innate

I'm as much a fan of the old words as anybody but there is a progressive part of me that appreciates that "man" may be perceived as exclusive, whatever the linguistic history of the word, for example. From a purely pragmatic point of view churches need to decide whether they risk alienating more people by changing the words or by leaving them as they are. One of the keenest advocates I know for eliminating "thee"s and "thou"s is proud of his Yorkshire roots yet seems unaware that those words are still much in use in many parts of the country. In the parts of the C of E that use modern language for all the liturgy it seems slightly perverse to cling to the archaisms that litter, say, The New English Hymnal - on the other hand the integrity of The Church's One Foundation would be severely compromised by altering the final Thee.

I seem to recall a story about a Choral Scholarship audition where the baritone was asked to sightread the opening of Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing. The nervous candidate began singing: Quasi lento e serioso!

How about this one? I'm just exploring the idea of either/or and have no idea how practical or useful it would be in this form. Manual I *Open Diapason 8 *Stopped Diapason 8 *Principal 4 *Open Flute 4 †Nazard 2 ⅔ †Recorder 2 †Tierce 1 ⅗ Manual II *Open Diapason 8 *Stopped Diapason 8 *Principal 4 *Open Flute 4 Oboe 8 Pedal ‡Subbass 16 Cello 8 Fagot 16 II/I, I/ped, II/ped Tremulant to whole organ * available on either manual but not both except through manual coupler † split bass/treble at C/C# ‡ possibly some already-patented space-saving monophonic cube-type device I imagine the bass of the Open Diapason would be grooved from the Stopped (with helpers). The Oboe would probably be half-length in the bass and the Fagot half- or quarter-length.

Even with the performer's permission to record you might still be in breach of the composers' copyright. It would appear that both Vierne and Stanford are out of copyright in the UK but these things aren't always clear-cut. I can see a large axe about to fall on YouTube.

The decorated pipes at St Michael's, Tenbury are quite extraordinary, imo. There's a photo on npor but it's not brilliant. To find St Michael's on npor you put in Worcestershire and St Michael's in the search address, for some reason Tenbury doesn't work.

I don't buy the whole "Men Are From Mars; Women From Venus" school of gender psychology; imvho we are, generally speaking, much more victims of our environment than our genes. HOWEVER, I agree that there are very few women who are at all interested in pipe organs and how they work, steam engines, timetables, computer programming, transposing orchestral instruments (!), space invaders and cricket. On the other hand, I have encountered a few web forums where women easily equal the men for level of obsession, if not outdo them. Subjects include theatre, religion and, perhaps not surprisingly, motherhood and the raising of children.

What a brilliant idea! Thanks to both of you for the "heads up".

I agree. Whilst I love the idea of lots of 8's to combine in almost infinite ways, they do take up a lot of space. On which subject... I've seen photos of old (prob. C17) organs where the pipes seem to be absolutely fitted in as tight as physically possible and several eg Schnitger specs have Brustwerks with lots of stops. My question is: can modern CAD reduce the dimensions of organs significantly compared to similar instruments of 3- or 4-hundred years ago?

No, the stop that could do that would be called an orchestral clarinet.

I heard someone, maybe Michael Berkeley, say that OM decided that he couldn't write for the liturgy after O sacrum convivium as it came too close to perfection, or something. My suggestion for his most sensuous piece is the Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine. Maybe it's one of those pieces you have to perform in order to "get"; I played celeste about 25 years ago and I'll never forget being part of that miraculous soundworld.

I was fortunate to play in the Philharmonie about 14 years ago and the extremely affable British orchestral pianist for the BPO told me that the organ was beset with technical problems and was, as you have heard, rarely played.

As Boris Johnson might say, "Cripes!". I know someone who was investigated by, as it was, the Inland Revenue. He was a writer and had put down an estimated figure for expenditure on books. When they asked him to itemise the books he had bought in the relevant year it turned out to be about double what he had claimed.

Thus ensuring no one plays A G# A, which I heard on a recording a long time ago.

Poor them! I don't suppose great musicians of the past, who existed in worlds of many pitch standards, had any particular similar problems to your friends or they would probably have mentioned it enough for their feelings to be widely known; as it is we have some stories about JSB's attitude to the wolf and a story about the child Mozart expressing surprise that a violin he was asked to play being a fraction of a tone lower than his "butter" fiddle upstairs. And if anyone had perfect pitch I would bet that those two had it. How do your friends cope with pieces that exist in different keys, such as the song Ol' Man River, which appears in 4 different keys in the musical for which it was composed, Show Boat? Or some of JSB's organ pieces which exist in two keys? And are they at ease writing for transposing instruments such as clarinets and horns or thrown into inner aural turmoil? I'm probably just jealous

Are there many recordings that feature the Kingsway Hall organ? An Also Sprach Zarathustra would be cool. In about 1980 I was working in an office around the corner and popped into KH as there was a clothes sale advertised; I'm slightly ashamed to admit I can't remember whether I saw an organ in there or not. The building felt very "tired" and unloved. I have a feeling the man that tried desperately to save KH as a classical music space was the same man who campaigned for a National Lottery to fund the arts.

When I was at Oxford in the late 1970s I heard a story (that seemed far-fetched then and even more incredible now) about Exeter College appointing a Jewish organ scholar who was unable to take up his position on account of his religious views. Is it worth pointing out that orthodox Judaism generally doesn't permit organs in synagogue worship? If there is an organ in a synagogue it probably means Reform or Liberal Judaism. I have been to Jewish weddings in orthodox synagogues that have featured electronic keyboard and traditional klezmer musicians though. I've played some music by a C16 composer called Rossi, who I believe was Jewish.

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to this question. I suspect that Bach himself would have been quite liberal with ornamentation, although some scholars insist that he "wrote out" all the ornaments he required. The little I have seen of the manuscript copies of his works by many of his pupils would seem to indicate that either there was a huge increase in ornamentation in the performance styles during the years following JSB's death or that he himself played with more ornamentation than he put into his scores. We do know that he was greatly interested in the French school of harpsichord and organ music which almost relied on ornamentation for its expression. On the other hand, sometimes there's nothing more beautiful, or transcendent, than a Bach piece with no ornaments at all, a little like a church bereft of pictures, statues, vestments.

Titterington states categorically that no manuscript has been found. If I were Widor I don't think I would have recopied by hand for a revision rather than mark up an existing version with corrections/alterations.

I'm really not a fan of the Titterington edition. There's a misprint in the RH three notes before the recap. It's fussily edited and the layout in "landscape" format fails to make any significant advantage over the old French "portrait" format in that they both run to 10 pages. Unfortunately the Titterington one starts on the RHS resulting in an extra page turn. At least it's better than the version in The Organist’s Wedding Album (Cramer Music) which runs to 16 pages!

Not only is it a "normal" time for Spain, it also makes sense if you convert to GMT (or whatever we're supposed to call it now). Someone explained that hings happen in Spain and Portugal at the same time but as Portugal's clocks are an hour later Spain's events appear to be later. If you see what I mean.

But Nick's response to you was right. Pro rata you will get 6/52 or 4/52 or whatever fraction of your yearly committment as holiday entitlement. If you work every Sunday morning you'll have 4 or 6 Sunday mornings as holiday.

Now the cat's out of the bag!

And your point, Tony? Actually, I was surprised by the six weeks, too. Most of my work is in theatre and my experience of West End shows is that everyone in the cast is entitled to (and obliged to take, under the EU Social Chapter) four weeks paid holiday, which is why all significant parts/characters should have two understudies so that when the principal actor is on holiday the first cover has a cover.

How can they sing nursery rhymes to their children if they can't sing hymns a capella in church? What an indictment of contemporary society! Seriously, would the congregation that can't sing a capella actually sing any better with accompaniment or would the piano or organ just disguise the fact that the only people singing are the minister and the musician? There seems to be no reluctance to sing at Wembley or Twickenham, or even down my street half an hour after chucking-out time; why won't people sing in church?

I agree it seems most odd if it is a permanent situation. Mind you, AFAIK the Sheldonian still has an organ substitute. Well, to be fair, I was in the orchestra right next to the organ at the time, so I can't vouch for the clarity in the audience. I remember many concerts there, orchestral and choral, including a Machaut Mass done 2-to-a-part conducted by, ahem, me. Sounded great!