bombarde32
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Posts posted by bombarde32
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David - I have a 3 manual 58 stop Wyvern Digital organ (1 year old) which I hire out. It has an ecletic spec. which was recently used by Romsey Choral Society for the Bernstein Chichester Psalms and the O'Regan Dorchester Canticles. It was also used by the Swindon Choral Society for the Widor Messe for two organs and choirs (op.36)
It has an extensive audio array with 2200W RMS and 13 speaker cabinets. i can arrange transport with no problem, and the organ is fully insured whilst out of my sight!!
BTW I am in Southampton
email me if it is any good to you!
organhire@aol.com
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Further to the revelation that Jo Brand is to appear as a celebrity/organist in the forthcoming (2007) BBC series, I heard that Paris Hilton is to take up the French Horn.
Could this merely be a rumour?
MM
I had heard the she was better on the one-eyed piccolo
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I have just heard that the job is to go to Andrew Carwood of The Oratory. It sounds like an inspired choice to me.
Truly inspired, I agree!
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A man after my own heart!
I hated them when I first heard them, I hated them when I had to learn them and hated accompanying them.
There are so many holes in the writing, and the style is so suspect, it had me wondering at the time if the composer wasn't related to "Ned" Kelly.
MM
More like MOTHER Kelly, of doorstep fame!
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There was the time, about three years ago when I was engaged to play at a funeral at a church bordering one of the local council tower blocks. Kick off was due at 11:00am.
By 11:05 there was no sign of the family, who were coming under their own steam. A funeral bearer was duly dispached to the tower block address to ascertain the familys' wearabouts. The next thing that happened was a large fire engine speeding, with blues and twos past the church and turning off in the direction of the tower block.
We all stood and looked at each other, Wallace and Gromit style. Eventually the funeral bearer returned and informed us that the family had 'got stuck in the bastard lift, mate'.
Apparently, the lift was suitable for a maximum of six occupants, and, indeed there were six occupants within, but one of the six (the mother) was 34 stone; the poor lift had decided that enough was enough and ceased operation for the day, getting stuck on the fourteenth floor.
Eventually the fire brigade got them out and the funeral service got cracking, an hour and a half late!
I couldn't ask for any more money............
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For all those melomaniac Organists that like to belt it out with full Organ drawn for a long period. It only takes one in internal fuse to blow and your without your instrument.
.......and many is the pipe organ which has dropped out in the middle of a wedding when the blower contatactor won't stay in. Osmonds are the worst for this, with organs which have their blowers in little 'shed' on the outside of the church a close second! I would say that running outside in the pouring rain (as I have had to do on more than one occasion) is just as awkward - and embarrassing-
Royston does a fairly good job for us but as Ive said he can be expensive.
How expensive?
Relative to what, pray?
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This organ makes one of the most exiting sounds I've ever heard.
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The topic header does say this week, so apologies for mentioning my saddest moment to date which did occur some 20 odd years ago. I managed to fall off the bench at Grossmunster Zurich while playing the opening of Purcell's Bell Anthem - leaning over to reach the top manual (which I think is an enclosed positiv or something sim???) - the pure Ionian tonality became somewhat compromised by Ligettian clusters. While I did recover, the effect on the soloists due to be singing the opening verse was more prolonged - not one of them managed the entry, merely a few gasps of poorly retained mirth drifting across to the loft.
Now I wonder - what on earth was I doing playing that opening on the 4th manual anyway?
And, of course, the Terror of the Bell has never gone away. I still tremble when I see that particular anthem programmed, 22 years down the line.
Tim
Marlborough
Fantastic - not many of us would admit to that one
Quality, real quality!
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And the other vexed question I had with the Wyvern System was it couldnt play more then ten notes on the manuals !
Which system? If you are talking about the Phoenix system then you can have as many notes as you like on the manuals play at once - it just depends upon how many stops are put on each tone-card. The new tone cards are twice as large (in memory terms) as the old ones, so it's is extremely unlikely that you would ever find this. However, if the organ is badly designed from the off, then you could exhaust the available memory on the card, and get missing notes. I'm not aware that this has ever happened before, but you may have found the first......
Anyone could find this on any organ (including pipe) when you have to play (as I do today) the organ part for the Karl Jenkins 'the Armed Man' where it calls for the organist to lay both forearms upon the manuals and both feet sideways on the pedalboard, with the organ flat out.
Oh dear.......
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I'm speaking from a purely Australian perspective here but i've recently had great experiences with Ahlborn-Galanti instruments. They did a fantastic installation at a church in Newcastle and also recently installed a large 3-manual with added pipe ranks at Newcastle University. They also do wonderful wooden keyboards, which may not seem much, until you've played on them.
I agree with you about the keyboards, although like virtually all builders, the keyboard are sourced from Fatar of Italy. Whilst the cheapest keyboards are really horrid, the wooden ones are sublime to play. Although they are horrendously expensive in comparison.
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Are Wyvern's "Standard Spec" instruments "customizable" if there is such a word? The Concerto, for example, and the Toccata, have a Clarinet on the Great in a 3 (and 4) man scheme, which doesn't ring true with me however good the sound. Also, the Concerto has a 16' Corno di Bassetto on the Solo whereas I would prefer it to be at 8', also an 8' string on the Solo but no undulant. Is it possible to specify alternative dispositions? I also find the website's statement that the Pastorale 220 has a "typically English spec" a little strange having studied the Swell spec....
Yes they are, although the range of organs to which you refer are NOT the phoenix generation system although they are still very good! You may specify exactly what you want. Some customers prefer them with the clarinet on the choir and a clarion or a festival trumpet on the Great.
The pastorale 220 was an adaptation of an existing Dutch organ, which initally was rather unsatisfactory.
It has now been completely re-voiced using British samples, although the stop names are the same, the two instruments are completely different. There will be a Pastoral 226 coming out shortly with a different specification which is going to be along these lines.
Pedal Organ (6 Speaking Stops)
Sub Bass 16
Octave 8
Bass Flute 8
Choral Bass 4
Mixture (19.22.26.29) IV
Bassoon 16
Mono Bass -
Great Organ (10 Speaking Stops)
Open Diapason 8
Hohl Flute 8
Dulciana 8
Octave 4
Harmonic Flute 4
Twelfth 2-2/3
Fifteenth 2
Cornet (12.15.17) III
Mixture (19.22.26.29) IV
Trumpet 8
Tremulant -
Swell Organ (10 Speaking Stops)
Bourdon 16
Stopped Diapason 8
Gamba 8
Voix Célestes (II rks) 8
Flute 4
Nazard 2-2/3
Piccolo 2
Sesquialtera (17.19.22) III
Contra Oboe 16
Cornopean 8
Tremulant -
Couplers
Swell to Great
Swell to Pedal
Great to Pedal
Great and Pedal Pistons Combined
This will be a lovely instrument where a church has absolutely nowhere to install an external speaker system.
No one has mentioned Eminent yet on this thread - what are peoples views?There is one in Southampton - it is truly awful (in my opinion) with a cheap and very nasty console.
UGH!
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I'm assuming that you (bombarde32) and I have met fairly recently ?
It is entirely possible!
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You may like it, you may hate it, but no-one can deny that it has spurned a lot of small boys into the world of church music, whether they care to admit it, or not!
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I did a lot of research, including visits to hear recent installations, before recommending my church (St. Mary's, Charlton Kings) to commission a custom built instrument from Wyvern Organs. Having approached Wyvern early on, Phoenix would not counter-quote as they have an agreement not to bid against each other (Wyvern are effectively selling the Phoenix system under license.)
Neil, you are indeed correct - Wyvern do use the Phoenix 'system' and the organ's SYSTEM is generally installed by one and the same person! However, that is where Wyvern and Phoenix part company!
Wyvern's consoles and cabinet-work are manufactured by a well-known pipe organ console builder in England, in a facility owned by Wyvern.
The Wyvern Phoenix organs are custom built from the ground up. Sometimes a good quality second-hand console is used which can save a good amount.
The whole organ is manufactured in England from instigation/design to final voicing, by a small but very knowledgeable team of British people. The samples used are not available to any other builder and are all obtained from fine identifiable British instruments. All samples are taken by the in house technicians/musicians and are not pinched/borrowed or obtained in any other way.
No other company can offer this unique level of 'Bristishness' if that is what matters to you, and the resulting sound which a 'toaster' can make.
It does make a huge difference to the final result!
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I'm intrigued by bombarde32's statement of "over 640Mb of generating power". Assuming that MB means megabytes, all that is is storage. i.e. how much space is used by samples. No power or generation involved.
Each stop (which will contain a maximum of 61 samples - or 32 for the pedal) is stored on a tone-card. Each tone-card is capable of holding 64MB of samples. Most of the current organs contain at least 10 tone cards, thus equating to 640MB of samples available. The generation is unique to each note of each stop, which is why only ten stops are available on each card. It is possible to get more samples upon a pedal card as you very rarely play more than six notes at once!!!!
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Wyvern and Phonenix use the same technology, although the samples are different. The phoenix system is totally different to ALL the other manufacturers which are just sampled instruments, despite various manufacturers' claims.
Without getting too technical, the Phoenix system has a different 'clock speed' for every note. All other electronic organs are synchronised to a single clock in the computer which is why when stops are added together, on these instruements, they do not seem to add like pipes. It really doesn't matter how much sampling 'power' you have, if the inital generating system is all synchronised to the one 'clock'.
Each note on each stop in a Phoenix system organ is genererated in completely free space, with a completely independent computer, not synchronised or dependant upon any other note or stop. Even on a moderately sized three manual, you will find over 640MB of generating power. This, together with a PROPERLY designed audio system of several hundred watts (often thousands) is what makes the difference!
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Before I'm pursued on a libel charge, I meant of course Barry Rose rather than John Rutter. I obviously don't know my R's from my *****.
JS
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Did I screw up? Well, I suppose you could call it that.
Playing for funeral today I accidentally knocked hymn book off bench onto pedalboard. Carried on playing hymn (well you just can't stop, can you?!) but pedal notes in middle all to cock!
It's not easy pedalling a hymn-book!
BAH!
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I was very sorry to hear of the death of Bill.
I first met him as a fresh-faced young teenager when he came to Southampton Guildhall. He was one of the VERY FEW organists which REALLY knew their way around it.
His performance of the Littolf was a legend!
May he rest in peace.
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I have just noticed there is a recital at the RAH to be given by Oliver Latry on Friday 29th June which looks very interesting.
I've just had the flyer through for this. Programme as follows:
Bach: Sinfonia fr. Cantata 29 (trans. M Dupré)
Widor: March of the Night Watchman
Berlioz: Hangarian March (Trans. Büsser)
Alkan: Prière
Franck: Choral No. 3 in A Minor
Guilmant: Final fr. Sonata No. 1
Dupré: Choral on 'In dulci jubilo'.
Rachmaninov: Prelude (not sure which one - prob. the ubiquitous c# Minor) Trans. Vierne
Vierne: Final fr. Symphonie No. 3
Latry: "Improvisation".
Looks interesting - what do you think?
Octave / Sub Octave Couplers
in Nuts and bolts
Posted
I remember playing an organ in East Sussex which had the following rather strange specification, which, admittedly, on paper looks absolutely ghastly. In the reverberant church it sounded fantastic. The Viol on the Swell would do duty as a small reed in volume and tonality. Without the octave and suboctave couplers, this organ would have been a lot less effective. I remember it sounding far bigger than it ever had any right to do!
GREAT ORGAN
Open Diapason 8 (BIG)
Clarabella 8
Dulciana 8
Octave Coupler
S-Gt
SWELL ORGAN
Leiblich Gedackt 8
Viol d'Orchestre 8
Concert Flute 4
Sub Octave
Octave
PEDAL ORGAN
Leiblich Bourdon 16
G-P
S-P