John Sayer
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Posts posted by John Sayer
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One of the advantages of having a Hauptwerk practice organ at home is that I have a selection of probably a dozen or more different temperaments that I can play around with, but the sample set producers inevitably fine-tune the instruments either before recording or during processing so the organ (unless it's French) sounds pristine.
I like the implied 'dig' in the strike-through. Some Frenchmen get quite upset if you suggest their organs are habitually out of tune.
JS
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One can still - occasionally - experience similar thrills even in 21st-century Britain.
One of our former Assistants, now at a northern cathedral, caused our collective jaws to drop in amazement and admiration many times.
He would happily provide a Gospel improvisation in the style of the Mass setting, be it 18th-century Viennese, 19th-century French or whatever. His imitation Mozart and Duruflé were astonishing. Baroque-style chorale preludes were nothing unusual. A strict 5-part fugue on "Men of Harlech" finished Evensong on the anniversary of a particular Welsh military victory.
But for that, one needs not only technical mastery and an intimate knowledge of the many different musical styles, but also, as someone else once described it, "a brain the size of a planet" that can process information almost as fast as a PC chip - the kind of brain that gets you a double first in an unrelated subject. Such a combination of talents is rare, and one is incredibly grateful to have witnessed and heard it.
And he is still working such wizardry at that same northern cathedral.
JS
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There's an obituary here on Sussex University's website http://www.sussex.ac...vents/?id=13461 in addition to those in the national press.
Loved the bit about the prisoners singing in the chorus for Messiah - very witty.
JS
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Indeed, most impressive. Good to hear a new Oxford organ with b***s: I can't think of (m)any other organs in the University that could do justice to the Mighty Max.
JS
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So did I. I can also think of half-a-dozen names that match this perceptive and affectionate portrait pretty well.
JS
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I believe they were known as 'liquorice allsorts', having the size and look of one of those black-white-black confections. Rather treacherous, too, being easily hit by an errant finger when playing too 'deep' into the keys - as happened to me once at Kelvingrove, with the unbidden arrival of Great reeds 16+8 in a Rheinberger slow movement!
JS
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Top marks to the Beeb for such a warm and positive celebration of the English Cathedral tradition.
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bigscreen/tv/episode/b01f6tb8/
The programme struck a nice balance between seriousness and sentiment, allowing the young people to speak eloquently about something which means a great deal to them and which will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
Instead of the usual dumbing down, we had lucid and intelligent contributions from distinguished musicians, academics and clergy alike: and a treat, too, to hear at least some whole (or nearly whole) pieces, even if the sound balance was a little adrift.
Good to feel the licence fee occasionally offers value for money.
JS
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As the EU couldn't really prosecute itself and remain credible, I don't think there's much to worry about. It is the classic legal "double-bind"...he who prosecutes would first have to prosecute himself.
MM
I hope you're right.
I think I'm right in saying both instruments mentioned were products of German builders, who, as a body, have taken little notice, historically, of EU bureaucracy.
I got the impression from an article by our host in a recent IBO Newsletter, that UK organ builders were rather less sanguine about the whole thing and were keen to persuade German builders to take the matter more seriously.
JS
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In addition, the organ of Ripon Cathedral is also scheduled for alteration, including re-enclosure. Does anyone know what is happening to this section, please?
As someone closely involved, perhaps I can clarify. The Ripon organ is simply to be cleaned and overhauled, with updating of the screen console and improvements to the wind distribution system. Only one tonal change is planned - the replacement of the Great Larigot (1972) by a Flûte Harmonique 8 in Lewis style and voicing. The Choir Cimbel III breaks will be re-arranged, but there are now no plans for re-enclosure. (The H&H website needs updating in this respect).
Work is expected to start after Easter 2013 and finish in November.
JS
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Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but am I right in thinking that there has been a reconsideration of this matter recently and pipe organs that contain lead pipes are again facing censure from our European Union masters?
Spare us, Good Lord, from a re-run of all this nonsense. I really don't fancy writing to my MP all over again.
The problem, I suspect, isn't really with Brussels. Last time round it was largely down to one cretinous jobsworth in the DTI in Whitehall who refused to budge from the supposed line set by Brussels. (Other governments seemed happy enough to ignore such directives). What needed now is to identify that same person (or his/her successor) and make sure he/she uses a bit of common sense.
JS
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According to a posting on another list, the German organist and teacher Heinz Wunderlich died on 10 March at the age of 92.
More info here for those that can read German: http://www.hfmt-hamb...inz-wunderlich/
I heard him play Reger (among other things) on two occasions, once at Verden Cathedral and then, memorably, at the re-opening recital of the great Sauer organ in the Berliner Dom on 6 June 1993, the first time the instrument had been heard for 50 years. His interpretations struck me as truly masterful - cohesive, exciting and totally convincing. His passing surely marks the end of the 'apostolic succession', through Straube, to Reger himself.
JS
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Ah the wonderful memories of 1980s BBC television!
Those of us who were mere infants in those days might recall the children's series "Silas", a period drama based in the nineteenth century about a young boy who ran away from a circus. It was most famous for having originally been a German production, dubbed into English, and the English lines had a tendency to arrive at any time other than the moment the original words were mouthed.
Most importantly though, does anyone recognise the organ?
Judging by the harbour scenes, the Catholic atmosphere of the church interior, not to mention the look of the organ case, I'm prepared to bet the film was shot in France - maybe somewhere like Honfleur? At first I thought it might be Stade, but all those shutters and mansard roofs are distinctly non-Germanic.
JS
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I'm not quite sure what the significance of the artist Arnold Böcklin is, but clearly, his art was considered important enough to inspire.
So here is the interesting "THE ISLAND OF THE DEAD" from the pen of Dezso d'Antalffy-Zsiross; magnificently played by Xaver Varnus on the equally magnificent organ of the Palace of the Arts, Budapest.
MM
Die Toteninsel - Böcklin's most famous and atmospheric painting, now on view in the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. (There are 5 versions in all, some more gloomy than others). It inspired Rachmaninoff to write a symphonic poem of the same name. Reger wrote 4 tone poems inspired by Böcklin's paintings.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arnold_Boecklin_-_Island_of_the_Dead,_Third_Version.JPG
JS
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Yes - always check the service sheet a funerals. Also check which hymn books, if any, are being used, I've had many a close shave
I recall an urgent phone call to play for a funeral. Vicar says 'Just the usual 2 hymns - The Day thou Gavest and Psalm 23'.
(... I suspect you can see where this is going...)
Now small funeral congregartions aren't renowned for singing loudly but even so I was thinking that Crimond normally goes better than this when the vicars head appeared round the side of the organ.
Yes - wrong psalm 23 - they wanted 'The King of love my shepherd is'.
I still think it was his fault but ever since then I have double checked with the printed service sheet before we start.
This is also useful for finding out what random number of verses the undertakers have decided to print...
Steve
Too true. I never know which is worse - playing one verse too many or one too few.
JS
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Ulrich Dähnert, in his contribution to Stauffer & May's J S Bach as Organist (p. 6) gives the specification of the organ in the castle chapel as recorded in 1737. (He states that the organ was rebuilt by Nicolaus Trebs in 1714, probably to Bach's wishes).
There are just 2 mixtures, both on the Upper (main) Manual - Mixtur 6 rks & Cymbel 3 rks (the latter from the old Compenius organ) - plus a Sesquialtera 4 rks on the lower manual.
Hartmut Haupt, in the following chapter on Thuringian organs (p. 26) refers to JSB's recommendation that 'stops sounding the third should be present in order to add variety to the ensemble'. For the rebuilding of the Mühlhausen organ, JSB specifically demanded a new Tertia on the Brustwerk to complement the Sesquialteras on the HW and RP. Haupt also suggests that Bach may have known Trost's magnum opus at Waltershausen where many of the mixtures contain tierces. However, I suspect Trost was the odd one out in this respect.
At Naumburg - another organ with which JSB was closely involved - there are large quint-sounding mixtures on all 3 manuals, plus a Sesquialtera on the HW, which can be used in the chorus.
My guess is that the Mixtur 6 rks at Weimar mixtures was purely quint-sounding, and probably the Cimbel also, as high-sounding Terzzimbeln were not part of the local organbuilding tradition.
Sorry to to offer more conclusive evidence. My bet is that JSB enjoyed the added richness of 'tierced' ensemble, whenever the opportunity arose or whenever the fancy took him.
JS
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Mein Gott! They're trying to beat us at our own game. Did they have an English consultant/adviser, one wonders, or is this just a Rheinlander's fantasy of what an English concert organ should sound like.
JS
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Hello,
one of the last works of Max Reger, op. 145/7 "Siegesfeier" (Triumphal Fête / victory celebration) dates from 1916. It quotes "Nun danket alle Gott" and near the end the German national anthem.
Cheers
tiratutti
Yes, he was a bit premature, I suppose. I seem to recall reading somewhere of Reger turning down the offer of an honorary D Mus at Cambridge in protest at the use of dum-dum bullets by the British Army. Probably apochryphal, though.
JS
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Early Harrison & Harrison organs were just as numb, but at least J J Binns made this case in the factory:-
http://staidan-leeds...ns/the-organ-2/
It's a splendid organ, a very resonant (high anglican) church and rather beautiful to the eye.
MM
Arguably the finest church in Leeds, a large double-apsed basilica with the celebrated Brangwyn mosaics behind the altar at the east end and an imposing elevated baptistry at the west. The organ sounds magnificent. The church has a lively congregation and the current incumbent also happens to be Lord Mayor of Leeds.
JS
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The heavier they are the more momentum they have as they fall off the music desk and bounce down on to Swell, Great, Choir, (maybe even Pedal too) and the more dramatic the resulting note clusters.
JS
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I think that the changes sound good - although I would personally have replaced the G.O. Coppel Flute before altering the Choir Organ Cimbel. Presumably this will mirror Southwark, commencing at 15-19-22 ? . I have also climbed to the top of the instrument, and stood beside the pipes of the Orchestral Trumpet (horizontal, on the roof of the Swell expression box). Rest assured, I was in the company of Harrisons' tuner, who took me up.
A 4ft Harmonic Flute or the like might be more in the original Lewis spirit, but the 'clean-toned' Coppel Flute blends very nicely with the Lewis Stopped Diapason. One is tempted to do what Ian Bell calls ' re-voicing through re-engraving' and just put 'Flute 4' on the stop-knob: that way, I suspect, nobody would be any the wiser.
The Appeal has now reached its £300k target. As you say, all the HP reeds are indeed vertiginous to tune. Had more money been available we might have been able to make them more accessible and, at the same time, rather less unsightly.
JS
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I must admit that I too have a great fondness for Southwark and (perhaps surprisingly, for some) Ripon. To be sure, I start to get a little nervous once the G.O. reeds are drawn (and I think that I would want to re-site the 32ft. reed - if only for the sake of Decani). Neither did I find much use for the enormous unenclosed Tuba. But much of the rest of it, I liked immensely. What a shame no-one has yet had the courage to reverse Ronald Perrin's requested alterations to the G.O. (Coppel Flute and Larigot).
You may like to know that the Larigot is destined to give way to a new Harmonic Flute 8 (in Lewis style) at the cleaning and overhaul scheduled for 2013, and the Choir Cimbel III re-cast at lower pitch. Apart from these, no other tonal changes are planned. As for the Great reeds, Arthur Harrison knew what he was doing in producing a sound that would carry, almost undiminished, over the void of the tower crossing right to the west end of the nave. (They will certainly prove their worth in leading packed congregations over the next few days). The intention is to leave them alone, as rare survivors of the early 20c art of reed voicing.
Of the admittedly huge Tuba, Ron Perrin was rather proud of the fact that it could be heard at the bus station, 1/4 mile away, with the doors of the Cathedral open!
JS
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Yes John, I made a bit of a mess in my haste, relying on memory from about eight years ago. I've always thought it was Book Wood, but Beechwood sounds a lot more plausible. Perhaps the most famous surviving instrument is that at the "Black Church".....Negrous something or other.....in Brasov, Romania.
Stephen Bicknell used to say that this organ pre-empts the style of Cavaille-Coll, in having an enclosed reed section which can be coupled up, against a separate enclosed division, but with fairly limited dynamic change due to the swell doors rather than shutters.
There are a few examples of the organ on You Tube.
MM
Yes - die Buche = beech-tree.
I'm sure Stephen Bicknell was right about the pre-emption. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was born 15 years after Carl August Buchholz and would have been only 25 or so when Buchholz was working on the organ for Kronstadt (now Brasov). This organ, with its French-looking third manual of strings and reeds, seems to have been a one off.
More representative of his big instruments, and still extant, are those at the Nikolaikirche, Stralsund, recently restored by Klais/Wegscheider, and the Marienkirche, Barth on the Darß peninsula on the Baltic coast. In both the third manual is very much subordinate to the other two, as one would expect of German romantic organs of the period, and with a Fagott/Hautbois 8 as the only reed.
See Stralsund.
JS
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Horror of horrors, I made a mistake, and realised it an hour or two later. The chap who drifted and tramped his way around Europe was the Czech organ-builder Josef Angster, and not Karl Bucholz.
However, (I'm going from semi-distant memory due to the theft of a computer containing my notes), Bucholz did, I think, pre-date Cavaille-Coll in the provision of enclosed reed choruses, which are still there in Romania more or less as he left them.
Bear with me, and I'll re-check the facts about "Mr Greenwood".......(Bucholz)
MM
It might help to get his name right first - Buchholz (beech-wood). As far as I know the major part of the family's work was in Berlin and North Germany (Mecklenburg).
JS
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It's also a superb organ, and one of the best matches of instrument and building ever achieved. It would be difficult to find an instrument that does its job better.
And to think twenty or thirty years ago it might easily have been swept away and replaced by a shiny new Rieger or Klais.
JS
Appointments
in General discussion
Posted
No. No point in dregding all that up again, but RP was before his time.
JS