JJK

Thank you John - nice to put a face to a name! I am more than happy to show other board members the organ - just let me know if you would like to visit. If there is enough interest, then maybe an "open day" would be worthwhile... Details of recitals are here: Petersham Festival - I hope to have it updated with times and ticketing details very soon JJK

No problem. I braved the snow this morning to get some further shots of the completed instrument - appended here: picasaweb.google.com/jkingan2/PetershamOrgan# JJK

As promised, I have put some photos onto Picasa; they can be seen here: picasaweb.google.com/jkingan2/PetershamOrgan# Apologies for the somewhat variable quality - they're just a few opportunistic snaps taken along the way. I do not yet have any pictures of the completed organ - I hope to take some later this week to show the whole thing after the return of the centre pews, a better photo of the console and of the fully populated soundboards. Anyone interested to see/hear/play the organ do let me know. JJK

Hmmm - a blind man with a gun

I would agree - I have just been reading the Rollin Smith book on Vierne (a rather nice Christmas present), and Vierne in his souvenirs refers a couple of times to the addition of, firstly the fourniture and then the cymbal. He clearly thought the Recit was deficient without them. I'm amazed that they have been removed. JJK

Thank you Justadad, and especially Justason ! I hope it wasn't too freezing cold on Sunday - we seemed to have a bit of a problem with the heating system over Christmas Although I am currently in Istanbul - and my memory can be pretty bad - I am pretty sure each stop label is above the related stop, not beneath? I certainly hope so! Of course, even so, I realise that your view of the labels could be blocked by stops above the label - I guess an inevitable consequence problem of not having labels on the ends of the knobs. I suppose that to an extent one has to accept the house style of the builder concerned - and there is the compensating advantage of have larger text than could be fitted on the drawknob disc. Thank you, and Happy New Year JJK

I drew up a proposed stop list having heard and played some similar (although larger) instruments by St Martin in Switzerland. But St Martin deserve the credit for turning this initial idea into something concrete, and fitting it into our somewhat awkward space. The Resonance division is something of a speciality of theirs, but the physical disposition is different in every example I've seen. In our case, the Resonance is split across two boxes either side of the central Recit box. We've had a great team on this project, including our consultant, Ian Bell. JJK

I will try to sort out something on Picasa - I have quite a few pictures of the construction which need to be sifted. But I fear it will not be before January.... JJK

Thank you. There is indeed a tremulant - operating on the whole organ. Two would have been nice, but not possible with the winding system adopted. There is also the all-essential Rossignol . I must send an update to BIOS. The only other change is that the Sesquialtera is actually named Cornet. Yes, the Basson has half-length resonators in the bass - and doesn't seem to suffer for this, in this rather small building. Height was certainly not available for any pipes longer than 8'. The Gambe has haskelled basses, and it is rather nice to have good foundation tone right down to bottom C. The opening recital will be Sat 24th April with Thomas Trotter, Simon Preston on 26 June (with a small orchestra) and Christopher Herrick on 25 Sept. Further information, when available, will be on www.petershamfestival.org and www.organrecitals.com JJK

Indeed, I am DoM at Petersham, and the new organ has been in use for two weeks now. In my (biased, of course ) view, it is remarkably versatile for a small instrument, and seems to fit the building well, both visually and aurally. The action is very sensitive and rewarding to play. Beyond that, I will perhaps refrain from further comment until I've had a chance to play with a full church - which is about to happen (in fact 4 times in the next 36 hours!) I'm very grateful to Justason for relieving me of my duties on Sunday - and will of course be interested to hear his (less biased ) view! JJK

Thank you all for your helpful replies. I will have to find out what - if any - the budget is. It's good to know there are some options with little delay. JJK

Given that DB is one of the top players, this seems like good value to me. Compare it with the costs of travelling and a meal before or after....Why should organ recitals always be provided on the cheap? JJK

......or a Spaeth or a St Martin..... but a glance at teh RAM website reveals it will be built by Kuhn

Thank you for this - it looks good. So the delay is OK on this system is it? I wouldn't want to be any further behind the beat than I'm told I already am ...

That's an interesting idea! There is no nearby mast, but I had noticed that the problem always seemed at its worst during weddings - when I suspect there is generally a higher concentration than usual of switched-on mobiles.... JJK

I am looking into the possibility of setting up a video link using a small LCD display and camera, preferably connected via wireless, to allow me to monitor progress of bridal entry, offertory etc, as well as for following a conductor. I'm quite keen not to have it built into the organ, but easily removable. I can see that this could be done quite easily with a webcam and monitor, but I am worried about delay. All the systems I've seen have a small but significant delay in the video transmission,which would rule it out for following a conductor. Does anyone have any experience of this? Any tips gratefully received. JJK

Yes indeed, our previous organ showed exactly the same symptoms. It had a digital transmission between organ and console, and in its latter years (after it was around 15 years old) developed a tendency to sound notes at random - often high-pitched pipes with short duration bursts of sound. Completely beyond the control of the organist, whose only recourse was to turn it off completely, or to remove/silence the most commonly affected pipes..... These digital systems use a multiplex to transmit console data to the sliders and pallet magnets. Random errors in the bits transmitted can cause anything to happen, often momentarily and not repeatable. What I am not sure about is why these circuits seem to show such faults on ageing, and why there is not sufficient error-correction built in to counter it. It doesn't happen on aeroplanes...I hope. Said organ has now been removed, to be replaced with a completely mechanical instrument (apart from the blower, that is). JJK

What about the ex-Gloucester Cathedral one at All Saints Margaret St? I guess it's probably not on an expecially high pressure, but it's always seemed startlingly loud in the building... JJK

Sounds like someone has been messing about with the voicing software - or maybe it was never set up properly in the first place. There is often a facility to slow down the onset of speech, to simulate the relatively long time for pallets to open on large pipes - but it should not take several seconds! JJK

Gillian Ward Russell? JJK

I'm afraid I succumbed to a final TdP in Veni Emmanuel I'm rather interested to know what people do at the end of the first line? A pause, or straight through? I much prefer to go straight on without a pause, as it fits the words better - but this does seem to result in some consternation from the congregation.... JJK

Have you looked at the Salisbury service by Bill Ives? We've been using it for a couple of years now, and everone seems to like it. It does have a separate choir part, but it also works as we o it, with all singing the congregation part. It does take a bit of learning for the congregation (the organ part is fairly independent), so it's helpful to have a choir to give a lead. Prior to that we used the oly Tiniy setting by Christopher Tambling - also worth looking at.

Interestingly, they now use a digital organ alongside the Metzler, for occasions when greater versatility is needed....

St Martin of Neuchatel have certainly built organs with half-draw stops that operate with pistons (and the half draw can be programmed separately to the full draw). From memory, I think their organ at Girton Coll Cambridge has this feature. I believe Colin is correct about the single slider. JJK

I'm with you there. It could even be my favourite Bach organ work full stop. Although I do play it, I haven't in public - I'm just not sure I can do it justice.