Dulciana

That's a bit unfair. Surely he has a right of reply to criticism and to correct misinformation.

Nice, and a reminder why the EU legislation relating to lead must not be allowed to encompass the pipe organ.

It's definitely happening. See the article in today's Times which has quotes from the DTI confirming the situation. Surely, those in the 'business' have to combine and forcefully articulate the argument that pipe organs must be exempt from this legislation - there are powerful arguments why this should be so, but they need to be made. Unfortunately they may not be enough to make the little Hitlers in Europe see sense. I really think the world is going mad.

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, is the concluding voluntary an integral part of the service, given that the music played will often have little or no relation to the over-riding themes of the service just gone. For whom are these voluntaries played? The congregation (they don't often listen), God? Or, for ourselves - ie, look at what I can play. If the congregation's priority is to get to the tea, coffee and fellowship with their friends, then who are we to get upset because they don't want to sit and listen to organ music? Or is it that we want to be centre of attention and receive that round of applause? In no way am I criticising anyone, don't get me wrong, just that's how it seems.

Perhaps just a little bit harsh writing off Audsley like this?

This photograph sums up the vulgarity of it all I think. http://www.davidhegarty.com/images/photos/041107-Harrah2.jpg

That is almost exactly half the speed of the "steak dinner perormance". Guess the ideal lies somewhere in the middle. Is there a general tendency to play this piece too fast, though? Too fast and you might as well not bother going to the effort of playing all of the notes as written.

Surely the correct speed is that which results in a musical performance, taking into account the instrument, its action and the building in which it is contained.

How necessary is a 32ft pedal reed in this context is it felt generally? In an organ of this size would it be regarded as essential for completeness? I wonder if the utility of this pedal organ would be increased by rather having additional stops of 16ft of varying colour. I'm no expert, just wondering.

You're right, of course, the theme appears in the middle apparently disconnected from what surrounds it. I just had a degree of sympathy with the overall style of the thing. The video is rather jumpy - is your connection dial-up or broadband? Also, interestingly - the instruments featured on his website that he has played and recorded on are all digital, and, perhaps less surprisingly, if you look at the "concerts" link on his site, it is rather bare!

If I may I would tentatively venture one positive observation... in a sort of a way I think his "Crown Him With Many Crowns" "improvisation" has a bit of style, and I kind of liked it - if only he would lose those ridiculous body movements and affectations at the console. Oh, and stop playing Vierne and Widor.

Fair point, he does seem keen. Odd arrangements such as the Widor is probably him saying that he'd love to be able to play the piece properly, but can't. Same goes for his "interpretation" of the Vierne. I see he can be contacted through his website; perhaps the "feedback" contained in this thread would be instructive to him?

This has to be a joke, right? The bio states (with sincerity I think) that this guy is a "defining genius of the 21st century of art"; utterly tasteless would be more accurate. The Widor comes from an album called "reinvented" - I never understand the point of this sort of thing. It's like reinventing the wheel only making it square this time...totally pointless and the original works infinitely better anyway.

At the end of the day, though, it is hard to criticise churches for taking the short-term view of opting for a digital organ; after all, how many churches have a long term future with declining congregations? I only really know the Church of Scotland situation, but I suspect it is similar elsewhere. In my immediate area, for example there are 3 churches very close together, with my own holding a congregation of about 80 (average age 75!) each week. It makes far more sense economically to merge the 3, and this may well happen. Thankfully our modest, but actually quite nice, organ works well despite various problems over the years, but if it were to suffer major problems the money would not be made available for a major repair. I can understand this, although it would be a great pity. There has to be a greater effort to promote the organ as a musical instrument outside of the church setting. Although in my city (Glasgow) the 2 major concert venues (one built about 20 - 25 years ago and the other recently extensively renovated) do not hold pipe organs, which is a travesty, and you have to witness the ridiculous spectacle of an electronic organ being hired when those works requiring an organ are performed. To me this a worse situation than churches opting for digital instruments.

This does appear to be legitimate - it's linked from the UCL website which also has some information about it - apparently research on "tone-deafness"; although, in the pairs where the tunes were different, the difference generally involved a note or two which were chromatic, and hence glaringly obvious.