourniture IV (19.22.26.29) 8 Trumpet Major 8 7" wg Swell to Great Choir to Great Swell Organ 9 Hohl Flute 8 10 Echo Gamba 8 11 Voix Celeste 8 (Bottom A) 12 Octave 4 13 Fifteenth 2 14 Sext (12:17) 15 Mixture IV (12.15.19.22) 16 Dulzian 16 17 Trumpet 8 18 Hautboy 8 Tremulant Octave Sub Octave Choir Organ (Enclosed) 19 Stop't Diapason 8 20 Gemshorn 4 21 Nason Flute 4 22 Nazard 2.2/3 23 Principal 2 24 Recorder 2 25 Tierce 1.3/5 26 Scharf 19:22 27 Cromorne 8 Swell to Choir Pedal Organ 28 Open Diapason 16 (Wood) 29 Violone 16 30 Bourdon 16 31 Principal 8 32 Flute 8 33 Small Octave 4 34 Mixture (19:22:26:29) 35 Trombone 16 7" wg Swell to Pedal Great to Pedal Choir to Pedal Gt & Ped Combinations Coupled MM

============================ 35 stops? I should have read the rubric. Well, at least I'd condensed mine down from the 200 stop extension scheme I'd planned........I was there is spirit. "Ask for the world and you get a peanut; ask for a peanut and you get nothing." (Rockerfeller?) MM

================================ I don't profess to know anything much about player organs/pianos, but I have often marvelled at the complexity of them. I probably know more about machinery with card control or punch-tape mechanisms; and that from 45 years ago. When I next see the pirest in question, I shall ask him about the rolls, which he says he kept when the Aeolian player-organ was scrapped. I vaguely remember the instrument from which they came, and played it a couple of times. I recall that it had a saxophone stop, and an organ-builder told me that it had mercury-dip key contacts......could this be true? I should have taken more note of it, but as it sounded rather dreadful in a fairly big acoustic, I was quite dismissive of the thing at the time. MM

============================ And if we add the word gentlemanly, it would sum up Lionel Dakers completely. He was utterly charming. MM

===================================== Organists and organ-enthusiasts have giggled like schoolboys over the years. We LOVE that Tuba, possibly because it is what it is. (Do any two notes speak or sound the same?) Of course, at big gatherings, Francis Jackson did very naughty things with the Tuba, which you can hear at the end of the Bossi Scherzo. Getting the timing to perfection, he would use the big Tuba to end a hymn, with just the briefest of blasts as he took his hands from the keys; the shock wave silencing everyone by the element of surprise......(read "Shock & Awe"). MM

================================ I was fairly blown away by Jeremny Filsell playing a transcription of the Dukas "Sorcerer's Apprentice" the other day, and other landmarks include Graham Barber, but without naming names, quite a lot of performers to-day leave me a little cold, even if they are technically perfect. It's always nice to hear technical brilliance combined with astute and intuitive musicianship, and locally, board member Ben Saunders certainly fits into that category. I'm probably out of touch with cathedral organists these days, but with a few notable exceptions, I've tended to regard the best music college organists as one step up; though I'm very happy to be proven wrong. (Graham Barber is ex-Royal Northern College I believe). Interestingly, my little tour of Hungary as a discussion thread, brought up some extraordinary multi-talent, which I have seldom heard matched elsewhere, with perhaps the exception of Paris. What's more, when it comes to specialised baroque repertoire, I still look towards the Netherlands and Germany. I think that like the proverbial pigs, all organists are good, but some are gooder than others. MM

=============================== Single notes are a bit boring. Now a harmonic thrutch of diaphones is....well.....interesting...... Of course, with suitable upperwork, not forgetting that they are notoriously difficult to regulate and tune:- Note the sound of the diesel-powered blower at the end! MM

========================= We need a campaign like they have outside St Paul's. Add weight to your voices, bring back the Diaphones! They'd have coach-trips full of organists queuing up to hear them. MM

Having just come across another player-roll of Lemare playing the BWV565, I think I have to review my understanding, and say that he may well have played Bach VERY fast indeed; presumably in as showy manner as possible. Judge for yourselves:- MM

---------------------------------- As I said earlier, I shall have to remind myself of the details of the restored player-organ heard in this recording/playback, but I suspect that the re-play is a bit fast. I doubt that anyone could pull off the Danse Macabre at that speed and still make changes of registration....it just beggars belief. But my words, what a phenomenal technique lies beneath the playing, whatever the actual tempo may have been. If you listen to the Jig Fugue critically, the phrasing and accuracy are startling, but the speed of playback does detract from that a little. (See PS below) From what I know of Lemare, and his reputation, that D Major P & F just cannot be right, and goes against all the evidence. MM

=============================== Exactly right John; the point I was going to follow up with. I recall an old organist having a duo-art Steck player-piano when I was a kid, and we spent endless hours pedalling away at it, putting one roll in after the other. You had to add expression and set the tempo on a slide, which rather tempted us to play Liszt and Chopin etudes at 120 crotchets a minute.....mind blowing! However, in my home town, at a catholic church, there was an Aeolian player-organ; long since gone. However, an old priest kept all the player rolls! Now I wonder what they may contain? I shall have to ask him and see if I can have a dig through them. MM PS: Nelson Barden in America, uses a restored orchestral organ in good condition. I shall see if I can find the link to this, because this would be the instrument used in the examples I supplied re: Danse Macabre, the Jig Fugue and the delightful and tricky Study in Accents.

Ah yes! That produces a better result, thank-you. What is interesting from this list, is the fact that most of the major jobs were re-builds rather than entirely new organs, and as such, that must have been much more complicated than making new instruments (such as cinema installations) with a lot of standardised components. My observation about going true north from where I live, is the sheer scale of countryside and a lack of actual places. Going true north in a line, the next port of call is not Hexham or Stirling, but the village of Redmire (N Yorks) and then Aberdeen. (I checked on Google Earth and realised I had got it wrong). So if the list on NPOR produces 300 or so results, (I'll have to break it down a bit), but includes quite a lot of cinema jobs, then we're probably looking at 250 church/concert hall organs, IN ADDITION to a known 261 cinema organs; bringing the possible total to over 500 pipe instruments, plus all the electronic organs Compton made.....a fairly staggering output in something like 30 years based at the former August Gern works and at North Acton; especially when their war-effort work on RADAR is added to the equation as well as the slow decline in the latter years. In fact, at peak, I'm beginning to wonder if they weren't churning out a whole organ a week at the Acton works, plus the electronics and ongoing research and development work. That's quite a major industry, which if it were replicated to-day, would probably amount to a £15,000,000 pa turnover during their best years. No wonder they sub-contracted! MM

We should have a thread entitled "Blasts from the past," because some of these player-rolls and old 78rpm recordings are sometimes quite amazing, and the quality of performance so high. Here is one to enjoy, played by Clarence Eddy (who?), one of the most famous and travelled American organists of all time. He was 75 years of age when this was performed. (Didn't Guilmant or Vierne dedicate some of their works to Clarence Eddy?) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOxTFUQSauw For sheer fun, this takes some beating, played as a live duet with an old piano roll by the ever charming Jim Riggs. Just listen how the piano flies all over the place, and not a wrong note anywhere:- They tell me that scholarship has improved performaces of Bach:- Busoni from the 1920's MM

=============================== Good to hear from Barry again! I think I am suspicious of this link, because it doesn't tie-up with what I know of Lemare's abilities, which really were quite legendary. The following are also taken from player-rolls, and I think everyone will agree that they are in a different musical league entirely. http://www.orgel.com/music/lemare-e.html Lemare wasn't the highest paid concert organist in the world for nothing, when he was in America. So what do we reckon the problem might be with the D major P & F because to quote the title of a TV programme, "Sorry, I haven't a clue." MM

========================== Which reminds me of that delightful story told by David Frost, about the Methodist Minister, who summed up his sermon with:- "....so are we going to be awake to the world with the wise virgins, or are we going to sleep with the unwise virgins?" MM

------------------------------------------------- An interesting proposition, but I suspect the jury to be out. However, we do know that Compton produced 261 theatre organs in just 20 years or so. (The era lasted from approximately 1923 - 1943, but the war intervened and a lot of skilled people were lost). The factory, by organ-building standards, was huge, and if we accept that it kept busy for maybe 25 of the 30 years, it tends to suggest that there may have been hundreds of church instruments; not all of them large by any means, and some being re-builds of earlier instruments. Unofrtunately, I do not know the full details or have written evidence, but Mr Frank Hare, (and absolute authority on cinema organ matters), of the Theatre Organ Club, once told me that Compton's more or less saved J W Walker from going to the wall, due to the sub-contract work they did for Compton. This suggests pne of two things. Either Compton lost key staff during the war years, or the factory was so busy, they couldn't cope. The problem is largely with the NPOR, which under various places, lists a number of Compton organs, which then do not appear under the Compton name when searched by builder. I hope I'm not doing the search wrong or being unfair. For instance, I know of two locally, at Ilkley (already mentioned) and Pudsey PC, yet they do not appear under "Compton." Another large instrument, (a re-build of an earlier Harrison instrument), was that at St Martin's, Birmingham: again this does not appear when using the Compton name search. Even Trinity, Hull does not appear under the company name: one of their most prestigious jobs I think we may yet discover that the number of church and concert organs is probably at least as great as the theatre organ number, but it may be impossible to list them accurately, unlike the theater organs. I don't think Norfolk or Suffolk are any different from other rural areas. If I drew a line North from where I am sitting, I think that the first organs of any importance after Skipton (N Yorks), would either be Hexham Abbey (100 miles) or Holy Rude, Stirlling (about 200 miles). Compton did some work in Norfork ( Yarmouth) and in Suffolk; the instrument at St Edmunsbury parish church being quite large. MM

=========================== Thanks for this David. Scanning through NPOR, it looks to me as if the Compton entry is woefully inadequate, which is a little worrying. I wonder therefore if I could put out a general plea for local information board members may have about any Compton organs of note in their vicinity or which they know of elsewhere. Naturally, it doesn't need to include the bigger jobs such as Downside, Hull, Wolverhampton, Fleet Street (etc). These are well enough known. Also, I had a trawl through Noel Bonavia-Hunt's "The modern British organ," and stumbled across an interesting statement which makes the link between tonal synthesis using organ pipes and electronic means to do the same thing. Great minds think alike! However, he didn't particularly elaborate, but the fact that he made that link is siginificant. A further point of interest is the fact that some of the Compton patents are also found filed among American Patents, as well as others papers to be found in an Electrical Engineering archive. Unfortunately, I am not making a lot of progress with the Radar work, but I shall plod on. Somewhere, there has to be a link between Sir Robert Watson-Watt, Sir Bernard Lovell (organist) and the John Compton works.....I can feel it in my bones. Here is something rather significant, and quite moving:- http://www.webofstories.com/play/17826?o=MS MM

==================================== Well I've had a go, but just as when I searched for Compton & RADAR and ended up knowing a lot more about the Manhattan Project than I needed to do, I now find that I am becoming increasingly knowledgeable about particle physics. Sorry! MM

============================= Thank you for the information Ian. There is a reasonable recording of the Schiedam Standaart on You Tube, here:- (Played by the excellent Jelani Eddington from the USA) It's not Wurlitzer or Compton, but quite a unique sound, and of course, extremely rare nowadays. I was amazed to read that Standaart opened a place in Birmingham in the UK, as well as in other countries, as did Wurlitzer of course. The theatre organ was quite a profitable business, being especially suited to modular construction and semi-mass production methods. Compton, of course, exported to the Netherlands, with the famous AVRO studio instrument. MM

================================= I went to the Plough, Great Munden, a number of times, but sadly, Gerald Carrington was no longer around. Now. of course, the organ has been bought and removed into storage by some of the COS people; among them Simon Gledhill, so I expect that it will re-surface somewhere at sometime. I take my hat off to them, because if classical organ enthusiasts and organists had demonstrated half the dedication the theatre organ people do, we might not have lost so many very significant instruments. Clifford Hawtin I know about, but I wasn't aware that he may have run things in the latter years. Her certainly wrote a few articles in organ journals from time to time. MM

================================== I had to smile when I came across a snippet about HWII or III, when they were voicing the big chorus reeds for Liverpool Cathedral; the 50" Tuba not then finished. Apparently, a local school sent a letter of complaint to the organ-works about the noise levels. The Willis reply is priceless, and contains the line:- ...........and regrettably, it is going to get much worse. MM

============================== I missed that first time around......excellent! MM