David Coram

Well, we wouldn't have Romsey for a start - there was a proposal in the late 50's that Willises should turn it into a spiky, jangly thing covered in larigots with a detached console. The only reason it was saved is that there was no money. I think the concept of historical restoration is fairly well established now. I sometimes even hear of small, underfunded churches raising money to reverse work done in the 60's-80's, be it even turning a Twelfth back into a Gamba, in the name of restoration. The meglomaniac streak is of course still there, so if there were pots of money my hot prediction is there will be hundreds of lovely 2 manual Grays and Bishops and Sweetlands going into mothballs in the name of "preservation" and lots more toasters with mixtures and tubas and God knows what else going in next to them.

As far as I know "Henry Willis" is the corporate login name of the company of which David Wyld is a director. So, you may all retrieve your noses! I personally thought his last post summed it all up very nicely, and couldn't think of any way that anyone would manage to come back with another punch. I shall look forward to the 2034 opening of the new Frobenius organ (or will it be Rieger?) - I fear no UK organbuilder may be found who would want to commit commercial suicide by going near the job under these circumstances... In the meantime it would occupy fewer pages if correspondents could either not quote quite so much or (even better) refrain from posting blank messages/entire quotes with no new text - rather painful for those with dialup.

http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N08432 This will give you a link to one of the most delightful instruments in Wiltshire, certainly the very finest in Devizes at the moment, and almost completely in original condition.

Funnily enough, it's not - much as I'd love there to be 90 channels of memory. Romsey is a very special machine indeed.

"...the pitiful standards of some of the contributions to this debate".

Well, that would seem to be the problem. The manufacturers say a few people have got in a mess with it, and I can see how that would happen on a large instrument with a full array of pistons, so the titulaire might find in the closing bars of the Nunc Dimittis that some kind soul has made Sw 1 into a reversible for all the pedal reeds and the Cymbelstern. At Westbury it's ok because there's not too many buttons (and no cymbelstern - yet); you either get to know it if it's a channel you use a lot for accompaniment, or you obviously mark in the score which piston to press at what point.

I know you are fairly familiar with the Stephen Cooke Westbury organ - the capture system on that has two extra buttons ("Prg" and "Rev") - the idea is, that if you want a piston to become reversible, you select the stop(s) you want to reverse and hold down Rev and Set to teach the piston what to do - similarly if you want to make a general piston work on Sw only, you draw all the swell stops and use Prg to teach the piston the "scope" of its operation. And so on for all other divisionals/generals.

*Carol* Curley? If there's one person I can think of who wouldn't work in drag, it would be Mr Curley... On the project in question, memory levels ain't a problem (there's 90 or so) but it's a historic console and they can't install thumb pistons - restricted to the few toe pistons (formerly compositions) already there. Glad someone else has heard of it - was beginning to think I was imagining things!

I have previously encountered a piston system called Scope. The idea is that you can set any piston as a general, reversible or divisional from the console. I always got on fine with it, as the instrument I used it on had quite a few stops and not many playing aids, so the versatility was v. useful. A friend is considering it as an option on a rebuild project, but has heard some people have got into difficulty with it, so I wondered if any other members had come across it & had any thoughts?

OK, I'll have three, please.

Don't forget that the pedal note (uncoupled bourdon) has to be held for a couple of seconds after the manuals have been released, to give the impression of an echo.

Well, 16' on the manuals achieves two things - you get an approximately "full swell" type noise with the box shut, and also you can stick everything up an octave and gain yourself some bonus upperwork. A good cheat when you want 8 and 4 flutes on two manuals. Come to think of it, I would probably change my Bourdon for the copper 16' Prinzipal at Clifton Cathedral. It's the best stop on the instrument. Oh, and does a Cymbelstern count as a stop?

Who voted for radiating concave? Would you tell us why? You will be the first person I believe I have ever spoken to who actually likes them. I've always wondered how it came to be adopted as a standard. I grew up with the things and my usual church has one now (unless I can get it changed back). Every time I get to play a straight one I'm amazed how seemingly insurmountable technical deficiencies become just fairly serious, and revel in the resulting increase in my right note factor (from 8% to 23%)

Absolutely. But, in considering how best to accompany the liturgy, the issues will not be so very different from considering what repertoire to play; they include clarity, variety, excitement & splendour, not to mention cost effectiveness. After all, 95% or so of the published organ repertoire was written to at least fit into a liturgical context, so the starting point (and finishing point) for the designer is pretty much the same.

Great Clarabella 8 (wide scale) Principal 4 Flute 4 Mixture 12.15 (double draw if allowed) Swell Double Diapason 16 Gemshorn 8 Principal 4 Mixture 12.15.19 (with tierce from fiddle G) Hautboy 8 Pedal Bourdon 16 Clarabella 8 also on pedal by transmission from Gt if this is allowed Usual unison couplers, no octaves.

I last played Catz pre-2000 and I think, at the time, it was probably one of the most outstandingly vibrant and alive instruments I had ever come across. Seems like the others and the more recent work has been a mixed bag, though - was disappointed to read AJ's comments about Malmesbury - probably 15 years since I saw that, and at the time it was not too bad. It makes you wonder what the pressures were, or what changed - to suddenly go from really good stuff to mediocre - but hey...

The single best day out on the whole planet, especially when "This Is Cinerama" is on - you must all go there at once if you haven't already.

Does - you need RealPlayer - there's a 10-second advert to start with then a 1 hour 29 minute programme. Just listening to Stanford in C with timpani...

Speak for yourself! http://www.rathergood.com/morris_dancers/ Also in Leeds you have one of our best lyric tenors, James Griffett, who runs at least two fantastic outfits - Northern Youth Choir, and Pro Cantione Antiqua - both they and he with extensive discographies and many awards.

I wonder if this is a deliberately inflammatory remark? It's certainly factually incorrect. I can't think of a major town without an orchestra, an opera company, at least one big choral society, several youth groups, a decent if not world-class theatre, and countless smaller & specialist groups, all working exceptionally hard and producing good results. Perhaps that's why the BBC bases so much of its arts, cultural & drama output from Bristol, Manchester & Wales. Instead of getting all stroppy, perhaps I could invite you to come and stay. If you bring five quid, you will be able to choose from six outstandingly well produced, rehearsed and choreographed operas you can currently see within 40 miles of my front door.

Ah. I originally meant tierces in general, the major third in equal temperament being not so very far from a "wolf" and hence disagreeable to those working when equal temperament first became widespread in this country, about 1850-1860 ish I understand. A commonly expressed view is that disinterest in chorus work and muddying of tone came about from this point on. I think we may be at crossed purposes. I'm no neo baroqueist, I just don't think organbuilding would have reached the happy place it is today without these influences. I think we have much to learn from neoclassical instruments and the thinking behind them to show how we got from point A to point B, and I hope our most important ones are preserved. I think New College Oxford is every bit as deserving of a historic organ certificate and careful preservation as anywhere else. But with a blank canvas, I think few would commission such an instrument now. Is it right to dismiss a basic musical principle - two contrasting choruses, not necessarily both principal choruses - as "neo baroque"? I don't think it is even accurate; I think it goes much, much deeper than that and has been a fundamental part of organ design ever since the Blockwerk became two Blockwerks. To condemn several hundred years of tangible history because it also happened to be a guiding principle of a handful of boffins in the 1960's, with whom we now in many ways disagree, seems a little hasty. Most of what you say refers to existing, often historical, instruments. I always come at this from the point of view of designing a new instrument right now. Personally, unless I had the resources to make enough colour for expression to be useful, I would consider putting the second manual in a swell box as being wasteful and pointless. Finally, read the original post again - at no point did I suggest that Manders were part of the revival movement - merely that, thanks to that revival, general interest was awakened and the path lay open for instruments like Pembroke College, Lulworth Castle, Grosvenor Chapel et al to be intelligently restored and have the electromagnets and Keraulophons and Tubas taken away.

I'm not sure whether I disagree or not. I am confused now! Cathedral organs as liturgical tools - were the little village jobs anything else - well, of course not. The point is, that faced with a blank sheet of paper the designer had quite different requirements and constraints to bear in mind, and therefore started from a different place - very crudely, the cathedral could start from the point of LOTS of noise to be carried with clarity and definition throughout the building coupled to the ability to make very little, aetherial sounds; whereas with the smaller instrument the starting position is more naturally with the contrapuntal ideal. In both cases, the repertoire is central to these requirements. Concerning the removal of tierces, obviously things move differently in every nation, and that goes for the use of the tierce as well as its falling out of favour. Our most prominent NB instrument (New College, Oxford) has hundreds of tierces and some stranger fractions, including 3 1/5 on the Great. If your point is that, generally speaking, generalisations are crude, then agreed. Mr Mander was, I believe, the first to be doing authentic historic reconstructions - viz Pembroke College, Cambridge. Since then, others like Bill Drake and Goetze and Gwynne have stepped in. I don't think there was anything unfair about it, indeed quite the reverse - a great compliment. The spec you give, and somewhat mysteriously ask me for blah-blah, is interesting, and there's of course nothing wrong with such an instrument, but it is very much fixed in a certain type of repertoire. On paper it seems hard to imagine it being capable of giving a clear account of a trio sonata or Mendelssohn sonata or indeed much written this century. I struggle to think of what I would programme for a recital or even voluntary on it - the first four pages of Franck's B minor chorale, or the beginning and end of a Howells Psalm Prelude - I am of course a cretin when it comes to romantic repertoire. I have found two articles online which make the point somewhat more clearly than I do - http://www.gillianweir.com/articles/rondo and http://www.gillianweir.com/articles/rondo2 - now, back to the issue of Swell boxes, as I am all argued out here...

Interesting - didn't know they still existed - everything I have seen has been Cambridge, c. 1965-1980

I have come across several times the name E.J. Johnson on console plaques. Every time, the instrument has been virtually perfect. And yet, in conversation, few seem to have heard of this firm. I am thinking particularly of the stunning instrument at St Catherine's College, Cambridge; also Malmesbury Abbey and a whole string of very distinguished single-manual continuo instruments. Has anyone else played one of their instruments and got any comments?

Ditto, in that it's designed around the specific job it has to do. Must say KT's website is really, really well done, is it not?