David Coram

Brief digression. Having been involved in the most recent work there, most of the problem was due to wildly different pallet spring strengths. Typically each was at least 20mm smaller or larger than its immediate neighbour (the largest difference I measured was 58mm), and most were far too strong. The inherent sponginess which remains after these were regulated has more to do with the very long horizontal runs (especially to the Choir) and several sources of unintended friction which are not straightforward to eliminate. It will never be perfect, and (since a lot of action work was replaced - aluminium squares e.g. - at the major restoration) may even be better now than when it was new - G&D weren't exactly the greatest mechanical engineers of their day. It is certainly comparable in feel to Limehouse - manageable, just a touch agricultural.

Nobody said you had done. It's reasonably well known (well, there have been enough organists) that the last set of reports on the organ was for full candlesticks and rusty screws reftoration. Any application to HLF would a) only match what the church raises £ for £, and bee) unless the rules have changed, only entertain work of a certain stated level of authenticity - however far behind the music desk that authenticity lasts.

In that case, they've had an entirely new chancel organ since then as well, with virtually nothing in common from the Budgen/Derry Thompson era. Your observations about acoustics are not necessarily spot on. See, for instance, Wimborne Minster, where all you can hear is treble - and this applies to otherwise well-balanced choirs (who invariably appear sop heavy), not just to the organ.

I am sure the resident organists at Sherborne (three of whom read this board) will take this on board and alter their habits accordingly.

Peartree has just (this year) had some fairly significant action work undertaken. Portsea just managed to stop the tower falling down (and I mean falling down, not just looking a bit scruffy); there are huge and pressing problems for the building. It is positioned very high up, nearly in the eaves of an intensively centrally heated building; would a new pneumatic action obtained at great cost be able to cope in the long term, do you suppose, with pressures of heat and dryness - and be any more sustainable than doing the necessary work to the underactions? "Finally, may I point out that there isn't really that much evidence to suggest the organ will be used more with other instruments in the future..." How interesting. Youth music at the church is incredibly active and there is no reason to suppose that involvement with other groups, whether symphony orchestras or worship bands, would not be on the cards at some point, and the resources of those groups are unlikely to include people who have access to oboes and clarinets at various pitches. It is a terrific venue with an acoustic to die for and a fantastic performance space. Taking deliberate steps to make the organ unuseable with brass and woodwind would surely be utterly retrograde, particularly bearing in mind the six-figure cost involved in doing the job properly - cutting every pipe down at the lip, restoring the original cutup, resoldering, adding more metal to the length, etc etc etc - which is surely the only way to go if doing the job at all. I am not attempting to promulgate a situation where the haves have more than the have nots. I am simply observing that every other shop in the street is closed and empty, the churchyard and surrounding area are awash with people sleeping in doorways, and that talk of restoration has been mooted for 20 years at least. Surely it is better for everyone (including the organ) to take a pragmatic approach and raise £10,000 to make it work well without further deviation from its origins (which will be far better preserved by leaving alone than by going for drastic work by the cheapest tender - see 'historic work' elsewhere), rather than £450,000 to make it last no longer with, in all likelihood, less usefulness to the parish, and less reliability. Far from being unhelpful or dismissive, as you suggest, I am merely suggesting that the area, the parish, the organ, the musicians and the music may all be better served by adopting a policy of careful and economical preservation, rather than reconstruction on a massive scale.

To try and authentically restore this topic, I think there is a valuable question to consider, hinted at a few posts above - concerning whether the identification and rectification of a poorly positioned instrument has, in the experience of other members, led to an instrument being improved without tonal changes being necessary. My good friend Stephen Cooke has moved several instruments from buried positions. In some instances there have been alternative quotes given by others for the addition of upperwork 'to brighten the job up a bit'. I could name as examples several in a very small radius - Westbury - 3m Bevington, several previous tonal alterations undone, instrument moved 1 bay west and pneumatic pedal made tracker Erlestoke - very small (6 stop 2 manual) Beales moved out of a 'north transept cupboard' to just forward of the north transept arch, and pneumatic pedal made tracker - a previously undistinguished and inaudible little village instrument now fills the building with ease Little Cheverell - apparently home-made chamber organ removed from top of chancel to west end, with marked improvement in congregational hymn singing; the opportunity was taken to reverse a previous hike in wind pressure to get more sound out Marston Bigot - pleasant little chamber organ moved from buried position to west end - one of our correspondents knows more about this than I do (although I saw much of it in the workshop, I haven't seen it on site) and several more. I mentioned in a previous reply South Petherton, where the opportunity to move the organ was not taken and a number of drastic tonal alterations ensued, totally out of character with the (very fine and more or less original, except for a 1960s balanced Swell pedal) instrument. And entirely conversely, in an un-named parish near Winchester a fine small 2-manual organ was moved from a west end position up into a chancel 'cupboard', and upperwork added to leave a curious specification whereby there is nothing smaller than an Open Diapason on the Great with which to accompany quite a soft Swell Oboe. I am interested to know how many people have thought about changing the position of instruments for the better when considering rebuilding work, and whether many builders around the UK routinely perform such operations in preference to adding more stops.

You go up there and do the playing, I'll call the brickies in. Let's see who finishes first.

and in July he gave a vocal workshop in Salisbury and spoke with enthusiasm about his job. How mysterious!

Regarding temperament, Willis built an organ at Totnes in 1861 which was tuned in equal temperament, and this was considered unusual enough for the local paper to mention it in their brief coverage. It is not therefore really surprising that Vowles used an unequal temperament in the same year.

I did a fundraising concert there in 1993. I don't think they'll ever get there. The organ is no longer as historically important as it once was; the pipework and stoplist has been extensively altered (and in fact most of the upperwork has been jumbled up); the pitch has changed; the original action and console are no longer there. Is it really in the best interests of a crumbling (fabric-wise) inner city parish church to spend 8-10 times what is strictly necessary on creating an instrument with trigger swell, no playing aids, pneumatic action, and a pitch which would make it more or less useless for use in combination with other instruments - a factor which, in time, may become increasingly important? Given that this is such a poor area, if 10% of that sum would attend to the underactions and the bellows and cover some cleaning work (and it's only 25 years or so since the last clean and overhaul) - is that not the most appropriate thing to do at this stage?

For me, it is easier to decide whether to ignore the statement or the person making it. (That is not, incidentally, why I ignored your reference to Walkers of the 60s above!)

I played it directly after the Mander work in 1992, and several times since, and never encountered a problem until the change of contractor.

Often, builders who lead the way do so by accident; personal qualities and personal connections are how people are invited to tender for work, which explains the unaccountable popularity of any number of firms who show absolutely no evidence of knowing what they're doing. Over recent years I have come to know intimately various 1 manual, 5/6 stop instruments by G&D, Willis, Walker and Vowles, and if invited to take one home I would invariably have difficulty in choosing between either of the last two.

I would hesitate to put Vowles in the second rank. It is true that most of his instruments are provincial ones which have been badly treated over the years, particularly by firms like Osmond and Daniels. Put them carefully back together, or find a fairly untouched one, and you will be pleasantly surprised by the musicality and quality.

While we are speaking of Vowles, some fifteen years ago as an irritating spotty youth I went to look at the organ at South Petherton parish church. It is a 2-manual Vowles, complete to Sw 15th and two reeds, Great to Mixture and Trumpet. It was exquisitely voiced and very musical. My suggestion, which at least one firm quoted for, was to move it from behind the most enormous crossing pillar you have ever seen, one bay to the west where it could actually be heard in the body of the church. Since it is free standing, that would not have been a particularly difficult job; the church is filled with plush chairs rather than pews, and there were no memorials or precious glass at the new location, so there was no great upheaval required. Having had to play it this week, the solution adopted was to leave it at its present location and add lots of screaming upperwork (Quartane 19.22 on the Swell, part of which doesn't appear to have been put on speech) and a very poorly regulated Sesquiltera (sic) on the Great. The Swell Oboe has been turned into a 16' and is, as usual, sorely missed - nothing bridges the gap between the Open Diapason and the Horn in an 'Romantic crescendo'. Staggeringly, the action had been left with a touch depth of 2mm in the middle (3mm in the treble). It is rather like playing a pocket calculator. This was not work of the 1960s or 70s but of 2000. So, since we speak of preserving instruments and so on, what is the relationship between poorly positioned organs and ones which have been subsequently altered, for better or worse? Do organs which have instead been moved fare any better?

Is it not the case that the organ moved in 1905 from a gallery position to its present place on the North side (the eastern bay of which is the old East face of the gallery case)? Whoever wrote 'do not revoice' on a piece of paper may not have fully appreciated that the change in position, for a start, would necessitate some change in the voicing in order to leave a properly balanced and cohesive chorus. Not all changes are permanent and made with a knife; the most drastic change in the sound is made with subtle, almost invisible, movements of languid and lips and the way wind is admitted. Which is to say that, so long as the character of the instrument in the organists' inner ear were identifiable, there is little that examination of the pipework would give away to an untrained eye. If I were Walker, building my first cathedral organ 50 or so years into my career, my overriding concern would be to leave an instrument with all the musical integrity I could muster rather than preserving the reputation of Vowles. I think you're undoubtedly hearing Walker, whoever the originator of the pipework he's speaking through.

1) The word used was "second best", not "second rate". There is a world of difference. I for one would agree with the former in relation to 'The Arthur Harrison Sound'. 2) Within the context of contemporary builders' work, then yes, I think we can very properly use 'beautifully crafted' to describe some of the output of Walker in the 1960s, in particular instruments like Blackburn and St John-the-Evangelist Islington which, if they were to be built at all, had to be competitively priced to get the job; if all your competitors are using cork stoppers and chipboard soundboards, and you price for English oak, you won't stay in business very long.

Have you met the current Close Constable at Salisbury?

All depends if the queue's short enough. And don't forget there's creed and intercessions straight after the sermon, so you can make it 20 minutes quite safely. Note to self: A well positioned organ is one where the organist can emerge straight to the outside world rather than having to walk down a transept.

I believe John Rowntree would be the person to ask. Whilst something of a curiosity (and subject of at least one rebuild, I believe), it's a good deal more successful and interesting as a musical instrument than some of its contemporaries - St Edmund Hall, for example, which is even more of a curiosity.

And there was me thinking how refreshing it was to see organists taking an interest in something more than three paces from the console... Because some of us started planning Christmas in April, and have been rehearsing it since July. And that is how 14 boys, most of whom couldn't match a note off the piano at Easter, will be making a reasonable fist of Leighton 'Lully, lulla' in a few weeks.

But if you're using Great to Mixture and Trumpet, and weren't using the pedal stops added this century, you'd probably need Great-Pedal.

Since humans are the best we've got, I suggest we have to accept destruction by fashion as a by-product of the fashion which caused the creation of the instrument in the first place. I see no particular case for arguing that historians or other higher life-forms are any less infallible than organists. I'm sure we all have our own personal thoughts and anecdotes about that, probably best not shared.

Most of it, bearing in mind Hill provided only a Bourdon and Open Diapason at 16 on the pedal. The surge of bass power means that this is all that is necessary for parts to be heard distinctively.

The majority of the Hill instruments I have encountered have been mechanical action, with only one wind pressure throughout. In virtaully all cases the Great reed, if present, has been called Trumpet, and in most cases the Mixture has had a tierce in the bass which does indeed set the trumpet off spectacularly.