David Coram
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Posts posted by David Coram
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I just knew that if I mentioned that I hadn't heard about copper organ pipes, there would soon be a comprehensive list of organs that have them! Thanks chaps
Are there any particular characteristics in the way they sound?
Personally, I don't think it makes the slightest damn difference. I imagine they're less inclined to go saggy, and the 32' front at Seattle is a truly impressive sight. Considering how much trouble the bottom 5 of the 16' front at New College have staying on speech, the promptness of speech Paul Fritts has got out of these babies is astonishing. (He re-erected it after the earthquake a few years back - and now it's fixed back to the wall!)
I'm sure Google Images has some better images than this, but here's a small one -
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What a thing of extraordinary and rare beauty.
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On this forum, one thing tends to lead to another...
In MM's humorous piece, there was one line that caught my attention "... copper is never used in organ building".
Last year, I bought a copper mute for one of my relatives who is a trumpet player. I was immediately struck by the difference in timbre from other mutes, much warmer than other types.
I cannot think of any examples of copper organ pipes or resonators, but I have never stopped to question why that is. Can anybody explain?
We've done a copper Regal for a house organ. And there's the Kupfer Trompete on the HW at New College. And the 16' copper Prinzipal on the pedal at Clifton Cathedral. And a copper Gemshorn on the Kenneth Jones at Sarum College. And the 32' copper front at Seattle St Mark's.
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The transverse flute is alive and well in the hands of a Frenchman named Bernard, with a little input from an American who trained in Germany and works in Devon. Apply at the Porters' Lodge at St John's, Oxford for a disc demonstrating said very thing - and a quite remarkable exposition of the box organ (8,4,2,1 and Voix humaine - and you will have never, ever heard anything like it).
Rushworths did some terrific imitative stuff in the 1920s. The Solo organ they added to the 3m Willis at Westminster Chapel, Buckingham Gate contains some amazing voices, rather smoother in tone than M. Aubertin's creations.
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I had to play this organ (in this divine Abbey) to the Diocesan Organ Advisers' Conference the other year after which a number (having tried the organ themselves afterwards - and also coming away with bruised fingers), nicknamed me The Karate Kid.
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And the worst of it is that there's no damn excuse for it, a viewpoint which got me into a good deal of trouble on Orgue-L a few years back, but which I stand by.
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I played this organ for a CE in about 1973 or 1974 when most of it was "prepared for". Then it had, quite literally, too heavy an action for me to cope with. It was a real delight to get back to my TP Hewins instrument.
I have just looked back, with considerable sadness, over the provenance of the instrument. The 1864 spec (which appears to have survived to 1961) gives a hint that perhaps this was another collaboration with F.A. Gore-Ouseley, who had designed the Romsey Abbey organ with Walker just six years earlier and incorporated many features from his travels on the continent. (Where else would you find an 1858 organ with a 3 rank Mixture on the pedals?) Here, I am thinking of the divided Swell Double and the Choir with just one stop enclosed (presumably in a lidded box), both things I would expect to find in France. What a shame these useful and interesting touches of detail could not have been preserved.
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Quote the Peter Collins website.
This particular firm seems to be getting a good deal of airtime just lately! Go carefully, or quite a few of us will be thrown off for speaking our mind, a.k.a. what we believe to be the undeniable truth (proved in timber, pipe metal and various grades of chipboard all over the UK)...
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Tut tut tut... so that's why no-ones been raving about it. I thought rebuilds were supposed to solve problems?
That largely depends on whether the problems were in the original conception, or in the later improvements of others. And whether the firm doing the work is renowned for making instruments which don't have problems.
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Sadly not - I'm many many miles away. It does seem odd that a major rebuild has escaped having much of a google presence. But it must be good if he's performing there. Is anyone else able to shed a light on this?
I did a show on it as part of the English Music Festival a couple of years ago. Average 3m Walker which has received ministrations over the years, which I suspect have contributed to it being considerably less wonderful than other Walkers of the era I know. Stop action has been electrified and new Collins-esque console. Action (tracker) fantastically heavy and uneven - I longed to get in there with the spring tongs! Reeds very uneven and 'edgy' too, especially the Clarinet, which felt like most notes were teetering on the description Krummhorn. Dismal winding to the Pedal Principal (which was robbed horribly by the 16's) and the Choir. Pistons were somewhat unreliable too, but probably teething trouble as it had been in less than 12 months.
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I reckon that Carrick bloke has hacked into Hecklephones' account (note the incorrect usage of apostrophe).......I have also just noticed the lovely coincidence of the title of this thread........is he an organist?
I don't think we've ever had a proper one of these. We had that American chap with the nine million rank extension organs spread over six counties, and there was also that guy who once said a swell box wasn't quite as good as it should have been. And the A.Palace stuff got pretty heated.
Happy times.
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I've always enjoyed this, especially the first two thirds -
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Keh??????
And him, that other poncy one who used an apostrophe correctly a minute ago.
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No, I didn't say any of that. I just said that the less popular was also worthwhile and loved by some, if not always many.
Following your logic, there would only be one television station, one model and colour of car on the road, one type of tree and one thing on the menu in one chain of identical pubs. Even Communism presented more choice than that.
This is not the first time you have indicated that this forum doesn't meet with your approval so I hope you will soon find somewhere more appropriate to air your views.
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...and have also not come across HTH before!
not even at Christmas? (CFC Green p39)
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.... When it is not engaged in falling on to the glass swell shutters below....
I should still far rather play this on Christ Church.
...except the shutters are above the chamade... and have, on one occasion, fallen out, a bit... is that what you meant?
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I played Darke in F, Stanford in C and other such repertoire in Ch Ch in 2006 with a visiting choir and I agree with Hecklephone that you simply have to accept what it is and play it like a musical instrument and not try to make it sound like a Harrison or Willis! I found it a good instrument and while it wasnt my cup of tea I enjoyed what it had to offer and really brought Bach alive for me in a way that other instruments never had. Warning though if accompanying a choir; it is very easy to swamp them - it really is a case of less is more!
I also played Magdalen at the same time for one service and hated it - I would set fire to it in a heartbeat. I had expected it to be the other way around and was pleasantly surprised to end up playing extended practice sessions on the Rieger as I enjoyed it so much!!
Of all the strange contraptions in Oxford, New College is the one for Balfour Gardiner. You really can't go wrong with it as long as you stick with the stops labelled in whole numbers. Even the Chamade works.
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That`s interesting. I heard a recording from Jesus College Cambridge accompanied by the old 1970`s Mander organ. The results were actually quite acceptable, but the more contemporary repertoire - mostly Britten, Leighton etc I think helped. That old instrument must have seemed rather uncompromising by current organist preferences. Does anyone know what became of the Mander organ after its replacement? NPOR says it was offered for sale but gives no further information.
The organ's name was Derek. Lance Foy has it, I believe. It's been put up somewhere, with additions, but I'm not quite sure where.
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What an interesting article.
I was nearly on this TV show as Parry was baptised in St Peter's Bournemouth. There was a plan to assemble various local choirs there and sing a few of the hymn tunes. Alas, it was not to be.
Parry's hymn tunes are all cleverly constructed and easy to sing. The third line invariably begins with a hidden sequence, one which after a couple of repetitions appears to peter out but is still there in disguise. Lends an air of familiarity.
Rustington is a much under-done piece.
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Sorry to be very dull and chip in - very predictable of me - but not all disadvantages need outweigh advantages. You refer only to meantone, and that's an extreme sound which for many of us forms the first introduction to systems other than ET.
There are an infinite number of possibilities for placing notes around the circle of fifths which bring slight key colour without making anything unuseable or unpleasant. That's where the research is needed.
Your initial premise is that the majority of organs are tuned in ET. I think it would be good to go around with a tuning meter and establish whether that is actually the case. Something might be *said* to be in equal temperament, but actual equal temperament (to the requisite number of decimal places to render the octave the right size) is so hard to achieve by ear that we might as well say it's impossible. Most big firms - we've heard an example of Walker's tuning, and Willis' bearing octaves are often cited too - would lay a roughly equal scale, then amend it to sound better. A great many small firms were staffed by people who had been trained by the big firms. At the very instant that 'improving' of the bearing octave occurs, you have an unequal tuning.
And why not - there are many more hymns and pieces in C, F, G, Bb and A than there are in F#, G# or Bb minor. (Partly, of course, this is because of the tuning system prevalent at the time of composition, and partly because of what particular composers like to do to create tension - I've given examples elsewhere.) So why not have the common keys sounding slightly nicer than they would in true ET, and the very rarest keys having what you might call added piquancy?
I would call that a positive advantage over equal, myself. And do not forget that it is not only early music which benefits, but increasingly scholars agree that nearly *all* music (certainly up to around 1910) came from the pen of composers who were well aware of what key flavour was for.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the rise of Mathias/Hindemith-esque stuff based on 4ths and 5ths?
I promise to go away for at least 48 hours now and not leap down anyone else's throat the moment they say anything. Promise.
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There would be at least one key which will be unpleasant or even unusable, though...
Oh, I'm sure we'll get used to it - just as we got used to ET!
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The downside [of using a well temperament instead of equal] would be that certain keys would be at best less than perfect and at worst unusable.
Perhaps I'm misreading but this appears to equate ET with 'perfect'. A major third in equal temperament is an extremely fast beat which is some way beyond the bounds of acceptability to most ears. However, our ears have learnt to accept it because there's nothing to readily compare it with. Having one stop tuned differently for a time, as I did, brought this home and even to me (who is used to it) the shock of returning to an ET third was profound and extremely unpleasant.
In most well temperaments, and even meantones, at least half the keys are purer than ET. The better the good ones are, then the worse the bad ones will be. Isn't that rather the point of writing emotion into music?
So, we can't pursue perfection, because that's impossible; so do we settle for a mathematically neat but aurally anodyne status quo, or pursue something better which works? 50 years ago, 'bending the tuning' would have been handed on to apprentices; in this age of tuning meters, only the instructions are followed.
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Thanks Ian B for providing some information - that made for interesting reading.
To be honest... some of these Victorian "Well temperaments" are so close to equal, I'm inclined to think that few would notice the difference... The website Ian kindly directed us to says that the maths for equal temperament wasn't fully worked out until 1911, so therefore it makes sense that anything before that is not quite equal.
These Victorian temperaments (eg Moore, Broadwood) are in a different world completely (ie much more close to equal and acceptable in every key) from the modified meantone ones, and even early 'Well' temperaments that we all think of when we think about 'unequal' temperament. I think Portheads original post would have given me less surprise if he had explained the developing history a little further...
Proper, mathematically perfect equal temperament is simply vile. (That's why just about everyone gets near it, goes 'ugh' and sorts out the thirds of the white keys slightly.) That doesn't mean that something 'not far off' should be referred to as equal - that's where anyone attempting to unpick the mud will run into difficulty. The definition of 'well' temperament is one which can be played acceptably in any key, so the stuff Broadwood and others were doing would technically come into that category.
I think the Padgham work has circulated a little knowledge, and that's a dangerous thing; it only gives half a dozen or so 'well' temperaments and all of them quite early ones, and therefore most people's (mine included) early experience of the terminology was of well temperaments in the medium to hot category rather than serious attempts to make all keys usable whilst making modulations interesting - and thirds bearably slow or pure.
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The tuner who first taught me, always used cotton wool to 'wad-off' mixture ranks. This always seemed a slow and clumsy method, especially if the pipes are planted really close together.
Some years later, I was shown a much simpler method - using small paper cones. Easy to make - just roll a sheet of paper into a small cone, tape it up. A few of these in differing sizes can be left in the job. Easy to drop in and remove without disturbing anything else.
Cheaper than a meter !
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Feathers even cheaper still!
The Vogel link was the one I was after - thank you. I kept searching for Vogel Organ Tuning Mixture Temperament and stuff like that, and all I got was some old guy with a beard who's evidently made a record or two.
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I am having temporary amnesia about the German manufacturer of specialist organbuilding supplies, amongst which is a very clever tuning meter which can listen to any partial of a Mixture meaning you don't have to stop pipes off. It's not Korg!
Let's have a riot
in General discussion
Posted
Well, I think that since Salisbury is completely incapable of making an unmusical sound, and incapable of making a bumpy crescendo even with a toddler jabbing at the pistons, it has to be my winner. It's massively successful as a musical instrument from Mozart to jazz purely because it aims simply to be just a very musical instrument, and not representative of anything in particular or aiming specifically to be all-embracing. It is what it is, and it does that one thing to perfection. As I sometimes drone on, give a musician a musical instrument and he or she will make music on it, and who gives a monkeys if Franck or Rheinberger don't sound quite absolutely exactly right. It all sounds musical. And, who cares if you can't hear it at the back. Get there earlier and sit at the front.
Counting against it is a slightly odd Choir organ, much of which is a later addition; I don't really know what it's for, and I don't like it's winding one bit. I suppose if I were accompanying a smaller choir than the one I usually take there (which is 45-strong) then I would suddenly see the point of it.
Peterborough comes close, for me. I even like the later Solo stuff like the Quintaton. Bristol oozes quality but not many will have experienced it working as well as it did shortly after the 1992 work by our hosts. Anyone who played it then wouldn't have had a word to say against the action. Truro is also a serious contender but I found too much fiddling and faffing and leaping about necessary to render the sort of effects which Salisbury makes a walk in the park. This is partly due to the number of enclosed divisions. With very considerable respect to our hosts, I do not think the console is their finest hour; I have a dislike for looking at expanses of plain-sawn oak made up from very wide planks (I get the same sensation of G-plan overload at Chichester), and I'm not a fan of that style of piston either when (presumably) there would have been original Willis ones which could have been copied. I am aware that the Salisbury console has altered very significantly, but it feels like an evolution rather than renewal, and there is enough variation in the grains around the console to make it look and feel more distinguished than pretty much anything else I have ever encountered.