David Coram

It hasn't been right down for a major overhaul for donkey's years. The console's been done, and the Solo was out for a while, and various other bits and bobs, and obviously some other major part is being tackled this time - major enough to have the thing not playing for a while, anyway.

Well, it's going to be Harrisons. My money's on the Pedal 32' reed chest, which I don't think has worked properly for a while, and everything else on that wind supply. I'm playing Epiphany on it and will see what I can discover.

My good friend David Owen Norris did rather an unusual carol service for the (very many) children at his church - an outrageous baboon puppet with a tiara on, known as Good King Wenceslas, narrated the nativity story. They all sang Baa baa black sheep to the shepherds, Three blind mice to the animals in the stable (the donkey being much overrated) and Twinkle, twinkle little star as the three kings came along. If you're going to water down a formula, you may as well do so with verve, style, panache and still have a superb end product!

Seconded. Some may know I have spent the last couple of weeks fighting tooth and nail for maintaining a weekly tradition. I'm afraid I don't have enough energy for the annual ones too!

Wiki says - The format was based on an Order drawn up by Edward White Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury but at that time Bishop of Truro, in Cornwall, for use on Christmas Eve (24 December) 1880. Tradition says that he organized a 10 pm service on Christmas Eve in a temporary wooden shed serving as his cathedral and that a key purpose of the service was to keep men out of pubs on Christmas Eve. The first Kings' service was in 1918 and revised in 1919. Is having one fewer lesson really going to upset anyone enough to cause them to leave the church? Why does a format drawn up 80 years ago have any more validity than something drawn up today? Buses have been red for longer than that, and yet I don't see people boycotting green or yellow ones.

I think it would have been too much to expect any organisation in the public eye to draw public attention to one of its senior staff who died in those circumstances [remainder of sentence deleted by moderator] Moderator's note: the Rev Ian Thompson left a widow and family, for whom the loss is recent and painful. I would not want them to be made miserable at this season by reading this topic.

Well, we know that Bernard Aubertin, for one, follows largely the conventions of the country he is working in, if his own are not likely to be readily recognised - hence the instrument currently in the works with its controls in native-friendly format. I hate to be grossly off topic, but I have just had the most thrilling 5 hours on a Degens and Rippin accompanying 700-odd singers (including the Bourmemouth Symphony Chorus). What a sound! Now that's how to do neo classical...

And, much as I'd love to be highly sceptical and peer down my nose at this consultant's apparent new 'pet organbuilder', who cares - have you seen the outreach these guys are doing? 1800 children in 45 choirs? Amazing! I feel thoroughly ashamed that, despite having spent the last fourteen months getting kids singing, I had not encountered mention of this absolutely amazing project. It's taken me a year of blood, sweat and tears to get 20 kids together. I am so full of admiration I can hardly begin to express it. Never mind America! There is hope for our own culture yet.

Ah, Alan Harwood. Yes, my assistant was one of his pupils, and wrote a Requiem in his honour which was performed in the cathedral, and doubtless will be again. A similar thing was undertaken on the passing of David Oliver - numerous organists including me, Stephen Cooke, Christopher Kent, Barry Fergsuson, Peter Hurford (DO's brother in law) contributed to a choral/organ concert on Stephen C's magnum opus at Westbury. A lovely occasion.

They used to say the same of the Hill in St Martin's Salisbury! Fiver says it could be made as good as the best modern tracker actions. I get so cross about this...

Presumably because 12 is to 6 and 3 as 8 is to 4 and 2.

The programming guidelines are 'Town Hall, not Festival Hall, and preferably at least one outing for the Tuba'. The average audience is somewhere around the 150-200 mark and the fee about the same.

I rearrange everything; it's so much quicker than learning it. After all, add a 4' and you're playing in octaves - what's a few more notes?

1) Pay well 2) Demand exciting and varied programmes, prepared well 3) Get huge audiences 4) Pay more 5) Demand better and even more varied programmes, prepared even more well 6) Get bigger audiences; etc etc etc. It works.

You have to do all sorts to make it work - I sustain everything on the outside and let the middle do the moving. (Within Bob Chilcott's Salisbury Vespers there is a quite exceptional setting of I sing of a maiden which the boys at Bournemouth are doing. I believe it's going to be published seperately quite soon, but the whole work is worth getting - there are at least four movements worth doing as anthems, and if you're an amazing choir, another three which are VERY worth doing.)

Ah, the chant for Psalm 23... yes, I hadn't seen that until after you pointed it out. It is a bit of a surprise, isn't it? The other musical editor (not the one who wrote the chant) is the person responsible for introducing me to the organ, so I was initially biased by that - I also liked the use of a triple chant, and there were several bits of pointing I thought were exceptionally good (though I did want to change a few things). I plan to get a full copy, and will then decide whether to get another 29...

If only that were really true - Lyme Regis, Beaminster...... They're still coming along, I'm afraid, and there are still advisors (diocesan and independent) for whom those ideals hold true, even if only in some vague notion of 'modern'.

Or better, two drawstops, one being a safety catch.

Yes, it's what you've all been waiting for - The Wessex Psalter. Looks rather promising! Psalms 1-5 offered on the website under Samples.

Ah, yes, but that's missing the point - because what you or I might like isn't what's under discussion. It's whether it has validity as music, which it must do. If nobody bats an eyelid when the 48 get recorded on a Yamaha, then they shouldn't when Bach gets recorded at Redcliffe.

I fully expect an email about this, but to quote William Drake - "...my old-fashioned, cave-man approach is that, if guided by the facilities at hand, i.e. given an organ that has a strong identity and is in good playing order, the true musician will be able make music if they are just able to overcome perceived limitations." ... which is, I think, a true statement. It may not be exactly your or my taste or suiting perfectly the composer's intentions, but it will still be music. Hang on before you disagree... Later in the same passage - "I know that there are players who would ideally like every console and every keyboard to be as similar as possible but as every other musician knows, each piano, clarinet, trumpet or whatever has its own characteristics which require some accommodation. It is only the advent of non-mechanical actions that has given the opportunity to make any organ very similar to any other." ... which you might take one stage further and add what I think is implied, which is 'thereby enabling builders to pursue non-musical goals increasingly connected with mechanical innovation and corporate identity'. That makes rather a different proposition. Let's face it, playing the Dorian on a Harrison is not that different from playing Beethoven opus 2 and the Bach 48 on a modern concert grand - the difference in sound, feel and technical possibilities is comparable.

I'm not clear whether by that you mean they are stupid or aren't!

If a lot of Harrison's success (and that of the firm from its very beginnings to the present day, apart from just one or two unexceptional instruments like Trinity, Oxford) comes of a feeling of continuity, solidity and completeness which can only be borne of a bunch of people under strong leadership doing what they do best, that feeling needs to remain come what may. Even when Downes was involved, that sense remained uncompromised. Many Arthur Harrison instruments (I hesitate to write 'most', but it may be) no longer retain that timeless quality because of subsequent alterations such as removal of Harmonics stops in favour of indifferent quint mixtures (in my case, fashioned from cut-down Dulciana pipes), revoicing of reeds, and alteration of wind pressures, to name three common examples. Since few, if any, of us have substantial hands-on experience of a significant Arthur Harrison in pristine mechanical and properly untouched tonal condition, it is understandably difficult to be generous about some of the parts which remain out of context; speaking for myself, I sit at a plywood box operating plastic stops and keys controlling distant fat leathered diapasons, opaque Trombae, nasty 1970s Mixtures and Spitzflotes, a chorus inaudible to anyone sitting beyond row 3 and some ravishing soft orchestral colours audible only to the tuner, if he can hear over the leaks of eleven gigantic (and inaccessible) reservoirs. It's a tall order to sit at that console marvelling at the genius of Arthur Harrison.

Excellent! I look forward to that. Colin - the 'candlesticks and rusty screws' was clearly lighthearted. My information comes from three out of four previous directors of music, all of whom have alluded to pneumatic action, trigger swell and pitch restoration as a minimum, and those are the (very expensive) bits I personally believe would be a big mistake. Conjecture or fantasy or otherwise, this is a discussion forum, and I'm up for discussing! If it DOES go ahead, then pcnd will be able to get his hands (probably quite cheaply) on three more Walker 1965 keyboards to c4 to REALLY complete the Wimborne instrument... or perhaps I'll have them for Bournemouth!

Is the one beginning with a B the one I think it is? In which case, help yourself to the shoddy amalgamation of Rushworth and Dreaper pipework, Keith Scudamore wiring attached to a plywood console with plastic keyboards.