nachthorn

All SACD discs should contain a second physical layer with standard CD audio data, and this layer should play in standard CD players. There is no computer optical drive that can read the SACD layer (but they should all read the CD layer). I have an SACD player but rarely use it for that purpose due to the relative paucity of true SACD disc releases. Quite a number actually turn out to be remastered CD recordings, sometimes with surround channel content, but rarely at a quality greater than that of a CD. IMHO it's not worth it for SACD alone, but is useful to have if it comes as part of a good quality system you were going to buy anyway! Whether SACD and its rival, DVD-A, gain a critical market mass, only time will tell...

Sound Forge is OK for certain tasks, but makes editing difficult because it only allows 'destructive editing' where the post-edit audio replaces the pre-edit audio and the edit cannot be adjusted. You really need software that allows 'non-destructive editing'. I have used a variety of such packages including Steinberg Wavelab, Magix Samplitude, and Pro Tools, but these would be total overkill in your case. I would actually recommend Sony's Vegas software, because even though it is primarily for video work, it allows fairly intuitive non-destructive audio editing and handles the burning of a Red book CD at the end. I've heard some positive comments about Audacity, but haven't tried it myself. A note about MiniDisc - the quality isn't quite 'CD-quality' as the audio is compressed (a little like an MP3) to fit it onto the disc, but it's fine for your purposes. Quite often Sony don't include a digital output, but an analogue connection to your PC isn't going to noticeably affect the end quality. Your PC soundcard converts it back to digital again, hence why you see it as being handled digitally by the PC. The choice of microphone is the most important decision, and you could do far worse than the small Sony stereo microphone available as an accessory to MD recorders for about £90-100. Hope this helps!

Second this. The inlays are identical in content to the Signum set, so you're not missing out on anything by going for the Brilliant.

And a Happy New Year to all from me.

No. The console on this instrument is accessed by means of a passageway from the rear, emerging through a little door in the casefront. The Trombone is located next to the passage just inside the door, but the pedal fluework is buried at the back of the organ. To stand a chance of hearing the fluework in balance, the door needs to be open, thus leading to Trombone-induced deafness when drawn. IMHO the Tuba was no different than a thousand others in similar instruments, and had no particular Hele-like characteristics (beyond its general bland dullness ), even supposing that it was Hele pipework. The instrument was originally Heard of Truro, and the most recent rebuild by Lance Foy was paid for privately by Retallack, the last of the long-serving organists.

The problem with St. Mary's is not just that it's staggeringly loud, but also that the balance is problematic - the Swell Clarion is as loud as the Tromba, for instance. The choir is in a gallery next to the console on the south side of the organ (itself on a west end gallery) and accompaniment is a very tricky business, given the proximity of the organ and the distance from singers to congregation. I can't verify it, but I was organist there for a year 2004-5, and was given to understand that this had been the case. I must admit that I found the instrument very frustrating. The (fairly recent - 1990s?) electric part of the EP action was very uneven and unreliable, as was the winding, and some of the voicing (particularly the muddy Swell and totally unblending Choir upperwork/Nazard) was fairly unmusical. The instrument needs a thorough overhaul and work to take the voicing back to the original standards. Can't comment on the Trombone as it was far too loud with the little door to the console open, but with the door closed, you can't hear the pedal fluework! St. John's is a beautiful building, but the Low Church ethos has led to carpet, padded chairs, worship songs etc. which has killed off a good part of a very promising acoustic.

I knew one choir that was definitely run by a Chairman of the Bored...

Has anyone heard David Briggs' Organ Concerto, recorded in 2005 at Blackburn? Powerful stuff imho, with more than a hint of Poulenc and his contemporaries in places.

The success of HTH is wonderful, but I'm guessing that this is as a result of fruitful collaboration between clergy, churchwardens, PCC, congregation, sources of funding and the musicians. Take away the support of one or two of these elements, as in plenty of other places, and the whole edifice begins to look very shaky indeed. While at university, I was assistant at a large suburban parish church with a youthful mixed choir largely 'grown' by the D of M, having inherited the seeds from his predecessor. The standard was surprisingly good, especially given the relative lack of experience in the back rows, and the repertoire was wide-ranging and challenging - Palestrina, Bach, Purcell, Walton, Murrill, Britten etc. When the D of M left (shortly followed by me for other reasons) it took precisely five months for this whole music set-up to evaporate, replaced by worship songs and the sort of sheer amateurism you find in so many churches. There was no school support directly, but there was a primary school close by which allowed recruitment. Stewart's comment about 'grumpy old men' is probably not far off the mark, but I think that in very many churches, it DOES have to be that bad, because overturning the attitudes and mindsets of those in the churches and those in the schools is impossible at times. The linked BBC article demonstrates the tide we're swimming against. At Holy Trinity Hereford, as in the example I gave, the success or failure of a children's singing enterprise is obviously determined by the person running it - there is no institutional success or failure, which means that success in one church has zero effect on a parish ten miles away, and we simply don't have enough good musicians in churches to challenge current musical attitudes. We do need some positive role models for church singing, and as the RSCM seems to regard all church music as equal right now, we need to look elsewhere for this. Something is needed to capture the attention of school teaching staff and convey the information that singing is good for children (and adults!) and - crucially - that a parish church choir is in many respects the perfect place to do it. This has always been my experience too. Give them responsibility, and they will act responsibly. It's amazing how many parents and teachers like to suggest that this is tantamount to stealing their childhood though...

Indeed. How did you guess?

Of course, it doesn't help when certain diocesan musical advisors seem to regard 1960's/70's folk-pop as the cutting edge choice for today's relevant parish. Do they REALLY think that it's going to get teenagers into church? Really? I think the problem is, put simply, twofold: 1) Church, school and community music officials wish to use music which is 'relevant'. This invariably involves the pop music of their youth, decades before. As part of this attempt to be cool, they will often tell children that 'classical music is dull and boring'. I've heard them say it time and again. (I, as a person in his twenties, love to receive lectures on 'the kind of music young people want to hear' by people approaching retirement.) 2) Children don't get to hear 'classical' and choral music - this is, generally speaking, most children - don't know what they're missing. The solution must be to let children hear this wonderful music, weaving through the obstacles that the officials put in the way, but I suspect most of us are trying our hardest to do this already. I've always regarded Christmas as the closest that the choral tradition gets to taking part in popular culture today, but when those in positions of authority try to deny even these chances, what can we do? I might say that I don't care, and observe Advent and Christmas with anticipation and joy, playing the music to myself, listening to broadcasts, and attending the church I used to play at. But I do care, and it sometimes keeps me awake at night. I developed a deep love of church music through school and university, and it disturbs me that others should be denied this life-enriching experience.

I have a CD of Chřibková playing this instrument, called 'Prague St. James's Basilica - its organs and composing organists' which includes works by Cernohorsky, Zach, Serger, Wiedermann, Ropek and Eben. I like the sound of the instrument very much, and the repertoire is pleasant enough, if not particularly eventful. It's on the Multisonic label, released in 1996.

My wife now directs the choir of the main prep school in this musically desolate city, as well as being their singing tutor. She found that all of their music was of the Spinners/Seekers variety, largely because it was the only musical style that their head of music knew. For the first time, she took the choir to the schools carol event in the city's parish church and taught them Rutter's Candlelight Carol for the occasion (as a bridge to better things). She was horrified to find that every other school choir shouted their song over the top of a CD backing track, each song being of the Jonah-man Jazz ('self-consciously up-tempo') variety, and virtually none of these songs had the least Christian content, let alone any musical worth. To add insult to injury, none of the teachers knew how to behave in church or how to direct a choir, and the final straw was the breathtaking speed at which the church's resident organist played the two 'traditional' carols, rendering them unsingable. (Don't mention the girl from another school who turned to one of my wife's choristers and asked 'Who's Jesus?') Worse than this was the CD playing in my local Tesco last night, consisting of an American children's singing group bashing their way through Frosty the Snowman (or something similar). After five minutes of queueing at the till, I realised with horror that the recording had been carefully edited to loop the song repeatedly without a break in the accompaniment. By the time I left the place, I was willing to commit murder. That sort of music is dangerous in the wrong hands. I went to the cathedral Advent Procession this year, hoping for inspiring liturgy and music. They have boys' and girls' choirs, and decided to station them East and West respectively, dividing the back row between them. The girls sounded insecure (and I normally have no problem with girls singing, I assure you) and the two halves of the gents also sounded less than confident. The boys were out of sight somewhere and suffered with the distance. Halfway through, they briefly joined in the nave stalls, but then processed off with the clergy to the Quire, so that, for the rest of the service, all we heard was distant muffled singing and disembodied voices through the PA system. Awful. Whose idea was that? This will be the second Christmas since starting school that I will not be involved in church music, due purely to the requirement for me to work shifts and weekends. I know that every Sunday is important, but the major festivals make me miss it more than ever. I have had to deal with some awful people and some very stressful situations when doing the job, but I hope every day for a chance to do it again under better circumstances. I'm even considering a change of career in the future to make this possible, although I must be mad. It really frustrates me that people will queue up to attend a Nine Lessons or similar, and that children, given the opportunity, love good music regardless of provenance, and yet all that SOME clergy, churchwardens, head teachers and other officials will allow is weak imitation pop and folk stylings on the grounds that 'it's what they want'. Important festivals, whether from a Christian or a purely musical point of view, need better music than this.

Don't know the piece, so can't help directly, but Christopher Herrick recorded it on 'Organ Fireworks' from Westminster Abbey on Hyperion, which must give a few clues. Send me a PM if you can't get hold of the recording.

I think you're right. In that case, I change my statement: "no-one seems to tolerate mediocrity less than I when listening to Bach." I agree that the instrumental music is fairly resilient, but a half-assed choral society performance of the great choral works is the very definition of frustration. I would tentatively agree with some of the points about Franck, but then I heard a recording of the A major Fantaisie by Jennifer Bate from Beauvais which, while not totally inspiring, did something for me. Still need a lot of convincing. The B minor Choral and the Pièce Héroïque, on the other hand, are definitely worthwhile.

Apparently, so a very good source has it, that sofa used to belong to a certain Roy Massey years ago... Oh, and has anyone checked the loft at St. John's Cambridge for the missing article? It was there in May but gone by September

And we wonder why the organ isn't a popular musical instrument

What about Bach? Yes, I know he is the Untouchable of untouchables, but I have two major dislikes: (a) Any of the 'free' organ works played on a certain brand of period North European organ which turn good music into a full-blown assault on the patience, mostly due to a pleno resembling the audible equivalent of rusty sheet steel with sharp edges. (b ) Any of the cantatas or other choral works sung by mediocre amateurs, especially using organ arrangements of the orchestral parts. Utterly, utterly frustrating. The waste of good music drips from every tedious bar. Nothing seems to tolerate mediocrity less than Bach. Also a great deal of early English organ music (Stanley, Travers, Walond, Samuel Wesley and the rest). The sheer lack of invention is staggering at times, and why is there such interest on playing it on period instruments that have all the voicing subtlety of fairground organs? Compared to what the French and Germans were doing at the same time, it's a national embarrassment. I also agree with the comments about Widor and the Dupré Symphonie-Passion. Should be great works but they seem somehow to be missing something.

Sorry - been away all week. A CD-RW works on a similar principle to a CD-R, in that a laser 'burns' parts of a surface to simulate pressed holes on a CD. The only difference is that a different type of dye layer is used, so that areas already 'burned' can be 'unburned' (i.e. made transparent, allowing the reflective layer to reflect once more) by setting the laser to a different power setting. Once again this dye layer reduces the strength of the reflected light, leading to playback problems with some (usually older) players.

The big difference between the two is how the data is physically stored. On a pressed ('traditional') CD, tiny holes are pressed into the reflective layer, so a hole represents a digital '0' bit, and the absence of a hole represents a digital '1' bit. When the reading laser passes over the disc (in one long spiral line, like an LP) the holes don't reflect the light back, but the areas where there is no hole DO reflect the light, so the pattern of reflections and non-reflections are used to construct a stream of data, i.e. zeros and ones. On a CD-R, in front of the reflective layer, there is a layer of coloured dye. The writing laser 'burns' this dye where a digital '0' is required, and leaves it untouched where a digital '1' is needed. The end result looks the same to the reading laser, i.e. the burned area on a CD-R looks the same as a hole on a pressed CD. The problem is that light reflected from a CD-R with the coloured dye layer is less strong than light reflected from a normal CD. Some players, particularly older players, have difficulty reading CD-Rs because of the lower level of light reflecting back off them. This effect will vary with the type of CD-R and the model of player used. Modern players should be able to cope with all types of CD-R, but as you say, not all do. If a player can't play various pressed CDs, either the CDs are faulty in some way, or more likely, the player drive needs cleaning (I'm assuming you've checked the surface for scratches.) (To explain the other formats I mentioned, you can only fit so many zeros and ones onto a standard CD. DVD and SACD discs allow 5-7 times the amount of data to be stored, and Blueray and HD-DVD allow another magnitude again. The larger the space is to store data, the more data can be stored, which can either be used to store more minutes of recording, more data to reproduce the recording at higher quality, or some combination of the two. Of course, as we know, this has so far not translated into many recordings using these benefits, as not many people own players capable of playing them. Herein lies one problem for the recording industry. The other is how to join up these new high quality standards with the demand for low quality downloadable tracks, as mentioned by Cynic at the start of this tangent.)

This is also what I understood. I believe that a Red Book standard audio CD contains identical data regardless of whether it is pressed onto CD-A or burned onto CD-R. The only difference is the method used to physically store the data concerned. Therefore (and with a tremendous screeching of tyres, Nachthorn attempts to steer the subject back on track) several of my standard pressed CDs, including the Jennifer Bate Messiaen cycle recorded at Beauvais by Unicorn-Kanchana and more than one Hyperion organ disc, are now unplayable due to 'bronzing' of the reflective layer, whereas the same audio burned to a decent brand of CD-R would probably be perfectly playable today. The big problem seems to be a divergence in consumer expectation versus industry marketing. While the mass market is demanding tracks available at relatively low quality downloadable to tiny portable playback devices, the industry is still fighting over the winning standard to provide surround sound at audio quality significantly better than CD-DA. DVD-A versus SACD is probably a lost cause, as Blueray versus HD-DVD is the next battle of the audio standards to be fought. So while a handful of 'classical music' audiophiles strive to make ever-better recordings in the latest formats using highly expensive equipment, the 'pop music' mass market clamours for tracks recorded in someone's garage studio, audio-compressed to the point of fatigue and data-compressed to fit on the latest phone/mp3 player/satnav device. I think that downloads are the future of music delivery, but how do you connect that with the higher quality reproduction associated with the latest super-size formats? Discuss.

A French archiving institution (I forget the name) did a survey on the durability of pressed CDs and the results were surprisingly variable. A lot of people know of 'bronzing' where the reflective layer oxidised as a result of faulty chemical composition, although this was a one-off fault, but there were others too. Most cheap consumer CD-Rs have a limited shelf life depending on method of storage. HHB, however, claim a life of over a hundred years for their Gold CD-Rs, so these would be the ideal for long-term archiving. That said, I use CD-R a lot and there shouldn't be any deleterious effect on the sound unless the writing process was faulty. I bought a disc from Priory once that used CD-R, but I queried it and Priory replaced it with a pressed CD with apologies, so I guess that it was a mistake rather than a policy in that case.

This implies that a 'download' is always inferior to a CD track or similar. Lossy format downloads (eg. MP3) are certainly inferior, and I can almost always detect an obvious difference*. If downloads came in a format identical to the original master (eg. Lossless WMA) then there is no difference in playback quality - indeed there could be an improvement as there would be no format restriction imposed by the CD player. In this case, the issue is purely whether you are prepared to pay 'extra' for the disc and inlay booklet. I for one believe that digital downloads are the future of recording, given a careful approach to quality and 'experience'. I hope to put this into practice myself in the next few years. (*I recently bought a choral disc of a good UK cathedral choir from a well-respected UK choral-specialising label. One particular track, of unaccompanied choral singing beginning pianissimo, has very obvious audible artifacts normally heard on compressed format tracks (like MP3) - a sort of background 'sparkly' noise and strange-sounding 'edges' to notes. It's possible that this track was inadvertently compressed or badly dithered during the editing/mastering stages. Just because it ends up as CD audio on a shiny disc, it doesn't guarantee a particular quality in any way.)

Yep As of 2pm on Friday, you won't need to worry any more, but the good residents of Bournemouth and surrounds will!

It's planes for me. But then I'm lucky - I get to watch them for a living!