ajsphead
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Posts posted by ajsphead
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The topic touches on the age old question, rarely answered with reliability of whether the instrument or the composition came first. The organ has been repeatedly redesigned to play the repertoire, such as it is chosen to be by preference of the customer with a nod to different schools.
My somewhat radical suggestion to create the modern organ of the future is to make this role secondary, as in truth it is an unobtainable position in absolute. The inability to 'authentically' play the repertoire is the norm and the modern English organ seems to aim to do it with its genesis in eclecticism. I would rather accept it as the norm, and make the primary design of the instrument to be that of best fit with the building in which it resides. With a correctly tutored ear all things past become possible, and new things in the future become equally possible. This is indeed difficult as it requires a breadth of hearing and testing that many in the trade do not have, an end to 'house' styles to some degree, and a problem of educating customers who simply don't function at the same high level, nor would they need to, but have closed minds to many things.
We all have to earn a living mi'lud.
AJS
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So are we asking what is an English style? In truth, I think history suggests it can be a little bit of almost anything, and in a way, I think amalgamation is the English style. What I now think we are faced with, is trying to create a consistent style out of the amalgamation, when we haven't really done it before, in order to say 'This is the modern English organ'. Having heard numerous recent new British organs, unless built in a strict historical style, they all sound rather too similar, which does indeed support the argument of what is trying to be done. The end result is cogent with the philosophy.
I don't believe the philosophy is necessarily sound however, and furthermore, don't know where it is going. Are we really going to be building identical organs in 100 years time to those we build now? If so we would be going back to rate of development not seen since the 16th Century. Some might argue that this is a good thing. I would like to see a proper contextualised discourse supporting this before I believed it.
A previous poster pointed the right direction by suggesting that the organ must be right for the building. This to me is way forward, that would mark out a true English (note why not British) organ style. It would be far truer to the roots of amalgamation, with an anglicised (sorry) twist. This would mean that we could take a far more mature view of the 17th C, 18th C, early mid and late 19th C, Hope Jones et al, neo classique, more so than neo baroque as other than GDB/R and a few other small snippets we didn't really do neo baroque, styles rather than pigeon holing them. There is a time and place for everything, and every building is different. Moreover, every customer is different, and the majority want what they want, and are not that quick to take education and advice beyond their own sphere of thinking. It's rather like asking Constable to paint in the style of Turner, because I like Turner's work, but I want Constable to do the job. However what is right for the space is a miniature by Sir Peter Lely.
AJS
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I might be wrong about this, but I believe that, in its current state, the organ at Christ Church with St Ewen, Bristol is essentially a Vowles instrument, even though Walkers have subsequently attended to it on several occasions. It's a lovely instrument. Mind you, there's a lot of Renatus Harris and Swarbrick pipework in there. (The NPOR record is Christ Church with St George, but no one calls it that AFAIK.)
Indeed it is, and is none the less for it. It works wonderfully in what is quite a small building. There is a difference in quality between that and what we are being presented with here for sale. There are a lot of small mass produced late Victorian instruments that were created for a market and a budget, and then there are the bespoke instruments. This is not to decry small 'chapel' instruments. One of the nicest Open Diapasons I have heard is in a small Welsh Baptist chapel by Hardy of Stockport from about 1896 I think. Horrid ugly tickside out pipework with a few dents and looking to be cut up a bit too much for the pressure, but what a wonderfully strong resonant clear sound. Books and covers and all that. Organ couldn't have been anything else but cheap though, but a Waterstone's 2 for £5 offer can still yield something worth reading.
AJS
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How naive!
Remember the old saying, "You can negotiate with a terrorist, but not with an organist."
I think that the last time I read the BCP or a Roman Missal, it was probably because I'd left the newspaper at home and couldn't do the crossword.
MM
PS: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. (You see, I do know the words!
)Yes, but the peace appears in neither the BCP nor the Missal. (I was also making a small historical snipe at the leanings of King James II, and the circumstances by which William of Orange was 'invited' to invade.)
Peace is therefore, in religious terms, a modern thing to share; wouldn't do in the 17th century. You can make peace with an organist. Get him drunk and offer him a new Cor d'amour.
AJS
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How would they have negotiated the peace?
MM
By reverting to the book of common prayer and thus avoiding the problem. Indeed reverting to the Roman Missal would have achieved the same.
AJS
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Cost of restoration against real value to a client makes this one doubtful to me. It is compact, but 1896 Vowles 'Welsh chapel model' is not inspiring.
If it was intact and playing then possibly, as it stands, it's not saying much that's positive.
AJS
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Thank you for your kind words. I try to pride myself in my ability to listen, and furthermore listen without preconceptions. To hear what is there, and not what you think is there takes a tutored ear and mind, and I hope I may have reached secondary school in that respect.
By the by, I often ponder the thought that the last true foreign 'invasion' of this country was by the Dutch, albeit by invitation.
AJS
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Oliphant is still my favourite, although it just needs to be in Bridlington rather than London.
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I was once rocked back on my heels when a recitalist programmed some English music by Frank Bridge at the Bavokerk.
Would dearly love to hear some Spanish music by Franco Puente, or indeed some native Welsh music by Frank (Agored) Pontydd. (Sorry).
This would bridge a gap in my experience. (Sorry again it's just one of those mornings.)
AJS
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All of this ends up saying the following to me.
Listen to how the music breathes with manual stop changes. I begin to wonder more now that we play like computers because our instruments are operated by them and we are more sensitive than they are.
See the importance of having balancing terraced dynamics not requiring manual couplers, and having colour at all pitches.
Be nice to your registrant. They can make you look a fool, but you can't as easily do the same to them.
With a couple of more romantically inspired stops, the BavoKerk organ is still as close to perfect in sound for most repertoire. Yes, with registrants you could play Howells convincingly on it. There are of course others to which the same applies, but here is colour, power without oppression, density, and brilliance all in one.
I've always thought the Dutch were closest to perfection in this respect. It's not often that's uttered in one breath.
AJS
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There's another Sonata for Organ by Michael Berkley; eldest son of Sir Lennox Berkley.
If it was the piece recorded by Arnold Mahon back in the early 1980's at St.Bart's, Armley, I found it quite an impressive work. If it wasn't that, then I haven't a clue what I am talking about.
Does anyone know it?
Anyone heard it?
MM
I know it, and have the music. I first heard it played by Simon Lindley somewhere in Leeds in the early 80's. It needs to come out and be played a lot more.
AJS
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Well, you can if they turn out not to be budget-priced in the long run. Not that this applies to Compton, of course, whose instruments seem to have lasted rather well, on the whole.
Paul
This is part of the point. Compton organs were not cheap, and with good reason if you look at the amount of labour required to manufacture them with the materials and techniques available at the time. Ladder switches and then solid state negated a lot of this, and in many cases, things were done cheaply because they could be. The original ethos of a different technique produced to a high standard was lost. What we lack now is anyone who can run to the same high standards using that technique. The cost saving over a standard disposition instrument of the same size is self evident, and this is where the strength could now lie. Even though Comptons manufactured a budget range, I really think we should not lump the major works of the firm in with that of the budget unit organs that followed post war, although some of them by Walkers, Manders etc were perfectly good musical instruments.
I can think of a quote from Michael Gillingham from about 25 years ago saying something to the effect that Compton extension organs were a curiosity, and that we can do so much better by producing small independent rank instruments instead. This is a very traditional point of view, and very easy to support from a traditionalist standpoint. To a greater extent the organbuilder's side can agree with this - of course the organist wants as many stops for his money as he can and extension is a way he can have it. On the other hand, the church musician and businessman looks at a missed opportunity, and a chance to do better for a client. Witness the thread on Nottingham, supported by Tony's view above. We can face the challenges of the competition, and the reasoning behind the choices made, but trotting out the same mantra with the same product is not always a solution. You can have high quality extension organs that last, and do their job admirably. We have enough Comptons still around to prove it.
AJS
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As time goes on, I find I have more and more respect for the Compton firm's work. There was real innovation and a way of breaking the mould, which I'm not sure has really been seen since in this country. We should remember that it was common on Compton adverts for them to say words to the effect that, if you want something cheap then look elsewhere, and I think that the philosophy of manufacture underpinning this was lost by the production of cheap extension organs, mainly facilitated by the massive reduction in costs of the development of electrical components and the labour required to put them together.
The cheap alternative tarnished the original brand. Now however, with modern developments we could marry the quality with the price control and achieve the best of both worlds.
AJS
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The Willan certainly has to be up there, but there are so many pieces that just don't get the airing they deserve. Particular favourites of mine are the Fantasie Op 136 by York-Bowen, Vars on a theme of de Machaut by Christopher Steel, FJ's Sonata No.3, Introduction and Allegro by Arthur Wills which is not quintessentially English, but is jolly good fun, and Mosaici di Ravenna by Francis Pott. For me the Bairstow Sonata is nearly up there with the Willan, Heathcote Statham's Rhapsody on a Ground ought to be more widely known, and I do like the Howells 2nd Sonata; despite the inevitable ramblings it contains some moments of real passion and beauty. Pick any 5 of those 9 and put them on a programme and I'd be first in the queue. It's just a shame that we didn't get any substantial output from Britten, Tippett, and RVW.
AJS
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Organising the church
Footsie on a Sunday morning - tales from below the bench.
Diapasons and Diaphones.Controlling the church foghorn.
Leading song with electricity and wind. A talk of artists rarely known.
The unsung hero who leads the singing
Often out of sight, but never out of earshot.
It all depends on your target audience.
AJS
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Hi
If you're going to use NPOR info, perhaps you'd at least credit the source. Thanks.
Every Blessing
Tony
Hi Tony
It started from NPOR but it's modified sufficiently so as to make the original unrecognisable, although I'm please to think that what I altered looks so convincing in context. To quote that original therefore would have been misleading. Otherwise, I accept your point.
AJS
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How would this do.
I'm guessing at 23 ranks, and I have abridged the original to tidy it up a bit and remove some duplication at the octave on the same division. Some of you may recognise it, but it no longer exists. Remember there are no octave or sub octave couplers on the original, and don't judge a Compton Mixture by normal standards and consider it completely enclosed, so you can have the whole thing roaring away inside a closed Swell box. There are clearly bits and bobs you could do to improve it, but I don't reckon this is a bad starting point
Pedal Key action Stop action Compass-low C Compass-high g1 Keys 32
1 Sub Bass 32
2 Open Diapason 16
3 Principal 16
4 Bourdon 16
5 Salicional 16
6 Octave 8
7 Flute 8
8 Salicional 8
9 Octave Flute 4
10 Fourniture IV 12.15.19.22
11 Harmonics IV 5.8.10.14
12 Posaune 16
13 Trombone 16
14 Posaune 8
Choir Key action Stop action Compass-low C Compass-high c4 Keys 61
15 Contra Dulciana 16
16 Bourdon 16
17 Principal 8
18 Stopped Diapason 8
19 Hohl Flute 8
20 Salicional 8
21 Vox Angelica 8
22 Octave 4
23 Flute 4
24 Dulcet 4
25 Vox Angelica 4
26 Twelfth 2 2/3
27 Fifteenth 2
28 Flautina 2
29 Tierce 1 3/5
30 Acuta III 15.19.22
31 Double Clarinet 16
32 Clarinet 8
Sustainer
Tremulant
Great Key action Stop action Compass-low C Compass-high c4 Keys 61
33 Principal 16
34 Double Salicional 16
35 First Diapason 8
36 Second Diapason 8
37 Flauto Traverso 8
38 Dulciana 8
39 Quint 5 1/3
40 Principal 4
41 Stopped Flute 4
42 Salicet 4
43 Twelfth 2 2/3
44 Super Octave 2
45 Fifteenth 2
46 Furniture II-IV 19.22
47 Cymbale IV-VII
48 Posaune 8
49 Octave Posaune 4
Swell Key action Stop action Compass-low C Compass-high c4 Keys 61
50 Bourdon 16
51 Diapason 8
52 Gedeckt 8
53 Viola da Gamba 8
54 Voix Celeste 8
55 Stopped Flute 4
56 Viola 4
57 Flageolet 2
58 Mixture III 15.19.22
59 Trombone 16
60 Trumpet 8
61 Hautboy 8
62 Clarion 4
Sustainer
Tremulant
Bombarde Key action Stop action Compass-low C Compass-high c4 Keys 61
63 Diapason 8
64 Plein Jeu VI-VIII 5.8.12.15.19.22
65 Contra Posaune 16
66 Tromba 8
67 Posaune 8
68 Clarion 4
AJS
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I cannot help but think that the biggest problem at the outset with this organ-project, is having an historically important organ-case, which no-one in their right minds would think of sawing-up and dumping in a skip.
The next problem is the nature of the choral tradition, which probably requires a fairly flexible and substantial body of accompanimental sound.
The third problem is how to achieve the latter without having bits of pipe-organ scattered around the church or built into a pit as at Wakefield Cathedral, for example.
It's not an easy one this, and a combination organ would certainly overcome the problems and go some way towards fulfilling the required musical aims.
My next thought is that a Compton extension organ would probably achieve much the same thing using real pipes, but maybe everyone has forgotten how to do it successfully these days.
I used to play an extension-organ by Nicholson in the Hull area, and most things could be achieved with it quite musically, even though it had certain limitations and could never be described as a recital instrument.
I would personally much prefer pipes, but in this instance, I have a certain empathy with the problems and the chosen solution.
MM
I'm glad the notion of extension organs is on the mind of others. Unfortunately, along with electronics, they are still rather a dirty word in some quarters, and after some experiences, with good reason. I actually think that they are now deemed second best to electronics, and not a real consideration. I do genuinely wonder if we have collectively missed the boat, and that properly designed and constructed extension organs are a new way forward - note that I am being very specific here to weed out ill thought through rubbish, but I would ask a simple question to organists and pipe organ builders alike. What would you rather have seeing as X is preventing you from having a traditionally constructed pipe organ. An electronic instrument, maybe III and 50 or an extension organ with maybe 20 ranks so that we learn from some of the failings of the past with about the same disposition. You get colour, power, space saving and cost saving, and it's still a proper pipe organ. As a footnote, when are we going to start building polyphone and cube 32' basses instead of just resorting to electronics every time we can't fit in or afford a full complete pipe 32'. I honestly think it's time for a wake up call. By not exploring this possibility, our organ builders are missing out on work, I suspect because they don't want reputations to be tarnished by building that sort of thing. It's not difficult to study the organs of Compton and Christie to work out a way to do it. It's not to say that's the only way to do it, but then, that's where we can take the art form forward.
AJS
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We recently did something very similar, inviting the 3 candidates to take a choir practice containing the music normally sung in service. This is what the post holder will do more often, leaving those of us who play the organ to do so, accepting that we may do this to a higher level, but that's what we're here for. What most matters for the post holder is to do what's necessary, well. Don't appoint a fantastic recital organist who can't accompany a basic morning mass with hymns. Likewise if most of their work will be spent with a choir training them, then veer in that direction, so long as they can manage service accompaniment adequately. Basically the first step is to decide exactly what you need, then test and appoint accordingly.
AJS
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I've just discovered this:-
For once, I am speechless.
MM
Oh yes. I must hear more of this. All the drama that others tried to achieve but done with grace, swagger and panache, and absolutely no prattishness at all.
AJS
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The 32ft pipes at Leeds TH have always been heavily painted, and at the last re-build, the colour was taken back to what it was originally.
Cast iron sounds terribly difficult to work, but apparently it is easier to work than sheet steel if it soft enough and ductile enough. I wonder if they copied Mr Hill's machine?
RAH......I should have recalled that fact about the 32ft front. It's just that they look dull, and could easily be plain-metal if we didn't know better.
Is that still the only one?
MM
I know it doesn't go all the way down, but St Giles Edinburgh is another candidate, and the only one I can think of in strictly ecclesiastical setting. From recollection the tin looking 32' front at Liverpool Met is made from zinc sprayed and lacquered to look like tin to match the 8' tin basses.
I think we were overcome by the cheapness of zinc. It couldn't have been from the ease of working, or in some cases the delightfully zincky sound.
AJS
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(Sorry for snipping!)
A very interesting question. I've a feeling that we'd be very lucky to find a 32' pipe in tin: it would cost a bomb. Pipe metal, perhaps?
Another question. Were the Leeds cast iron pipes treated (galvanised? could they do that in the mid-19th century?) to prevent rust, or just painted?
We do have a 32' tin front.
The RAH.
AJS
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To the best of my knowledge the 32' Open Diapason pipes were made in 1829 (some of the oldest pipes in the organ). I'm no engineer, but perhaps in those days it was not possible to produce plate metal above a certain size. Incidentally, does anyone know what metal these pipes are made of?
I have a copy of the CD you refer to, and agree that the Tuba Mirabilis is most definitely toned down for the reasons you mention. Strangely, though, the new Bombarde - which faces East - seems much more prominent on the CD. Personally, whilst the resulting sounds are interesting in comparison, I much prefer the 'conventional' microphone positions: after all, the organ was presumably voiced to sound best to the East and West, rather than up the central tower!
This is not an instrument that I know intimately, so am willing to be corrected but I think it very surprising to find a metal 32' stop from 1829. If it is, it can only be made from a lead tin alloy of whatever proportions. I think it's far more likely to be from Hill 1862 whereupon it will be most likely Zinc, and a fairly early example of it's use in this context. The earliness of the date would also point towards the size of sheet available and the method of construction.
AJS
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Maybe... Hans-Ola Ericsson (project leader) is one of the foremost players in new music and not bad in older one, and he is in close touch with specialists for any repertoire. He is a gifted composer, and with parts of this organ, he thinks of music not written yet, that may never be written down maybe, as it is just improvised.
Do not think in normal keyboard and piano/organ terms, when regarding the gimmicks of that organ (which undoubtedly will be more or at least not less than any other "continental recital room organ", as already the recital room itself has a movable roof and can change its reverb time from very short to several seconds, and Gerald Woehl is quite a special guy, but he knows how to make organs).
Think of real-time controllers like you know them from the synthesizer scene: Ribbon controllers, horseshoe swell pedals (thos we know, of course), pitch benders, touchpads and so on.
Why is that Swedish organ with pipes, and the mutation section not digital? They wanted an aerophone, at least they wanted definately acoustic sound generation (There are Bells etc. somewhere, I think).
The Swedish are not like [....... ] (maybe better not to name a nation!!). They would not spend lots of money for nonsense. One may say, they are more into electronics than other people, like compouters, mobiles, talking elevators and so on, and this may be felt at this project.
But even if they have to shut down the mutations division because it does not work or make sense, a very interesting concert organ shuld remain.
P
If the Pitea Organ fails, it will be an important input to people like me... But first we should welcome the fact, that there are places, where innovation to our instrument at least SEEMS to be possible. Let's watch!
Karl-Bernhardin Kropf
Most of this, in principle I do understand. What I'm struggling with is how all these differing pitches can be integrated into music in a manageable way. We must be looking more forward than back with this, as other than specific examples from specific periods with specific people at the helm of a project, it is an unorthodox and uncommon route to follow. Are we going along the Guillou type route here of use your ears not your conventions ? If so I understand that, but with such an array of aliquots again I'm struggling to see how it can be used broadly and manageably, and how, other than with the titulaire or his close associates presiding, will a recitalist have the time and inclination to explore all this. in standard repertoire I suspect not, but agree that one has to consider a different type of repertoire to understand the inclusion of these things. I would be very interested to hear how it works in practise, but my concern otherwise is with the generalisability of anything spawned from it. To be truly forward looking, I think this is a necessary requisite.
Re the touch screens, I'm yet to be convinced of their clarity and reliability of response to the user. I'm not sure that they will promote anything other than inveterate button pushing, which also is the only way at the moment that I can see all the aliquots being brought into music.
I would like to have access to any papers written by the progenitors of the scheme to understand further.
AJS
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A british style of organ deisgn/building/eveloution
in General discussion
Posted
My point absolutely.
AJS