Vox Humana

Better a manual 16ft Quintadena than a Bourdon, I say, but I'm not over-fond of either. St George's, Windsor, has one on the Swell that works well enough and a very different one at 8ft on the neo-Baroque Choir (somewhat reedy in tone). The latter is a useful and distinctive colour that I would be very happy to have in any classically-voiced organ. Not sure I'd want it in a Romantic instrument though.

Yes, indeed. That's precisely what prompted me to ask the question. I do wonder sometimes whether those organists actually listen critically to the sounds or whether they are just following a mantra. On the other hand, when you see well-known organists doing it you have to assume that they have given it some thought. I guess it boils down to individual taste. Your good point about flutes being more prompt in speech could well be an explanation. Another one that I've occasionally suspected is to help cover up non-speaking diapason pipes on clapped out instruments! As far as the listening public goes, most of them wouldn't know a Tuba from a Regal. They just know when they have enjoyed something and when they haven't. I've heard it said that, when it comes to organs, the ordinary music lover likes the sound of any (decent) large organ at full bore, but otherwise finds the clarity of classical voicing more "musical" than Romantic mush. My empirical impression is that there may be something in this - but that's a topic for another thread.

I wouldn't disagree, but the trouble is that it's a subjective judgement. Look at the early twentieth-century attitude towards mixtures. The man who took me to task thinks that flutes and diapasons sound OK together. On the whole (no hard rules and it depends on the music) I don't. We had an amicable discussion and agreed to differ! The other day I was trying out an organ. I pressed the Gt 2 piston and, lo and behold, Open Diapason plus Hohl Flute. I subtracted the flute and there was no audible difference (at least, none to speak of); the diapason almost entirely swamped the flute. Clearly the piston had been set by someone who had been taught that that's what you do. I would say the majority of organs I visit have their pistons set up similarly. There are a couple of practical points in favour of not including the flutes. If you're playing on the Great with the Swell coupled, then you're going to want the widest dynamic range from the swell box that you can get and it's not going to help if you increase the wall of sound on the Great by throwing the flutes in. Not an issue on a well-constructed, well-sited organ, but I'm sure we've all played ones where the swell box has been less than ideally effective. Also I've occasionally had to accompany choirs on rather loudly-voiced organs and in such circumstances singers really can do without the extra volume the flutes give. But please don't think I'm out to change anyone's habits. I'm just interested to get a feel for the proportion of those who do to those who don't.

When I was young I my approach to registration was influenced by Reginald Whitworth's book Organ Stops and their Use. Whitworth didn't like thick registrations: his basic tenet was that you should only use as few stops as are necessary to obtain the tone colour you need; any others only add thickening. I didn't (and still don't) go along with him on every point (especially his advice that Full Swell should only requires the 16, 8 and 4 chorus reeds plus Mixture), but his book did leave its mark in that I tend to think of registration vertically instead of horizontally. I suppose Whitworth was inveighing against the symphonic approach to registration which dictates that you add the stops in the order that produces the smoothest crescendo and don't bother subtracting any. Now I'm not by any means against mixing softer 8ft stops together. Romantic music needs warmth, after all. But I do have a horror of thickening diapasons with flutes of the same pitch. To me it seems so unnecessary. My organ teacher at the RCM thought so too. Recently I was taken to task by an elderly (and very competent) organist who had been brought up in the old tradition. He had been taught always to use the Open Diapason together with the 8ft flute and made the admittedly valid point that on most English Romantic organs the stops have been voiced to be used that way (though I note Stephen Bicknell reckons that some builders did and some didn't). I know from organs that I visit that this practice is still very much alive. So am I in a minority? What do you do?

The second series starts on BBC2 on Monday! Personally I thought the organs in the last series were fantastic (especially Naumburg) and the playing interesting. As for Damien Hirst's graphics, I entirely agree. If he had any talent they wouldn't have awarded him the Turner Prize, would they? I'll reserve judgement on the Bach fornight until it's over. The Beethoven thing the Beeb did turned me completely off, but that's because Beethoven is one of my blind spots. It seems it went down very well with the public though, from the reports I saw at the time.

To my mind the prime question is: how far can you trust what you see in the published scores? Vierne was largely, but not quite, blind. It might have been better for us if he had been totally so. As it was, he copied his music as best he could with a magnifying glass, his publishers set it as best they could and Vierne proof-read what came back as best he could. And the end result is patchy. Quite a lot of inaccuracies made it through to the final copies. You probably know this, but there was an article by David Titterington in The Musical Times many years ago exposing the misprints in the Carillon de Westminster and the Hymne au Soleil. As an example from the former, at the point where the theme transfers to the pedals and both hands resort to semiquavers, the right hand is marked "R" (for Récit) and the left hand "RP". This "RP" is a misprint. It does not mean "Récit and Positif coupled" (for which the conventional abbreviation is "PR"). According to Titterington, Vierne's manuscript shows that he meant "Récit piano". Therefore both hands are to be played on the Récit. Titterington also pointed out some misprinted notes and chords, though I have to say that some of them look to me more like deliberate alterations by Vierne at the proof stage - a possibility Titterington does not discuss. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that oddities in Vierne's music can really only be resolved by going back to his manuscripts. Since that's beyond my means, I am fairly relaxed about treating what is printed with a certain amount of scepticism. If it doesn't make sense to me I opt for a pragmatic solution. The one that really bugs me is the tempo mark for Étoile du Soir. I just can't get the marked speed to make musical sense. The printed crotchet = 50 seems ponderously slow, but assuming a dot has been omitted from the crotchet (the piece is in 6/8 time) gives rather too frantic a speed. I'd bet the "50" is wrong. But who knows? I'm ashamed to say I've never heard any of Vierne's own performances. Maybe I'd be less confused if I had.

Personally I quite agree with you, but I frequently get the feeling that I'm in a minority these days. But I'm sure that a lot of it is because of the paucity of first class organ repertoire of any period. Not a total lack, to be sure, but we do do poorly compared to many orchestral instruments. Even much of Bach's organ music compares poorly to things like the cantatas and orchestral suites. The best organ music is often by people unkown to the mainstream musical public. It's difficult enough to get them interested in organ recitals. When they do turn up they like transcriptions (OK, it's because they don't know any better - which is a pity, but there you go.) Sorry if I'm off topic, but I don't really think I am. Organ design that doesn't take account of what the organ-loving society wants from it is going to end up in a cul-de-sac. All IMHO, of course.

Que? Sorry to wander further off topic, but I played the Washington NC organ back in '98 and I'm quite positive that, at that time, the Bombarde Basse was an extension of the 32ft with the bottom four or five notes (can't recall exactly) quinted. Mind you, it did sound filthy in the nether regions. It wouldn't surprise me if they had replaced it with an electronic stop. Is that what happened, or am I up the wrong creek (quite possible!)? I quite agree that it's a glorious machine. I only hope the replacement has an equally noble sound.

Interesting topic. Can I offer a couple of random and probably not very coherent thoughts? I don't see why the requirements of leading hymn singing should put too many restrictions on organ design. Any organ with decent chorus work should be able to do that perfectly well and you certainly don't need a Tuba (though in a large building it's certainly nice to have a loud reed of some sort - I prefer a Trompette-type stop personally). Choir accompaniment: now that is a different matter. Then again, the churches in the UK that have choirs good enough to do any more than sing hymns is far outnumbered by the ones that don't - though I daresay that the latter are the least likely ones to want a new pipe organ. I suspect the main reason for British organ design being generally unadventurous is that organists want the stops that will allow them to play as wide a spread of repertoire as possible. That's bound to favour tried and tested formulas over originality (to some extent at least). Also organists have taken a step backwards (timewise, I hasten to add) in recent years. When I was young the neo-Baroque was all the rage. The organ, we were told, was a musical instrument in its own right, not a substitute orchestra and we were encouraged to prefer "proper" organ music. It was still OK to play the likes of Howells and Whitlock, but there was certainly a bit of a feeling in some quarters that they weren't "quaite naice". Orchestral transcriptions were most definitely frowned upon. The current trend has very much swung back to transcriptions and to thinking of the organ as an orchestra - which requires a "symphonic-friendly" specification. But maybe I'm just being completely unimaginative and failing to grasp the possibilites of marrying innovation with traditional requirements..

Thank you all for your comments and particularly for the information on the Montjuich Palace organ. Yes, Julian Rhodes's Dream Organs site is fascinating. That was my first port of call!

How many six-manual organs are there? So far I've found the following and would be most interested to learn of any further examples: 1) Wanamaker Grand Court Organ 2) Mainz Cathedral 3) Stiftsbasilika, Waldsassen 4) Duomo di Monreale, Palermo 5) Sejong Cultural Centre, Seoul 6) Forrest Burdette United Methodist Church, Hurricane, West Virginia (the largest draw-stop console ever built, but I believe the organ is mostly digital) 7) Residence of Phil Maloof, Las Vegas (theatre organ console, formerly in Chicago Stadium) By the way, I know that, strictly speaking, not all of these are six-manual organs. Mainz and Waldsassen are really six-manual master consoles that control several organs.

Hmm... I don't actually think that performance of the Trois Danses is much cop, despite being conducted by the composer. But I don't know of any other recording of all three. I've got the recording I think Alastair has in mind. It's the full-orchestra version of the Requiem with the Ambrosian Singers and the New Phil conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. The LP had a splendid performance of the second of the dances as a filler. The Requiem was reissued on CD (Sony Essential Classics, SBK 67182), but it was coupled with the same performers' version of the Fauré Requiem; the Duruflé dance was omitted.