Vox Humana

That is so true. Mention of Tim Horton's brings back vivid memories of a fortnight I spent in Canada a few years ago (nothing to do with music), staying in a motel and getting up at 5.00 every morning. The only option for breakfast so early in the day was the local Tim Horton's. It was fine for the first three days or so...

I see that this is from May 2018. What's the current state of affairs?

Interesting sounds, certainly, although I thought that the less like an organ it sounded the more pleasant it was. I liked the Grahl piece.

IMSLP has its own facility for doing that: https://imslp.org/index.php?title=Category:Scores_featuring_the_organ&transclude=Template:Catintro You do, however, need to weed out the pieces that are not pure organ solos.

I'm too old to get my head around it all, but, more to the point, I'm not even interested enough to try. I'm not really an IT luddite, but just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should. Bring back the good old days when you could fix a car engine just by opening the bonnet and whacking something with a spanner.

It's probably easier in A flat.

In the parish church where I was a choirboy (far too many decades ago) the organist tied all repeated notes in hymns, even in the melody - which made the play-over for St Andrew of Crete sound rather odd. Most organists of the older generation that I have spoken to were taught to repeat notes in the treble, but tie all others. When accompanying choir-only items, tying everything made sense. The theory was that normal organ touch had to be legato and any repetition of repeated notes would, by definition, be less than legato. But that was then. My own view is that in slow (non-congregational) music where the organ is merely doubling the voices, and assuming a properly competent choir, this is still the best approach, but that it would likely be enervating where the music is more lively and rhythmical. If the choir is bouncing along to a jig the organ probably needs to as well, which will require more détaché playing. One can't really prescribe without seeing the music. Even though you say you do not want an independent organ accompaniment, I would at least consider writing short organ introductions to each movement to set the pitch for the singers.

There's no doubt that slower speeds can lend stature to a piece. As I have often said before, the current fad for helter-skelter Bach only trivialises it for me. My late father-in-law liked his Bach even grander than I do (and Romantic to boot). Elsewhere there's a discussion about Rugby School's stately performance of Stanford in C on Choral Evensong this week, which prompted someone to draw attention to the interpretation by Bernard Rose, who had sung it as a boy at Salisbury under Alcock. Alcock knew Stanford, who had been clear that he really did intend the speed that was printed in the score. I love its luxuriance, but lots of people can't take it.

Thank you S_L. I think you are on the nail with your observation about those who have studied at a university or music college. Nor would I expect my cynicism to apply to most members here! Maybe I am being slightly snobby. Amateur organists may love the instrument and its music, but they have often had no musical education above "A" level at best and may not even regard themselves as "proper" musicians. They are perfectly entitled to whatever musical tastes they fancy and if these do not go beyond the organ who am I to tell them they are wrong, even if I am aware of what they are missing? Anyway, I have strayed from the topic! Apologies!

Perhaps I'm being over-cynical (what? me?) but I wonder whether it's not so much a matter of 'mystique' as of organists too often having little interest in music other than that for the organ. I don't think that this is at all unique though. I am fairly sure that almost all musicians are to some (small or larger) extent guilty of the same thing. The main difference is that those who play orchestral instruments are more apt to get involved in chamber and orchestral music (because it's very unsatisfactory always playing on your own) and thus acquire a much broader musical outlook. Pianists, too, can get to play chamber music. The organ, however, is mostly totally isolated from the musical mainstream - choirs hardly count. Classical guitarists are perhaps in a similar boat.

Indeed there are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9BmAu8bk6I

Then of course there's Jeanne Demessieux. Most of her stuff seems to require a very advanced technique, but some of her 12 Preludes on Gregorian Themes are not too difficult and sound well in the right sort of ambience in terms of acoustic and instrument.

IMSLP has Amy Beach's Prelude on an Old Folk Tune, which I rather like. I wouldn't want to make any false claims of greatness for the piece, but it's very pleasant, certainly worth an airing and there's far worse stuff out there.

Perhaps the same one they installed in 1963? Someone told me not so long ago that they had seen one there some years after this, so it may have remained for some time.

A word about psalms. How you accompany these, and particularly the amount of organ you use, will depend on the competence and experience of the choir, but, assuming a choir that can sing psalms confidently and competently while staying in tune, they will require less organ than anthems and canticles. The job of the organ in Anglican chant is to provide a background by supporting the choir, enhancing and colouring the words; do not be tempted to turn the psalms into an organ concerto with choral accompaniment! Do not use the Great Organ, the tone of which will be too heavy and suffocating, especially if the choir is singing antiphonally: thick, loud tone will risk swamping the choir's consonants (if not drowning the choir completely). Generally uncoupled Sw and Ch will suffice, with both manuals coupled for louder bits - and of course liberal use of the Solo if you feel brave enough to venture descants. Starting a confident or joyful psalm on something like Ch 8' flute (+4'?) coupled to Sw 8', 4' diaps (+ 2' + Oboe?) should be enough to get the singers off to a good start (especially if they sing the first couple of verses full), after which you can reduce. If using Full Swell, be very circumspect about opening the box. However, as I said, it all depends on the choir. As with all accompaniment, the conductor will - or should - tell you if more (or less) organ is required.

There are people reading these pages who do this sort of thing for a living. I had expected more people to chip in, but since they haven’t I’ll hazard a few tips from personal experience. Apologies in advance if any of this sounds like teaching Granny to suck eggs. Over the years I have done a fair amount of accompanying in large places, both here and abroad. Sometimes there have been electronic communications between choir and organ – audio only, or visual only, or both. In my youth most of the places in which I accompanied had neither. (That dates me!) I occasionally had a line of sight to the conductor – if I emulated an owl’s head – but there was one particular console where, if I was the only person in the loft, the only means of communication with the choir was by telepathy! At least this hones your responses! It goes without saying that the first requisite of coping with CCTVs (or, rather, conductors generally) is to know the music inside out. The more your eyes are glued to the score the less time you will have to watch the conductor or, if flying solo, to concentrate on what you are hearing. In my opinion this is absolutely vital. Any technical distractions will decrease your attentiveness to what you are hearing, not to mention console management. This means getting the music for the service(s) you are accompanying well in advance in time to learn things thoroughly. This may sometimes be easier said than done. Getting the balance right between choir and organ is always a problem. Visiting organists who are not used to accompanying on large organs in large buildings very commonly play far too loudly. Always ask the conductor whether your general sound level is too loud or too soft for the choir. My general rule of thumb is that the balance will usually be about right if my forte climaxes when the choir is singing use no more than the Great Open Diap no.2, perhaps with the Principal (but without flutes), plus Full Swell. For final chords you might risk a bit more: my teacher reckoned that it didn’t much matter if you drowned the choir a bit on the last chord - and of course you can take full advantage of any organ climaxes after the choir has stopped singing (as in Ireland's "Greater love"). For mezzo-forte/piano: Great 8’ flute + Swell. Piano: Choir + Swell, or just Swell. These are just rough examples. If I am up on a screen with the organ around me or nearby and don’t have any loudspeakers to amplify the choir at the console, I reckon that if I can barely hear the choir above the din the balance is probably about right. But obviously buildings and organs vary. There are some organs where you can’t really use the Great at all for accompanying and you have to use the Choir as the “Great” instead – I remember Ely Cathedral being one. Elsewhere, even Full Swell with the box closed might be too much. One last point, and the most tricky to learn, is that if you are accompanying from up on a screen you may need to learn to play ahead of the choir. In these days of console loudspeakers this probably isn’t the problem that it once used to be, but if there aren’t any it’s a must. Some places are easier than others. Sometimes playing a mere acciacatura’s-worth in advance will be enough. At Canterbury Cathedral I needed to play a day or two ahead. My most challenging situation was at St Catherine, Honfleur where I found myself at a west-end organ, with only an inadequate rear-view mirror, accompanying a choir far away at the east end singing Magnificats by Vivaldi and Sammartini (and that ghastly Fauré Cantique) – the choir organ was too decrepit to use. That was fun – once the initial shock had worn off. If you do it often enough playing ahead becomes second nature, but you really need to keep doing it regularly because it’s easy to get out of practice. However, like cycling, once learnt the skill never entirely goes. But maybe one can worry about this too much. The bottom line is that, mostly, it probably won’t matter too much if you do drag a fraction, but obviously it’s better not to.

It would seem that that instrument wasn't the last Hammond to grace Canterbury. They apparently used one at least for the Christmas services in 1963. There is a photo of it (or one like it) in The Illustrated London News for 14 Dec 1963 with the following caption: "AN ELECTRONIC ORGAN - A HAMMOND CONCERT MODEL - OF THE TYPE NOW INSTALLED IN CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, HERE BEING PLAYED BY DR. SIDNEY CAMPBELL. Music for the Christmas services at Canterbury Cathedral will be played this year - for the first time - on an electronic organ , the cathedral thus breaking with tradition to become the first cathedral in the country to install an electronic organ." I know nothing of the background to this (NPOR doesn't mention any major work to the pipe organ then), but Campbell did have a sideline demonstrating Hammond organs - not many people know that.

That's good to know. I must have been in Bristol around the same time as David and always thought that the music in this church was compromised by the very odd acoustics. From a conductor's perspective, the organ sounded to my ears distinctly like a harmonium and even a (perfectly decent) unaccompanied choir sounded as if their voices were coming out of loudspeakers.

This is tremendous news. It's been a long wait! I'm so pleased for you all out there and will definitely make a point of listening. Clearly Mrs Humana and I visited NZ a year too early. It's 11 months since I was in Christchurch and it really was rather saddening to see what a wreck the city still was, even seven years after the various earthquakes, despite all the building work going on. It's great that the decision was taken to save the town hall. It says a lot for Rieger's work that the organ fared better than the building. The recitals will be at 00.10 a.m. and 5 a.m. UK time. (By the way, your attachment is showing as unavailable.)

That was how he was known to those with whom he was familiar, however. A lot still do - more's the pity. Goodness knows why. It's not as if the music gains anything from being made to sound Wagnerian.

How very strange. I can only imagine one reason for this: to spare the royal ears from their inadvertent use. The queen's stall is immediately inside the quire doors on decani side and the chaire pipes would be quite close. Yet removing the pipes because of that seems extreme and, in any case, I wouldn't have thought that they would have been loudly voiced in those days - although I never knew the Walker/Rothwell. And surely Garter Day was not the only one on which the young queen attended the chapel?

The Windsor organ has lots of sympathies! It is an eclectic one that attempts to cater for most schools and does so superbly (if, inevitably, with compromised ‘authenticity’). The Choir Organ has a ‘Chaire’ division (not called that), whose fairly mild diapasons and flutes and parpy Trumpet are good for the English Baroque and earlier repertoires, and a neo-Baroque Positiv division (also not called that) with chiffy flutes etc. for the German/Danish/Dutch stuff. The Great reeds and Solo 8' Orchestral Trumpet are English, whereas the Pedal Trombone unit (32'–4'), Swell chorus reeds and Solo 4’ Orchestral Clarion are French in tone (or so it is said, although surely the Swell Oboe is English?) The Trombones, Orchestral Clarion and the Choir Krummhorn actually have French shallots. One of the clever things about this was that you could choose whether full organ sounded English or French. As for the Vox Humana, SSC did specifically want it to sound French and there were rumours along the lines you heard, but he never said anything to me about personally searching for one. In fact, what actually happened was even more unusual, as Roger Judd found out while researching his book on the Windsor organs. In 1893 Harrison & Harrison built a new organ for a congregational church in Keighley. They agreed with the church that the specification would include a Vox Humana made and voiced in Paris by Cavaillé-Coll. This is mentioned both in a letter from the church to H&H and in the opening recital programme. In 1964 the church was earmarked for development and H&H bought their organ back. Some of the pipework was used at Windsor and this included the Vox Humana rank. However… RJ remarks that neither Mark Venning nor Peter Hopps think that the Windsor Vox Humana has Cavaillé-Coll pipework. I have to say that it never sounded particularly French to me: I just thought the Vox, Lieblich and Tremulant sounded perfectly horrible! But at least I had enough sense of self-preservation to keep my mouth shut at the time.

I have this pinned to my tool bar, where it takes next to no room and is easy to access. I find it useful, although I have memorised the ASCII codes for the most common characters and find that method the quickest of all, if limited by what passes for my memory..

But it's OK to disturb people during the voluntary.

On the choice of music in the Chapel Royal, here are some entries from the cheque books: 19 December 1663: "The service shalbe appointed by ye Deane or subDeane or his subtitute, with advice of the Master of the Children, for such Anthems as are to be performed by ye Children of ye Chappell." 6 October 1726: "And to prevent disturbance, which is necessarily occasion'd by sending Messages backward and forward in the Chapel, during the Performance of Divine Service, the Sub-Dean, or some other Appointed by him, shall on every Sunday & Holiday make known to the Quire, and also to the Organists, before Prayers begin, what Service and Anthem shall be Perform'd for that time, & on all other days he shall make known the Same, during the Voluntary." 2 August 1859: "The anthem appointed to be sung, will not be changed without the authority of the Dean, or of the Subdean."