Contrabombarde

Actually I reported earlier this year how I had managed to hack into the Worcester Cathedral ethernet and play the organ there remotely, and if you follow the thread you will read more about how it will soon be possible to experience the organ ot Salisbury Cathedral from the comfort of your PC (or Mac)... http://www.mander-organs.com/discussion/in...mp;hl=salisbury

Could that be a legacy tool to reboot the computer from when they first installed some fancy digital thingumy controls in the Notre Dame organ that proved to have a less than sterling track record in reliability?

I think you might be in for a long wait if the instrument was the result of the fertile imagination of none other than the late Stephen Bicknell. But I'd be more than happy to just have a carbon copy of our hosts' mechanical magnum opus at Ignatius Loyola (note to Mr Mander: did you keep the original blueprints for that organ, I'm still waiting for the two million pounds that I was promised a few weeks ago from the son of a former African president who emailed me requesting help with a bank transfer, but I'll let you know as soon as the money arrives then we can talk business....) I'd be fascinated to know what it would cost to realise Stephen Bicknell's fantasy, though I fear it might come to the wrong side of the recent £45 million lottery win. The original poster suggested that all of us would naturally consider donating a proportion of our new-found if hypothetical lottery riches to good causes. So might I be allowed to change the topic slightly and ask: if you won a few million pounds and could afford to donate to fully restore one organ in dire need of restoration, which one would it be? My starter for ten: Manchester Town Hall's Cavaille-Coll St George's Hall Liverpool Royal Festival Hall London St Peter's Leicester (the only surviving four manual Taylor?) Christchurch Spitalfields (does anyone have any idea when their organ will be replaced, it must have been in the workshop now for over ten years...) St Ouen Rouen (no I didn't say that it had to be in the UK...) Atlantic City hall on second thoughts, probably not. Further contributions to the list of the world's most expensive but deserving organ repairs welcome! Contrabombarde

For me a watershed came in 1984 with the publication of John Norman's beautifully illustrated "The organs of Britain". I don't know if it was ever updated, since a number of instruments featured have since undergone rebuilds, some very significant instruments have appeared and a few have sadly gone up in smoke. but for the first time I had a ready reference to the specification of many of the finest organs in the country, including many of our cathedrals' - a joy that was only surpassed when many years later I discovered the website of the national Pipe Organ Register. Worth seeking for its historical value despite its age.

A long time ago I heard someone mention that recordings had been made of piano concertos minus the piano part and I always thought to myself what fun they would be (though I don't know white how you'd time the sections where just the piano was to be played....but I've never seen them available anywhere so a link would be great. And I think frankly I'd prefer the experience of playing unwaged with an orchestra in rehearsal than to be paid to perform a concert with them, what an experience for a keen non-professional! I say to myself now and again that maybe when I grow older and greyer I'll like to try committing the orchestral part of a piano concerto to three staves, at least way I'd only need to find a pianist and I'd play the rest on the organ. At least it's easier to hire an organ than it is to hire an orchestra.

A truly fascinating account of an extraordinary Victorian-era attempt to make tracker action easier on the touch for large instruments in the pre-electric action organ. Having attempted to understand some of the diagrams in Audley's classic The Art of Organ Building I commend the ingeniuity of those who first designed these devices and it's fantastic that a contemporary firm is still prepared to recreate them. I wonder if anyone would beprepared to take on the challenge of building new a user-adjustable, mechanical or pneumatic, as opposed to electric, combination action? Audley's book shows examples, but I can understand why they were quickly eschewed for electriic, and subsequently electronic action. I'm also reminded of my first ever visit to the organ loft at Liverpool Anglican cathedral, and my astonishment at the enormous cavern behind the console full of electric relays resembling an old telephone exchange. On a more recent visit, with the electrics stripped away and replaced with a bit of solid state action, I hope noone would ever consider "going back" to the original electric action... On a slightly different tack, regarding the comments about registering large organs without combination actions (including on the "organ crawl" where one can't just change pistons), is it so unmusical to use pistons where they are available? Are they not an extension of the notes and stops? If they make for more interesting, colourful music than would otherwise be possible, who is to criticise the organist who uses them to their full effectiveness? Don't flame me, I'm playing devil's advocate...

The issue of relevance to repertoire (especially liturgical, given where the instrument might end up) is certainly important. With all due respect to whoever first thought up the idea of moving Parr Hall to Sheffield, the questions remain, what is the most suitable instrument for an Anglican cathedral, and what is the most suitable venue for a largely original, sizeable Cavaille-Coll. Taking the decision to install an organ in any building is not to be undertaken lightly as the chances, even the hope are it will long outlive those who install it. Especially for something as precious as a cavaille-Coll, one hopes that in a hundred years' time it will still be in as original condition as it is now (OK I accept it isn't totally unchanged, but you get the point). But those responsible for relocating it will not be - and I can think of several examples where an organist has persuaded his church to undertake a substantial rebuild or even an entirely new organ that reflects their personal tastes in repertoire and tradition. That many others would disagree about its suitaility in the venue is disregarded, and then those responsible leave with a short time afterwards, leaving a beautiful but ill-suited instrument behind for others to have to figure out what to do with. Whilst a few people might be very excited about moving the Parr Hall CC to Sheffield, one has to wonder whether the cathedral would fairly soon after realise that magnificent as it is, it isn't apprpriate for an Anglican cathedral. (Of course the alternative would be that it is used to drive a change in repertoire, and that the cathedral becomes known for its success in promoting French music and liturgy)... On a totally different track, the comment about restoring the Doncaster Schulze to its original condition made me smile....a couple of years ago the organbuilding community was in dismay about the European Union directive banning lead from electrically operated instruments. I couldn't help mischieviously wondering at the time whether the solution to the dilemma this posed for Harrisons at the Royal Festival Hall amongst others, would be to not bother to fight the EU directive but to see it as a fantastic opportunity to return to an earlier and glorious tradition of building mighty organs with tubular pneumatic action and hand, water or even steam blowers. (Glorious new console at Doncaster, by the way - I'm half glad the proposed restoration didn't happen.) Of course, converting the RFH to tubular pneumatic would do wonders to revigorate the lead tube industry, which at the same time would have been a spectacular two-fingers up to the EU... Contrabombarde

I'd have thought that a second 8ft reed on the Swell as a softer contrast to the trumpet woule be more useful (but pricier) than having two in-tune strings plus a celeste, unless the Brustwerk oboe is enclosed. But regardless, if it gets built you will have one lucky friend!

Real shame about the Hill, a grand old instrument of 72 stops, the Harrison looks a nice instrument of its time but going from 72 to 24 stops is a bit much to get used to. I can recommend Roger Tebbets recording of the Hill, soon it may be the only thing left of this. At least joining a 1919 Harrison to a Hill from the previous decade won-t be quiet out of place as the Northampton experience. Having not been to the church since the "new" 1930s HNB was installed I was amazed, both at how loud the Walker was - a highly praised instrument of its period, when Walkers were churning out large mechanical organs it seemed every other week - it just dominated the church, which wasn-t quite how I had remembered it and struck me as too powerful by half and not the gentle creature that a mechanical action organ with featherlight touch would seem - but I was also amazed how the HNB fitted into the space available and had some really lovely tones, from an instrument from perhaps not rhe most noteworthy period of British organ building. But it was far quieter in comparison, fine as an enormous but inaudible choir organ but not really so good for congregationalo support. As for joining such totally different creatures together, I-m tempted to ask, when is an organ not an organ, with reference to the world-s largest church organ, in Los Angeles, except that it is more like half a dozen different organs of varying styles, from a massive Germanic romantic, to a baroque Italian, to a masssive baroque organ on the west balcony, all played from two identical consoles, one at each end of the church. Surely thats cheating?

Wow what an instrument! I wonder whether, given "only" enough funds for two manual 16 foots, whether people would generally find it more useful to have both bourdon and contra reed on the Swell, or whether a 16 foot flue on Great and 16 foot reed on Swell - or maybe even vice versa - would be more versatile or useful? I would have thought to put the 16 foot flue on the Great to bolster hymn singing and add gravitas myself, but is that widely followed?

I gather that a complete record of this organ is available to buy as a set of the Hauptwerk digitalised organ system. I wonder how many disappointed customers try and fail to install the set on their computers, and blame Windows rather than Cavaille Coll when they fail to get any sound! To Pierre: thanks for your correction, I hadn't realised that it was commonplace to extend the octave upwards. I presume that was cheaper and easier to do than to extend the octave downwards for the suboctave coupler...

OK, so the suspense is killing you all... ...otherwise you risk a comment in the tuning book "something's wrong with the Swell - none of the stops work any more" from the next person who plays!

My old Bishop (http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N07297) had six couplers as you would expect for a three-manual, except that rather than a Choir to great it had a Choir sub to Great and no unison between those manuals. I was never quite sure why, though it did make for a nice manual 16 foot bass when coupled to the Choir 8 foot flute. Am I correct in thinking that certain American romantic builders such as Skinner routinely provided 73 pipe ranks and soundboards to ensure that the octave coupler didn't run out of notes in the top octave? I don't know if anyone has invented an entirely mechical Unison Off coupler (though with builders of Mr. Willis's ingenuity I wouldn't be surprised). A useful accessory to have where you have a mild 16 foot reed to avoid playing a right hand solo an octave down (or playing a beautiful 4 foot flute down an octave), though one should always ensure it is off before closing down the instrument...

A little while ago I played as the retiring voluntary for a wedding, the grandly-named 'Wedding March, from "Mendelssohn" '. Must confess I didn't know of a piece of music called Mendelssohn.

I wonder what the faithful at St Ignatius Loyola would say to anyone who dares to question why they had to go for an English builder when there are perfectly decent companies in the US of A? I just hope that Mr Mander has kept the orginal blueprints for that instrument as I'll be ordering an exact replica the moment I receive the $11 million that I've been promised by email from the heir of a former west African finance minister...

Apparently there is some software "out there" that is the same as Adobe Acrobat ie a pdf reader, but tweaked for musicians, and one of the things it does, displaying two pages at a time, is to advance by one page. So you start with page 1 on the left and 2 on the right then when you click the mouse page 2 stays where it is but page 1 becomes p3, the next click p4 appears on its right etc. Sounds a clever system for the totally digital organist who uses a large LCD monitor as the music desk - and if you rig it up to a piston, then you can turn pages at the press of a piston. Personally I always take my laptop with me when I practice - working in Africa I couldn't afford the weight of my paper music library but instead put my laptop on the music stand and play from my library of music pdfs. it's a slightly odd position to be playing in - looking straight ahead if not even slightly upwards, portrait format music is very small to read, and there are twice as many page turns as I only see a page at a time. But given that it's the only way of practising it's a small price to pay and I've got used to the strange looks that I get. The music incidentally is all out of copyright and freely available on the internet (or for a small fee you can pay someone who kindly put together a ton of stuff and flogs it regularly on ebay). Contrabombarde.

Out of interest how much money would be saved by not going for the top notes of the keyboard? You need top F# for the Widor toccato so 56 is a minimum for any church :-) and 58 lets you play the Andante of Guillmant 1. But I don't think I've ever reached top C except if transposing up a 16 foot which I hardly ever do. Do the extra few notes cost that much, bearing in mind that we are dealing with the smallest pipes in the range? Or does their size mean they are more fiddly to make and therefore more costly? Contrabombarde

Dang, there goes any hope of learning one of my favourite pieces on my home toaster then :-( Why didn't I check before I bought?

Depends if you think it's worth paying a small fortune to enable you to play the Thalben-Ball variations. Or has anything else ever been written that demands top G?

Hmmm, if the RAM wanted to replace their new(ish) Cavaille-coll replica with the real thing surely they just need to get on a train to Warrington... Contrabombarde

I remember once seeing a world-famous organist playing from what was clearly a photocopied work to avoid page turns, on television at what I think from memory was a Prom at RAH...

To answer an earlier question about the Hammerwood (electronic - there are two pipe organs in the house too) organ, the speaker that gives the 128 and 64 foot tones is inside a sort of false wall in the room - I guess a sort of "infinite baffle" arrangement (see Colin Pykett's article for more info on how to most authentically reproduce tones in the 32 foot range given the limitations of most speakers, out of respect to our hosts I won't gve the link here but it's on his website). There are something in the region of 35 amplifiers and speakers for the Hammerwood electronic organ, many of which are distributed along a gallery which stretches the length of the room, and come in many shapes and sizes, from "wardrobes" to horn-shaped speakers and the owner has even managed to create a speaker, for fun, using something that came out of a birthday card! The organ's creater, having been an acoustician, seems to know his stuff in terms of how to get the best sound out of different speakers, which frequencies to come out of which speakers, what shape of speaker to use for given stops etc. The result is, for a dgital organ, a remarkably impressive achievement and it's such an outrageously nonsensical design that it is hideous fun (as well as being pretty hideous and intimidating to get your head around at first). Some stops still manage to sound synthetic, especially the earlier ones, others sound very nearly indistinuishable from genuine pipes. I guess the key to a successful digital organ is a keen awareness of the acoustic limitations of speakers, and very careful choosing of their placing, carefully selecting which frequencies, which divisions, which notes to route through which speaker (I seem to remember reading somewhere that because of the "pull" of running similar notes out of the same speakers in an ideal setup you would have one speaker for C, another for C#, for D, Eb etc to counteract ). As with a pipe organ, choosing the right scaling, the right wind pressures, the right materials for the pipes and then competently voicing, are no mean feat. Of course if you went the whole hog and had one speaker per pipe, you might as well give up and go for a pipe organ, which I'm sure we'd all agree would be the better, small and quite possibly the cheaper option by that point anyway...and I think David Pinnegar would be the first to admit that his five manual monster isn't a serious attempt to reproduce a pipe organ but more an acoustic laboratory that enables the organist to experiement with tones, temperaments, combinations of stops and voicings in a way that could not be possible with a pipe organ, and thus gives a greater appreciation of the physics and capabilities of pipe organs, of which he owns two in any case. Contrabombarde

I contacted David out the blue and despite being unknown to him was rewarded with the privilege of giving a charity recital last December, the proceeds of which went to support my day-to-day job as a doctor working for a charity in war-torn north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Despite being the middle of winter an enthusiastic audience very generously contributed more than £1000. Search for MEDAIR and CONGO on Youtube for a few clips; the host was kindness himself. Contrabombarde.

I've had the privilege of standing on the balcony at Notre Dame during a service, and would just add that it can get very crowded! On a related note, I don't know if organ scholars are generally more likely than cathedral organists to allow complete strangers to play on their toys, but I still remember, at the tender age of ten, the thrill of being allowed into the organ loft at Chester Cathedral. The organ scholar at the time said to me "I don't think the boss is around, so do you want a little go?" I guess he was referring to Roger Fisher, and I hope I didn't get him into trouble for letting a total novice let rip though I'm sure Roger wouldn't have minded. No matter, I'd recently finished learning by heart the Bach T&F BWV 565 (though as my feet couldn't reach the pedals I'd had to arrange the pedal parts with my left hand). I'm eternally grateful to whoever that organ scholar was, as the privilege of playing the T&F on that cathedral organ was the start of a lifelong journey of awe and wonder at the organ.

What the heck's going on with immigration? I had no idea that visiting organists were being banned from giving recitals in the UK, that's hardly going to inspire people overseas to accept invitations for recitals any more