Vox Humana

That fugue really is rather good. Doesn't sound all that easy though! Nice organ too.

Now I'm getting confused as to which version it is that I have. Mine's the Durand edition of 1984. Is that the original or the revised one?

Very possibly!

http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=R01251 A slightly odd machine in some ways (the Ralph Downes ones), but at heart a fine instrument and good for accompanying choral evensongs. The Sw. Echo Viole was mistuned as a céleste.

(Pressed the reply button by mistake - again!)

Reminds me of Lance Foy's 4ft Wherly Flute on the Swell at King Charles the Martyr, Falmouth, Cornwall. I think the name must have something to do with Liskeard firm of Don Wherly Organ Pipes. I've no idea what it sounds like: I don't know the organ myself - though I might perhaps recognise the chunks of it that used to be my organ in Bristol many years ago!

One of my brothers-in-law chose this for his wedding - and him a clergyman too. Nobody thought much of it until we got to the last verse, when everyone remembered that his beloved's maiden name was Jordan. He swears he chose it on purpose.

Judy Martin, DOM, Christ Church Cathedral Dublin. As far as I know she's the only woman to hold the no. 1 position.

I totally agree. To my mind it's the obviousness that makes it intuitive. You just can't beat stop knobs that draw. Lights are never going to be as obvious as a physical protruberance (especially if the sun is shining on them!) and stop keys are always too close together - you loose nanoseconds making sure your aiming for the right one.

Isn't that a slightly intemperate assessment though? I'm not sure the Spaniards were really so much worse than other European countries. Life was cheap and terribly non-PC in those days. Spain wasn't the only country with expansionist tendencies or the only one that wanted to stamp out what they regarded as undesirable culture/values. Henry VIII would have done the same thing to France if he had had the wherewithal. And look at what went on during the English reformation. In Italy the Medicis weren't exactly saints either. For people in power modern concepts of equality and human rights just didn't exist. Any suggestion of such things would have been received with a stare of blank incomprehension.

Yes, I agree the whole suite is superb. But my own favourite movement is the Sicilienne. A wonderful piece of writing - and I can actually play it!

Fair enough. I suppose this matches what happened to me and my peers only a few years later in the early sixties. I can't say exactly when my voice broke because it was a gradual process, but, it must have been when I was fourteen. It had begun sinking slowly when I was thirteen and had certainly gone completely by the time I got my first organist's post at fourteen and a half or shortly thereafter. I remember this being a pretty average date since, of the other boys in my year at school, many voices had broken before mine, others broke after. I've also heard it suggested that earlier awareness of sexual stimuli (its excessive use in advertising, for example) may also be a factor in the earlier breaking date. Intuitively, I would have thought that psychological influences are much less likely to affect physiological development than physical influences such as food, but what do I know? Has any research been done on this?

Nay, forsooth! This was a Walker before Manders rebuilt it. I played the old organ once and, with all deference to our host, I don't think the present instrument is as gracious - though the full organ is undeniably electrifying. Doc Ashfield thinks it's a superb instrument though. But I thought they'd just rebuilt "Eastenders" at a cost of several thousand pounds - as in thrown out some of the old speaking stops and replaced them with some new ones. Not that I follow such shenanigans, you understand; I merely believe everything my better half tells me (it's better for my health that I do).

Illuminated drawstops! OMG! Proof, if ever it were needed, of the brainless "size matters" mentality.

Is there any chance the moderators could enable the "manage attachments" facility? Please? I believe this software normally has one.

Interesting. I'm glad they did add it. It's a nice stop - quite smooth, but still a veritable pew-rattler!

Fascinating! Is the revised version published then? Who by? Oh yes! I just wish I could play the ****** thing! If only I'd come across it when I was young and nimble... The first couple of pages are OK, then it starts to get a bit tricky.

I know this is the current opinion, but is there any science behind it? If in the earlier twentieth century boys' voices appeared to break later, could this be because the head-voice production they were taught masked the real breaking of the voice and enabled them to sing in the treble register for longer than they otherwise might have done? One is taught (or used to be) that, back in the middle ages, boys' voices broke at around the age of 18. The evidence cited for this is a passage in Edward IV's statutes for the Chapel Royal about every child being assigned to an Oxbridge college when he reached the age of eighteen. However, Roger Bowers (Cambridge University) who has extensively researched medieval cathedrals and their music maintains that this refers only to the age at which the boy was sent to university, not the age at which his voice broke. He has traced the fortunes of many medieval choristers (hundreds, I believe) and found that their voices broke at much the same age as they do today. But what was the situation later on - in Purcell's time and S. S. Wesley's?

Some months ago I attended an organ recital by a well-known cathedral organist who ended his programme with the Duruflé Toccata. I was rather surprised when, on the final page, the notes in my score (and on the Latry recording ) were replaced with what sounded like a shorter, more lame ending. For a moment I thought that he'd lost it, but that last page is far from being the most difficult part of the work and his performance had otherwise been more than proficient. During the mêlée afterwards I mentioned this to a fellow organist and he said that ending we had just heard was a later revision by Duruflé - and he preferred it (but I didn't). Now I know Duruflé thought the Toccata so weak he forbade his wife from playing it, but I've not been able to find any information anywhere about him revising it. Anyone know anything about this?

Well, that'd be a first. (Miaow!)

Obviously. But when I was at Winston-Salem the circumstances were such that I didn't have the opportunity.

Simply that 8, 4, 2 works perfectly satisfactorily and a Twelfth serves to obscure counterpoint and is not necessary where adequate mixturework is present (which it always should be, except organs of extremely modest proportions). It can be a useful colourant and may help bind reeds to flues, but nevertheless a chorus isn't compromised by leaving it out. There was an article to much the same effect in Organists' Review a few years ago - by Paul Hale, I think.

I've played the Winston-Salem organ and a very fine machine it is too. Not over-large by American standards (or even English ones), but one with great quality and integrity. The Sw. French Trumpet did puzzle me not a little. It was so big compared to the rest of the division that I wondered why it hadn't been placed on the Solo: I did think it just a little out of proportion as a chorus reed. But of course, this Skinner essentially a "foundational" organ, e.g. no Great Mixture and no Ch. 2ft (though there is a Nazard - a feature I also found at Portland Cathedral). I guess it's one of those cases where you really have to spend time getting to know the organ inside out in order to understand the thinking underlying it.

Not too surprising, really. There's a lot of Moorish history in Andalucia, not least the Alhambra Palace in Granada (which, coincidentally I was walking around this time last week).

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