ajt
-
Posts
525 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by ajt
-
-
We noted there is a reed pipe pictured with both weighted tongue and leathered
shallot.
Is this original or a later means to correct a problem?
Pierre
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!
-
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.
Sorry, I meant 12 hours rehearsals + services.
-
How would worship & church life in general be enriched if the musicians were required to operate to professional standards, and rewarded as professionals? Even £5k a year + benefits (perhaps even per benefice, where organists are shared as they increasingly are) is a drop in the ocean when you consider the benefits that could almost instantaneously arise for the church, the music and the instruments.
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...
-
This would be very usefull as samples to have french people understanding
what a british organ is; a majority did never hear one.
Besides the reeds, the Diapasons (from 8' alone to full chorus), the Flutes, the
strings (with Vox angelica, which is different from a Voix céleste) would make
fine demonstration samples we could link to and discuss.
Best wishes,
Pierre
Will try to do that tomorrow - I think David Coram's kindly going to spend another day inside the beast...
-
The Website is just fine now, with the pictures and the Howell's MP3.
The people on my forum are very interested with it. a french organ builder
says the pipes are splendid, especially the reeds -of course, it's a Willis-.
Keep these jobs, they are interesting for us abroad.
Best wishes,
Pierre
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...
-
Dear Tony
I sent some information in to the NPOR, by email at least five or six weeks ago, regarding the disposal of the old organ (and specifically what has happened to the case) in St Peter, St Albans. I did this for openness and clarity and in order to avoid speculation, especially as a local newspaper reported the case's disposal incorrectly and I consequently had to deal with a certain amount of correspondence about it!
Unfortunately, as yet it has not been added to the website.
Andrew
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.
-
The thing that makes me specifically despair, AJ? It is the lack of my hair in the winter months when rehearsing in churches between Sundays when, alas, there is often a surfeit of hot air.
NJA
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.
-
Having spent many, many hours reading just about everything on this Forum in the past few days since joining, I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the state of UK organists and organ building passions.
What, specifically, makes you despair? (not that I don't agree with you, I'm just interested in your views!)
-
Amogst my collection of random organ detritus, I have (spare) exactly the sort of Willis 3 Claribel that was probably on this Great to start with - it is a triangular flute, open from Tenor G up. Dear ajt If you find that's what it was, and you want one, we might be able to do a swap.
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.
-
There was another of these enclosed 32' reeds on a similar-sized Willis 3 at St.Judes' Thornton Heath near Croydon. A very fine organ in a church with practically no acoustic at all. It was very fine indeed - if you like that sort of thing, of course.
A few interior photos here:
-
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.
-
I'm in training for playing Peartree on Saturday: I've got those hand strengthener things and practicing breaking blocks of concrete with my bare hands to get the amount of concentrated force right.... Mind you, Twyford was heavier and so vague most people thought it was bad e-p action...
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...
-
However, that quarter of Southampton is poorly served for organs. Yes, there's St Marys in the city centre, but as ajt knows, it's in a deplorable state. But I can't think of a good tracker action organ of any consequence in Southampton.
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:
-
One had to be sensible setting up registrations - I don't remember that there was too much wind starvation but in the days before the Turner Sims the other alternative was St Michael's Basset so one made the best! Sitting at the console things were in a better perspective than down the nave though the 32' Tuba was more like a road drill than anything artistic. It worked well for practice, was fun to play on and with selective (even unorthodox) stop choices a surprisingly large ammount of the repertoire could at least sound reasonable.
AJJ
BTW, if you're ever in the area and fancy a trip down pneumatic drill lane, come give it a try!
-
Funny that. Maybe that story isn't entirely a myth!
About a year ago I gave the re-opening recital on a fine 2-manual Lewis (St.Oswald's Malpas, Cheshire) that Peter Collins and his men had just refurbished at considerable expense. In order for the organ to make it through the programme, Peter Collins had to lie on the great pasageboard for the whole evening in order to put off middle G on the Great every time it stuck. I wouldn't mind, but I had predicted this fault, based on an earlier practice session.
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.
-
One had to be sensible setting up registrations - I don't remember that there was too much wind starvation but in the days before the Turner Sims the other alternative was St Michael's Basset so one made the best! Sitting at the console things were in a better perspective than down the nave though the 32' Tuba was more like a road drill than anything artistic. It worked well for practice, was fun to play on and with selective (even unorthodox) stop choices a surprisingly large ammount of the repertoire could at least sound reasonable.
AJJ
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.
-
It was Piet Kee and you are possibly right - I was there and vaguely remember something needing sorting. It was never a great instrument but for 'us students' it was miles better than we were used to.
AJJ
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.
-
An versatile and impressive instrument for its time - I had lessons on it from Jeremy Blandford the DOM in the late 70s and fairly unlimited rehearsal time too. (Jeremy once played all the Bach Trio Sonatas in a recital apparently and the effect was much better than one might expect from the organ's vintage and disposition etc.) There were worries even then about money, amalgamating parishes, churches closing etc.
AJJ
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.
-
Possibly when the releathering has been done there will be enough wind? Anyway, I'd love to come and see it - are you around much before Christmas?
You'd be absolutely welcome. Let's follow this one up via e-mail...
-
I was an undergraduate at Southampton when the Collins went in and I don't remember it having too many problems then. Peter Hurford came to perform along with Margaret Philips, Piet Kee etc. and under the regime then it was much used as a solo recital instrument and with orchestral and choral groups. It was a good instrument to learn on - reasonable tracker jobs were rarer then - certainly as one who had been used to electropneumatics up till then it did my technique some good and allowed access to sounds not possible at the local parish church.
AJJ
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.
-
Dear ajt,
Have you come across the BBC Music Magazine CD that Wayne Marshall made on this organ*? [From memory, I think it was in '99 or 2000 - a programme of Bach, Brahms and A.N.Other - possibly Liszt.] If not, someone should be able to find you a copy. The St.Mary's S. organ clearly records well and Wayne obviously approved of the choice of recording venue and he must have a wide range of organs to choose from - I'd take that as a big compliment to your instrument.
I wish you all the best in the uphill task of persuading the church authorities to set aside funds to have it put into good order. At least the reputation of the instrument should help towards this.
*I should reassure you, the CD isn't all loud and fast!
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...
-
This is basically a posting for Brian Childs who some weeks ago sought information on the condition of the large-scaled 4-manual H&H organ at St Mary's, Stafford. There is not much by way of detail I can say other than the organist tells me it is gradually deteriorating and stops are increasingly becoming unplayable. It's rarely used apart from choral evensongs which I guess are conducted in the chancel. Some years ago, I can't tell you how long ago it was, H&H quoted around £250,000 to restore this large-scaled instrument. Something else I learned was that the organ was originally intended to be sited at the west end of the church instead of it's present chancel position.
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.
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.
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!
St. Mary's, Southampton, Willis Iii
in The Organ
Posted
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!