ajt

The gedeckt was definitely a clarabella originally, and the cymbel mixture was definitely a vox humana originally. We had the console covers off today, and the original printed wiring/stop layout cards have been crossed in pen with the new stop names. I take no credit for the pictures, by the way, except for providing the camera and the key to the organ. Mr Coram was the one delving round the organ, for which I can't thank him enough. The reeds are now mostly in tune, too!

I'd be surprised if it's original, but these are questions that I need to answer. I'm due to meet the current "maintainers" (quotation marks intentional) in January, when I officially take over, so I'll hopefully find out then. My guess is that it's something they did in 1994 when they did some rebuilding work following a roof leak. For an organ that is reputed to be untouched, there are quite a few anomalies!

Sorry, I meant 12 hours rehearsals + services.

The benefice that I'm leaving (3 churches) employs 3 directors of music. One of those has been doing the job for free for 30-odd years, one is me, and I'm paid RSCM rates, and the other has been paid roughly the same as me, but only doing 2 Sundays per month, choir practices on average twice a month. The other services at that church (they have a minimum 2 services per Sunday that require accompaniment) are covered by volunteers. The PCC for that church have cut his salary to £500 per year, and are wondering why he suddenly says that he will not be able to continue covering the current pattern that he does. Yes, he was probably overpaid before, but £500 per year, allowing for, say 12 hours rehearsal, 3 hours prep (depends on the individual, I suppose) per month = 15 x 12 = 180 hours per year = £2.77 an hour. How much sense does that make? I've left them with a proposal for employing a benefice musical director and benefice choir, plus utilising the existing hotch potch of gallery orchestra and "worship group" to rotate around the churches, thus consolidating resources and trying to up the general standard - e.g. one choir instead of 3, etc. It would be very easy to start ranting about the state of the Anglican church full stop, but I *will* resist - this isn't the place...

Will try to do that tomorrow - I think David Coram's kindly going to spend another day inside the beast...

Thank you! I think that was a compliment :angry: If there are any specific bits of the organ you'd like to hear, e.g. the reeds, then I'm happy to record them...

Andrew, I've just received an e-mail from Frances at the NPOR, who says that they have a very large editing backlog, so things are taking several weeks to be updated.

I'm getting to the same stage myself - I'm not sure if it's baldness or my head and girth expanding so rapidly that my hair can't keep up. 2 tales from my soon-to-be parish (i.e. I start in January), that make me despair. We have 2 principal churches, one of which has a huge Willis 3, not a great choir, and is in a poor area. The other is a lovely, lovely church, with a very well off "friends association", which provides for a paid choir, and the church has a 2-manual machine, most recently Walker, I think. The Walker needs routine maintenance and overhaul on it, to the tune of about £65k. The director of music at the church has managed to persuade the friends to stump up £35k for an electronic organ, and is planning to remove the Walker so that he can put the choir up in the gallery where the organ is. Fortunately this hasn't been agreed by the PCC yet. The Willis has been neglected for years, and the last time anyone asked for some serious money to get work done, they were told "we'll just mothball it". I think this might account for my lack of hair.

What, specifically, makes you despair? (not that I don't agree with you, I'm just interested in your views!)

Sounds great to me! Will have to be a way off yet - got a lot of other work to do first! When did you last play VHH? I used to play it quite regularly in the mid-90's, don't remember feeling passionate either way about it.

A few interior photos here: http://www.laudachoir.org/organ/interior.html

Well, I've just spent a very informational afternoon with David C in/at this organ, and learnt quite a lot more about it. One of the more exciting discoveries was that the pedal 32' contra tuba, which is an extension from the choir tuba, is actually in the choir box. That's right, an enclosed 32' pedal reed. All the way down.

Classic! What are you playing? My rock climbing was at its best when I was at Peartree - might have something to do with the finger training, might have something to do with being a bit lighter...

You still not a fan of Peartree then, or just haven't found the finger strength yet? Which reminds me - good luck with this Saturday's recital. My own concert is cancelled, so I might come along...

If anyone's interested, or just simply bored, then I've put up the few details I know about the organ here: http://www.laudachoir.org/organ

BTW, if you're ever in the area and fancy a trip down pneumatic drill lane, come give it a try!

That doesn't really inspire confidence! Yes, you expect a few teething problems when putting in a new or newly refurbished organ, but you also expect the problems to be easily rightable - if you'd predicted the failure, I would expect it to be rectified by the time you come to do your recital.

Still pretty much the same then! The 32' tuba is a road drill. We have to pay a guy in a yellow jacket to "play" it.

True - an organ is better than no organ! And, to be fair, a 3 manual tracker is a good learning beast. These days it's quite hard to get on it - at least it was when I was working at the Uni. Things may have changed in the last few years.

I've heard interesting reports about the Bach Trios concert - a friend of mine was at it, and said it was an absolute blur, but he was sat halfway down the nave. It's a funny beast, isn't it - how do you remember about it? Was the wind ever good enough to support full organ - I can't imagine it would have been designed that way? These days, full organ, 'sag-free' = Gt OD's 1+2, 4',2', Mix + reeds, Sw. Reeds only, no octaves, and pedal reeds + minimal flues. If you're lucky, you can get away with coupling the choir tuba back up to the great. Still sounds good, but is a bugger to register as you can't re-programme any pistons, so you have to either hand add, or hand reduce. The Choir's interesting too, seems to have been designed to be a Choir + 5 Solo stops, totally enclosed, even the tuba.

You'd be absolutely welcome. Let's follow this one up via e-mail...

The apocryphal story that I heard about the opening recital (was it Neary?) was that Peter Collins had to whip out a ladder half way through and go sort out some tuning and stuck notes... I used to play this organ quite a lot (I worked about 25 feet away from it!), and really didn't like it.

I do have WM's CD, yes. It does show the organ up wonderfully - the programme is Bach (G minor P & F 542), Liszt Ad Nos, Ad Salutarem, Brahms Fugue in A flat, and some random Bruno piece. Recorded in 1998, and, to be fair, almost entirely loud and very very fast From the clarity of the recording, I'm guessing that they miked up underneath the console, 'cos there's absolutely no way that the Bach at Wayne-speed (slightly faster than lightspeed, I believe) would be anything other than a mush of sound from anywhere else in the church. It's a curious instrument - everything sounds wonderful on the console, but take 10 steps down the church and the acoustic blurs everything - until you get to the very back when it all comes together again! Thanks for the thoughts and best wishes - the church *won't* be funding the organ. That is the major problem I have. The parish is losing money and will not plough money into the organ. At all. I need £5,000 just to keep it going for the next 6 months, and that is going to have to be fund raised I had a conservative guesstimate of £200,000 + to restore it to its former glory. That's a lot of letter writing! I'm wondering about the lottery, but don't want to be tied to using "original" electrics - I don't want to change anything at all about the organ (it would be a travesty to do so), but do want to replace the unreliable 50's low-voltage electrics with modern solid-state to make it more reliable. The electrics are so bad that you can no longer change piston settings - if you do, you run the risk of the whole thing just stopping. Pistons take several seconds to do things - general cancel takes about 10 seconds to get all but one or two stops in (you can guarantee that it's always a big reed that's left hanging out, just to catch you unawares!), and some odd things happen when playing, too - e.g. the swell C1 is always coupled through to choir, regardless of coupler position. I'm no organ builder - my knowledge of organ mechanics is minimal - but, according to the tuners (who've been servicing it for 20 years), this is what needs doing: Most of the action leatherwork, especially the internal purses, the leather in the compound magnets and bellows work needs to be replaced. The choir organ main soundboard primaries were releathered four or five years ago. Most urgent are the Great slider soundboard primaries, Swell slider soundboard primaries x 2 and the Swell, Great & Choir drawstop machine primaries. The Fr. Willis purses on the pedal slider soundboard are next on the list, before moving onto the various chests. All the low voltage electrical equipment needs to be either replaced or restored. The console keys, pistons, pedals need restoration. Pipework needs some restorative treatment tonally and physically in addition to cleaning and overhaul. The remainder of the organ needs cleaning and overhauling. The blower is not large enough to support full organ Ouch!

I'm just about to take over at St. Mary's, Southampton, which has a wonderful 3-manual Willis III from 1956, and wondered if anyone here had any experience of it? It's totally untouched - not just in modifications, but pretty much in maintenance too. The electrics are shot, a lot of the leatherwork is going, the wind supply is "dodgy", and it all needs a good clean. Other than that...

I played this instrument for a couple of RSCM choral days when I was still at school, I guess it must be about 15 years ago, and it was pretty dire back then. I don't remember a huge amount about it, except for a pedal reed (trombone?) deciding it was going to sound a B flat throughout Bainton's "And I saw a new heaven", which, surprisingly enough, didn't really fit ... Tonally, I can't remember what it was like. :-( Still, it's all still there, which is a good thing.