David Coram
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Posts posted by David Coram
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Indeed - welcome, PV (Chamade78).
Sadly Heckelphone is entirely accurate in his assessment of Saint Peter's. The console is a particularly bad example of 1970s workmanship.
The organ of Wimborne Minster is indeed in much the same state as when you last heard it. The action works rather better than that at Saint Peter's, too - which is interesting, since this instrument has had various parts of the transmission replaced twice. The Minster key action still dates entirely from 1965 - and is as prompt and reliable as ever - thank goodness.
Transmission doesn't really make that much odds. Rusty, underpowered, low-budget lever magnets driving no fewer than seven different types and designs of action; leatherwork which in places dates back to 1914 (and in several places has been replaced with tosh, and in several more places has been replaced really quite badly). No amount of computing is going to overcome that.
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Good evening,
I am a new French member; I believe the instrument you described in this post is St Peter's Bournemouth which I knew quite a lot when (in the late sixties) I was a student and spent most of my holidays in Bournemouth.
I remember the H&H organ very well, particularly the Great Harmonics (one evening, I entered the church as I heard music being played: an lady organist was playing a Bach fugue with nearly full organ, adding the great Trombas for the last bars...I will never forget).
I wrote an article in the French quarterly "L'orgue" in January 1978, about Bournemouth's organs (at least some of them). At the time, my favorite organ was Christchurch Priory's, I mean the previous organ by Compton and Deggens.
I also heard the organ in Winborne Minster and its trumpet en chamade in the late 1970s or 1980s.
Unfortunately, my health does not allow me to travel at the moment, but I hope I will be able to come back in Bournemouth in the years to come.
Friendly yours.
PV
Hello PV and welcome. I am afraid you will find Bournemouth a very different place. The road on which St Peter's is situated is now end-to-end nightclubs, some open, some closed. Nightlife has completely taken over the area, and the churchyard is frequently host to rapes and acts of violence and at least one stabbing in the past three years. It is now sealed off at night.
The Harmonics were removed in 1976, along with the fine console (replaced with an upended fruit crate stained and varnished) and most of the reeds were revoiced.
I fear you would be well advised to spend your train fare on some other location! The Wimborne instrument is the only one of those which you mention to have survived more-or-less unchanged in its original form.
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For the record, generally I try to avoid offering an opinion on specific instruments which I have not actually played - or at least heard live. However, the reviews to which I alluded appeared in Organists' Review and Choir & Organ (as far as I can remember). In the case of the Bridgewater Hall, the reviewer was, I believe, Roger Fisher, who had given the instrument a fairly thorough examination, within reasonable time-constraints.
I am not sure that this would class merely as 'hearsay'.
Absolutely agreed. But a couple of ill-conceived jobs do not an entire reputation make. A certain very particular organ builder once presented me with a CD of fairly obscure music by a fairly obscure player, on the basis that he admired the (Marcussen) instrument tremendously and wished it to form a part of my education in voicing. Anyone who has first-hand knowledge of the person I am referring to will realise at once that there is, quite simply, no higher accolade.
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I can also mention one I particularly disliked, and apologies to any here who may know it and think differently, but the Catholic Church in Kingswinford has one of the most ill conceived, badly constructed and miserable little instruments I have yet encountered.
Out of curiosity I've been trying to find out about this. Any info?
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OK, I was completely wrong - they're stylistically appropriate remakes of the originals, far more artistic than the KA stuff I claimed they were. Ten points to PCND.
And for a further five points, the wood of the stop jambs is a lot more characterful than I remember it being. Actually, I'll just shut up generally.
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If it's any help here's a full-size photo from Flickr of one of the Truro stop jambs that also shows some of the pistons. It is the current console (taken in 2009 according to the EXIF).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38683120@N02/...in/photostream/
OK, I was completely wrong - they're stylistically appropriate remakes of the originals, far more artistic than the KA stuff I claimed they were. Ten points to PCND.
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What about the extra divisional name-plates? The original Willis curved items are, I believe, patented, or copyright - or whatever one does to divisional name-plates. Do you mean to suggest that these are also not original 1963 Willis Ivory units? (He said, in a suitably scandalised, and somewhat shocked tone.)
Aren't both they and the stop heads original material? I thought they were older than 1963, actually.
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It does indeed. However, I have already 'had a look' - at the actual console(s) - not just in a little picture, considerately re-sized smaller by Google, for my convenience.
It's hotting up in here already! I've had a look too - recitals, a week of services, and several weekends. Perhaps my memory is deceiving me, and I'm imagining things which aren't there, but you can clearly see the collar of the pistons (equal in size to the head) in several photographs online, as well as some of my own. The standard Willis items don't have this collar - the necks pass straight through the keyslip (as at Hereford at Southampton St Mary), sometimes with a much smaller collar (as at Salisbury). I'm very happy to be authoritatively told I'm wrong, but do please at least permit me to express as a possibility that these are replacement items. Whatever they are, I didn't like them and that's about all I was hoping to get across in this entirely subjective thread.
You're dead right about the Ophicleide, by the way.
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Well, as I wrote, I also played on the old console a number of times - as far as I know, new units were nade to match the existing piston-heads. Even the engraving is standard 'Willis' style - the alpha-numeric characters are distinctive, in particular. I do not doubt that K-A (or, for that matter, P&S) would be able to match the engraving - but I do not think that all the piston heads were replaced with plastic or Ivorine/Ivothene copies.
Go and have a look - I'm pretty certain they're plastic.
Well, the topic says let's have a riot!
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I should be surprised about the winding. This instrument has an action cut-off, which (obviously) cuts the action instantly, if the wind supply falls below a set threshold.
I have always found the winding to be stable and entirely adequate for whatever demands I made upon it.
I was just pootling along on flutes 8+4 in some verse anthem or other and as I did a scale in the bass the sustained chord in the middle octave was wobbling about like jelly, probably getting on for a minor third. It was the year of the rebuild so it is possible that the concussion or its spring had not been got quite right yet.
I seem to recall a rather brittle attack to the Swell reeds - certainly the 16' - which I put down to winding rather than voicing.
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Not as far as I know - but I may be wrong. It would not be the first time, I shall make enquiries.
Yes, but where is this panelling/cladding at Chichester? Are you referring to the stop jambs, the casework (of the console) or some other part of the instrument?
Have a look on Google Images for Truro cathedral organ console and you'll find pictures which appear to support that they're the standard KA jobs, as at St Peter's.
I'm referring to the whole of the console - stop jambs, music desks, the side returns next to the music desk.
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Winchester - I agree heartily. Vox, I know you are biased, but I think that this one is porbably Harrisons' fault. In any case, they either eradicated or revoiced most of the Hele ranks - apart from the enormous 32ft. reed.
Exeter - I was about to mention this. I agree whoeheartedly. It is a superb accompanimental organ - every department is useful. The console is utterly comfortable - especially the pedal-board.
Winchester is terribly dull.
I found (in a residential week) that I really didn't enjoy Exeter. The winding (esp to the Choir) I found just too flaky. The rest of it, for me, failed to deliver the character which the case promised, and left me disappointed.
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Yesterday I had to play for a colleague at a church which possesses a large three clavier instrument, originally by Willis, greatly enlarged and rebuilt by Harrisons and finally rebuilt (arguably not particularly well) by Rushworth & Dreaper, in the mid 1970s. After returning to my own instrument in the afternoon, to play for Choral Evensong, I was struck by the apparent lack of blend in the organ at the other church. The Swell has a big Open Diapason and an enormous Trumpet 8ft - which stands apart from its neighbours. The Swell five-rank Mixture was barely audible in the full Swell. At the Minster, all the reeds blend well, yet form an exciting and utterly musical ensemble. Again, on the G.O. at the other church, there is a huge Open Diapason I, a large Hohlflöte, and two still rather fat reeds (Posaunes). Whilst the four-rank Mixture is at least audible, the chorus does not hang together convincingly, even if one omits the large Open Diapason. The Choir Organ is Romantic Solo Organ in all but name and, whilst the individual stops are for the most part pleasant, it is only really useful in choral accompaniment. The Cor Anglais (16ft.) is too quiet - it is borrowed on the Pedal Organ, where its presence is virtually pointless, there being a quiet Dulciana already.
On the mechanical side, this instrument is, quite frankly, beginning to resemble just so much junk, these days. The action is rather slow and lacks crispness; the piston action is also sluggish. The consloe is nothing short of a disgrace, particularly compared to the elegance of the former H&H console. It was detached to facilitate better contact between the choir and organist, and to enable the player to gain a clearer idea of the balance between singers and organ. Why they could not simply have built a case for the old H&H console and given it a new action I cannot imagine.
Totally agreed - I don't miss it one bit. Believe it or not, the manual actions were releathered less than five years ago by our mutual Cornish friend, and the Swell (particularly the mechanical link between the flue and reed chests) has never been the same since. The piston action is fed by a 35 year old rectifier which doesn't compensate for demand. Pull out one stop and press general cancel, and that one solenoid gets the full wallop of however many amps it is; pull out full organ and it can barely cope. I took a conscious decision not to repair anything to do with the console unless it catastrophically prevented the organ being used, in the hope that a case could be made for a replacement.
I hope you found the Pedal Bourdon unit much better - it was releathered and given new magnets earlier this year - when I arrived there in 2008 there were five notes not working at all and most of the top octave of the 8' were hanging on forever and a day. Oh, and the Choir stop action now works, too.
This state of decline is arguably inevitable when an instrument is made of components of such vastly differing life expectancies. The soundboards will go on forever; the leatherwork has nearly had it (the Choir reservoir only has two corners left); most of the magnets in the basement are rusting and seizing. Unfortunately prior to my arrival a make-do-and-mend approach was taken, in that a soundboard would be stripped down and the motors releathered - but the magnets were not changed at the same time, and as a consequence the same soundboard has to be revisited again five years later.
My approach was to go through soundboard by soundboard (and if you include pedal chests there are no fewer than 23) and fully overhaul each; magnets, leatherwork, concussions, joints, the lot. Painting the Forth bridge is a big enough job as it is, but if you only daub paint on the bits where the rust is showing through, you will be there for a thousand years and still won't keep on top of it.
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[However, I am slightly puzzled by your comments regarding the Truro console. I played on the 'old' (1963) console several times. As far as I am aware, the piston heads were copied (for the additional units). They certainly look the same as they did, prior to 1990. I am more offended by the piston selector panel. I find this both obtrusive and ugly.
The Truro pistons appeared to me to be pretty much the standard KA fayre of the era.
To me, quarter sawn timber looks vastly better - or plain sawn in very small planks, as at Salisbury. Plain sawn in very wide planks looks to me like cladding rather than furniture and I dislike its utilitarian appearance. Go to Google Images and compare a few console grains if you don't see what I mean.
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Romsey should occupy at least two of the top three spots. Whatever has changed mechanically, it remains a musical instrument of the absolute utmost musical beauty and tonal integrity.
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What about least favourites (without saying nasty things about organ builders!!!)....? For me, Norwich (bland and difficult to manage), Gloucester (considering the accompaniment role as paramount), St Albans, Derby (too far from the choir) and, if we can include organs that no longer exist, Chelmsford and Worcester. Finally, Guildford does little for me!
Now that's the bit I've been secretly waiting for. I didn't find Norwich so very terrible - Aston in F has never sounded finer, and it did a mean Elgar Spirit of the Lord. You absolutely must try St Albans post-revamp if you haven't already because I think you will find it a very considerably different instrument. In its new form it was a contender for my top five.
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Well, the late S R-S was notoriously well-travelled, so I suppose he had played many more high profile organs than most of us. A certain present cathedral organist told me (when he was 20) that a certain German organ (in an unpromising building), was the best organ he had ever played. But certain German organs in the U.K. have had a more mixed press...
Well if Germany is involved, I knew the instrument in Clifton Cathedral, Bristol some years before I knew Christchurch, Oxford and I can well recall my profound disappointment on meeting the latter.
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Superfluous commas?
We could all pick at grammar and spelling, and it's frequently tempting to do just that. Life's too short. But MM is right that there's nothing wrong with beginning sentences with 'and'. And that's all there is to it, as Bill Bryson summarised in his authoritative book on English usage, Troublesome Words.
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Could a five-letter word in German be involved?
For a moment I entertained the notion that the topic hadn't strayed at all and we were still in the hearty English world of... well, pork pies, say, and other products from that locality. But I can't think of anything which would qualify as being good.
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May I suggest, seriously, that the words of Mr Kendrick are no worse than those of the Revd E Sparrow-Simpson.
In terms of being unsound, maybe. But what about banality?
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Ooh Gosh, no - that's not at all what I had in mind - the CP at St Paul's is much more gentle than the Ophicleide.
Well, you could always add a Digital Rank
Or just pay a lorry driver to sit outside with his engine at 1,496.3 revs on receipt of a text message.
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What about those ghastly Welsh tunes?
You know the ones.
Always in a miner key....all slag heaps and sheep's head broth.
MM
If you think they're ghastly, you're obviously doing them too fast and too loud!
And what about the major ones, like... um, Penlan, the most unjustly neglected Welsh tune I know. And Cwm Rhondda. I mean, how many more do you want.
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On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being absolutely beyond the pale, how great a sin would it have been if one had been added at the last rebuild? And if it would have been such a shocking thing to do, why would this have been so much worse than adding a pedal divide or bringing the Tuba forward?
Because the only logical thing to do would be to extend it from the Ophicleide, and that kind of rules out "quiet"...
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Before we're all too rude about Jerusalem, see what words of wisdom are proffered in this absolutely marvellous film.
Let's have a riot part deux
in General discussion
Posted
And probably in any state.