ajt
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Posts posted by ajt
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It's probably just me, but I don't think I've ever liked a single thing I have heard by Poulenc; including the organ concerto.
Each to their own! Personally I think the Sanctus from the Mass in G is just stunning.
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Dear AJT
Could you perhaps explain this in rather more detail , since I cannot grasp the meaning from the words written. Whilst leastqualified would make sense , I am sure it is not true. I suppose "last qualified" could mean youngest. If it simply means that you are the most recently qualified, then it is hardly surprising for the current incumbent to be younger than his predeccesors, but how could that carry an uncomplimentary meaning ?
Doh - I meant least... It was early. I think.
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I fondly remember Alwyn Surplice in action - his psalm accompaniment was fascinating....and his conducting in procession had to be seen to be believed!
Alwyn Surplice was one of my predecessors at my current church (between the wars). Surprisingly, none of the current choir remember him - given that I have at least 2 members in their late eighties, this really is a surprise. As one of my choir members points out - I'm the last qualified organist to ever have held the post. Somehow I don't think it's meant as a compliment...
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.........though I would be quite interested to know, for instance how players manage on an instrument such as St Peter's Ruthin where at the last rebuild Willis (in its present guise) added a single row of generals (quite a lot) possibly duplicated by pedals. This sounds quite an interesting idea - with multiple levels. A more continental approach perhaps.
AJJ
Just generals and lots of them is fine, particularly if there are plenty of levels/channels.
I'm a thumb man - I don't know if it's the ever expanding girth blocking my view, or just that I got out of the habit when I had an instrument with 3 pretty useless composition pedals, but for some reason I can't get back into using foot pistons.
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Are general pistions more important than divisional pistions?
Do you wish you had more of one? Explain.
Toe or thumb?
WM
Divisionals, a few generals and then sequenced generals are my ideal. i.e. a few generals to set up, say, common solo or interesting combinations, divisionals for bread and butter, and sequenced generals for specific pieces or recitals.
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With that, he apparently bowed his head graciously towards the altar, and then tore the music-copy in half before departing the chancel for the organ-loft.
A friend of mine tells the story of when he was singing at Westminster Cathedral under Mawby, doing the Allegri Miserere, with a drone during the plainsong sections to keep the pitch under control. The choir still managed to go flat, so Mawby, apparently, muttered "Oh, ***k it!", screwed up his copy, threw it at the choir, then stormed out.
This was told to me after a concert in which the same friend was conducting the same piece, where one of the solo group produced an evil smell just before one of the solo group entries. After much coughing and spluttering, they got going, but settled on a 3rd up! The sop soloist, whilst sounding a little bit thin, still got the top C, err, E!
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Nimbus Records "Christmas from Lichfield" NI 5496.
Played by Andy Lumsden, one word, FANTASTIC.
I've got it somewhere, David - I'll lend it to you.
It's pretty good on the CD, but I've heard him play it live a couple of times, including at the re-opening recital, and it's a totally different experience.
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Yes indeed, thank you very much. That's what happens when other people come along and change your generals...
Doh - I was trying to keep your name out of it! Bloody annoying when people fiddle with your pistons...
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I had a similar - but perhaps more alarming experience. Several years ago, I was idly doodling during communion, waiting for the choir to return and sing a motet. After a minute or so, I decided that a nice solo on the Positive Crumhorn would be just the thing to add to the mood of reverence and reflection and so, with little more than a cursory glance, I reached over to pull out the stop. Now, just above the draw-stop for the Crumhorn is the one controlling the chamade....
A certain other member of this forum was accompanying a Nunc to Anglican chant the other night, and went to do a nice solo on the choir. Unfortunately the Tuba was out - I thought it made a marvellous noise, but I fancy that there wasn't much of the last verse of the Nunc audible by the congregation...
Whilst auditioning for my current post I had the swell box shut on swell strings, with a solo corno di bassetto on the choir. Hoping for a nice crescendo, I hit what I thought was the swell ISG... Instead I got the general crescendo, and kicked it completely open. Sw strings to full swell, and corno di bassetto to Tuba + Sub+Octave.... Quite a crescendo. Oh, and full pedal reeds. The auditioners were sat in the choir stalls directly in front of the great and choir - a quick glance in the mirror showed a look of utter terror on the faces of all 3!
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Both - fresco from my last church - Parable of the foolish and wise virgins, Leighton:
Shame about the organ. Did I say organ? I meant toaster.
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Ah1 Thank you Adrian. I had tried various permutations, but failed to consider the most likely....
No problem - I spent ages trying to drive the search engine on here yesterday (but I can't remember what I was searching for!) ; it wasn't until I found the "Most relevant" button that things started to work.
I think the default logic (Newest first) is something like:
Look for any of the keywords, and return any post containing any of the keywords, newest first.
Whereas the "Most relevant" looks for all keywords first...
I think... But this was after sacrificing many goats. Fortunately I didn't have to sacrifice my stash of virgins.
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http://web16713.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/discus...findpost&p=9181
I clicked on Search. Then entered Cleobury Descant and clicked "Most Relevant First".
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I heard the story of Christmas Carols at Truro, where the tenor soloist, doing the ubiquitous Darke, sang E'nuff for him, whom Angels worship day and night... Then he had to make the rhyme... A breat full of meeeelk and a manager of full of (momentary pause) .... Well, go one, you can guess the rest - it was probably an accurate description of the contents of the manger, but probably not the most liturgically pleasing.
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I have to agree. It is good the RCO is helping young students (if only a relatively small number compared to the dire need of organists to fill posts in our local parish churches) but for general value for money, I would not bother joining because the organisation doesn't seem to offer much for the parish organist. £60+ is far too much.
I'm afraid I feel the same. I can't see what benefits I would get from paying £68 per year, except being allowed to take my ARCO, which I would like to do, but can't justify the cost.
I'm neither for nor against the RCO - I have no experience of them at all.
Could someone explain to me what I would, realistically, be purchasing for my £68 a year? Let's face it - if I was paying that much, then I'm a customer and I expect to get something for my money.
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I wouldn't be so confident - finding computer techs who really understand audio issues seems to be somewhat problematical. I know a couple of very good computer-industry professionals - but I know more about computer audio and A/V than either of them.
Quite. Without wishing to sound too big headed, I'm probably one of the more technically competent computer folks around, but I don't have a bloody clue when it comes to MIDI or audio. I can plug wires together, but that's about it.
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I am sorry David, but this is ridiculous. A professional broadcasting such as the BBC would have little difficulty in setting up their equipment quickly.
Actually, they take quite a bit of time over it, at least from what I've seen of choral evensong broadcasts, having done a few. I think I'm right in saying that Stephen Shipley got some sort of dedicated rig setup at Lichfield in the late 90's (i.e. lines to go out to OB vans) so that they could use Lichfield at short notice, his son being a chorister there.
Personally I like the idea of having it on a Sunday afternoon - my preference would be to keep the Wednesday afternoon "live", and then have it again at some obscure hour in the week. I can't get internet radio at work, nor can I get a radio signal (analogue or digital) in the office - too much computer noise and shielding. I find the audio quality of listen again to be too bloody irritating to bother listening.
There are distinct advantages to keeping it live and on what is a traditional off day for most cathedrals - you get a "real" performance and it doesn't disrupt much of the pattern of major services for the rest of the week - i.e. the mid-week evensongs shuffle round a bit, but the Sunday stuff is unaffected. Whenever we did non-live evensongs, there wasn't so much "buzz" as when it was seat of the pants live
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(But I've just ordered the Hauptwerk evaluation CD for Mac, so will be interested to see how it works in practice...)
Ooh, let me know how it works out - I'm just about to do the same, but have to order a midi interface first...
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I hope I'm correct, since I'm rushing in to correct your statement but I had always understood that both of the above named successfully gained ARCO.
It's just jealousy, of course, that we keep harping on about it. Sir David Lumsden is an extraordinarily successful and able man (if not one of my personal heroes) and Simon Preston - well, at the very least he is the finest organist of his generation, isn't he? A rivetting and fastidious player, who (for my money) has done more for the profession than almost anyone to establish concert organists as artists on a par with famous performers on other instruments.
Andrew Lumsden is a far nicer guy than his dad (and a superlative player) and you have to ask why he never took the FR. I think when you get to a certain reputation, the problem is that if you pass (and are beaten to any of the prizes by someone lesser known) then this could be felt as a set-back. Just a theory.
Andy is a very different case, from, say someone like David C.
IMHO, the "usual" route to a decent cathedral post is something like:
- Oxbridge organ scholarship
- Assistant post somewhere
- DoM post at a lesser cathedral, then move up the ranks.
If you haven't done the above, then, IMHO things like an A/FRCO will help your application be taken more seriously. If, for example, I was a very talented player (oh, I wish), but submitted my CV as is (as I did for Romsey Abbey when it came up), then it would get binned (as it did for Romsey). My background is - lesser known independent school, organ scholar at an odd university (Keele), then lots of parish positions, G8 ABRSM, lots of choral conducting, but no ARCO, and no demonstrable cathedral-style experience. I could be a bloody fantastic player, but unless someone assessing applications has ever heard me, I wouldn't get a look in.
Andy L had a fairly conventional path to a cathedral position - Father an eminent organist, studied at Winchester, organ scholar at St. John's, then assistant/sub at various cathedrals including "The Abbey", then DoM at Lichfield, now Winchester.
There's not much need for him to take his F.
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When a cathedral recently came up in Church Times, I rang the D of M and asked how the land lay. The response I received was "put in an application by all means, but without at least an ARCO I can tell you you almost certainly won't make it onto the shortlist." And that, I fear, is always going to be the problem - I'm reasonably confident of what I could do at interview - it's just getting one...
Yes, I had a conversation with a cathedral DoM last week, and said something along the lines of "would a late twenties organist without a premium Oxbridge organ scholarship and an A/FRCO get a look in". The answer was that the CV would almost certainly get tossed out.
Sadly, an xRCO is still a requirement to get a look in for a real job. Once you have the reputation, that's another matter. I'm not sure if this is generally true, but my experience of cathedral organists is that they know everybody in their circuit well, but outside the circuit, their knowledge of "lesser organists" is limited.
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True, but it's probably very competitive on quality to price ratio.
That was my thought - from the looks of it, I can get a very good, wood keys, etc, 3m console for about 4k. Budget in 2k for a Mac to run it on - yes, a Mac, a) because I'd hate to have to deal with Windows again,
because HW now recommend a Mac as their platform of choice.That's 6k for console and samples, then you need amplification kit on top. I have no idea how much that costs.
I have no idea how HW and conventional digital organs compare audio-wise in a church situation, but from the samples I've heard, HW sounds very good indeed. Still not up to the real thing, though.
In my possibly deluded opinion, by getting a decent console and HW setup, you have the following advantages, aside from any possible audio benefits:
1. not tied into any manufacturers kit
2. instantly reconfigurable and upgradable/revoicable
3. provided the console is of good quality, you're not in the "replace the whole thing every 10-15 years" game. Yes, you might need to replace the computer driving it, and the odd component in the console, but you're always able to keep abreast of the latest advances just by upgrading Hauptwerk or your sample set.
4. YOU are back in control of the organ setup, as opposed to having to pay Wyvern or whoever to come out and tinker
However, here are, I think, the downsides:
1. Lots of knowledge required to set the thing up
2. Ease of use for non-technical organists
3. What of future organists - i.e. if you, who set the thing up, move on, what does the poor sod who follows you do with it - will they know enough to keep the thing running?
4. No "professional" support agreement - who do you call on if it goes wrong?
5. Potential for major screwups ; the computer hardware is not solid state, unlike in a proper digital organ.
Can anyone think of any other pros/cons?
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I am sure there must be at least a few parish church choirs out there worthy of being heard. Any nominations?
In my local area you could try the choir at St. Michael's Church, Southampton - http://www.cantoresmichaelis.org.uk/multimedia.php
And Romsey Abbey Choir aren't bad at all - the boys are particularly good.
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The last time Hauptwerk came up on here, I was very rude about its practicality in a church, and several people defended it...
I understand how it works, in terms of how it makes a noise, and I understand computers pretty well.
But, in my poor little brain, all I can visualize for a Hauptwerk installation is an organ with a computer attached, which to me means that the potential for it going wrong just when poor blind Fred is playing for a big funeral is vastly increased, and that poor blind Fred is unlikely to have a clue how to recover the situation...
Is Hauptwerk really practical in a church situation?
Say, for example, I wanted to take an existing and rather good Copeman Hart console, and turn it into a Hauptwerk system, how would that work? Could I just plug it into a PC and use the existing stops to control stops in Hauptwerk? How much interaction with the PC would I need to have?
Too many questions!
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Basically you have 2 two-position switches. The top one controls the swell shutters, the bottom the choir shutters. The two positions are which pedal each set of shutters is assigned to.So it's:
Sw
L or R
Ch
L or R
Which means that if you have, say, both Sw & Ch set to the right hand pedal, then you can't allocate any function to the other pedal.
As the pedals are quite firmly sprung, for a long, slow and controlled crescendo across both divisions, it's much easier to put both sets of shutters on one pedal than it is to operate both pedals at the same time.
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Yeah, save your money, just order an FRCO online - there must be one of those "leading American Universities" out there that'll sell you an FRCO... Perhaps one of these - http://www.cynicalbastards.com/ubs/edegree.html
Basically you have 2 two-position switches. The top one controls the swell shutters, the bottom the choir shutters. The two positions are which pedal each set of shutters is assigned to.
General And Divisional Pistons
in Nuts and bolts
Posted
I think this is one of those instances in which authenticity is a hindrance not a help. The reason that most music was written without thought for pistons, generals, sequencers, etc, is because a] they're not on every organ, b] for much of the repertoire, pistons weren't invented when it was written. I would hazard a guess that many composer organists would have welcomed the use of pistons, allowing you more expressive and colourful control over the instrument.
Hand registration is fine, but if you CAN make life easier for yourself, freeing you to focus on getting the music out, rather than just the notes and a few registration changes, why not?
I know a few genius hand registrants and players, and, if you watch them play, they're constantly making changes to registration, swell box position, manual - all to let the music out. However, the 2 people that I'm thinking of, when presented with a decent capture and piston system, will use that if they have time to set it up in the way they want. Most of us, though, are not in this category - I for one, although I can hand register, can't keep up with constant changes in colour whilst accompanying or playing something tricky ; this is clearly my lack of skill.