pwhodges

Exactly. See here. Paul

There's an account here of the use of Hauptwerk to extend an existing pipe organ. It's written by the man that did the work, and is agent for some of the equipment used. But it looks interesting; I like the simple idea of putting the swell speakers inside the existing swell box. Paul

That'll do Paul

(1) Reading Town Hall, Catherine Ennis's LP of largely French music - I don't so much like the programme on Adrian Partington's Priory CD, though that's after the organ was restored. (2) Hindemith Organ Sonatas, Lionel Rogg at Zurich Grossmunster (LP). The CD recordings I have don't match it. (3) Bach played by Robert Clark at Naumburg. 'Nuf said. (4) Grove Organ, Tewkesbury Abbey played by Francis Jackson - cassette of the reopening recital after its rebuild. (5) "An Organ for an Organ Scholar"; a mono LP of Cecil Clutton's house organ, showing what can done with ten stops. (6) My own private recording (with permission) of a concert I sang in at Exeter College Oxford chapel; Widor and Langlais masses with organ - yummy; in ambisonic surround too . Oh, that's reached six; and so many more to go - ah well... Reading and Tewkesbury (Grove) deserve more attention than they get, I think. Paul

I find it hard to beat this hymn, which I found in A&M (old) Standard. What child (for it was written for them) could fail to be inspired by the immortal couplet: Paul

Indeed. My son (a pianist specialising in contemporary music) and his wife (a singer with a foot in both baroque and contemporary camps) have moved to Germany for just this reason. Even while living in the UK, they were getting more work in Germany than here. Paul

I understand it has all been fixed by a team from Austria (I got this update the day the board went down). My informant tells me that: (1) many trackers distorted and stuck (more than half the pedal ones, which would have been nearest the heat source). (2) everything above 4' was unusably out of tune (puzzled by this - I naively expected this machine to be cone-tuned, which would surely be immune). (3) some reed pipes were put completely off their speech. Paul

I jest. But you would need to do more to upset this not-quite-purist. Paul

Pah! All sqeaks. Where's the reduction to nice sonorous unisons and doubles only for the last line? Paul

I have it in a Kalmus volume of Dandrieu Noels. Paul

Too late - you signed a post in the RCO thread. And I find you've neglected your blog since May... Paul

I disagree, if we're playing a game of pedants . Consider "he used the method of 1949" which can correspond to "he used the 1949 method" or "he used 1949's method"; hence "he used the method of the 1950s" corresponds to "he used the 1950s method" or "he used the 1950s' method" according to how you choose to parse "the 1950s" in the last two cases (the second seems unnatural, eliding a second "the"). But not "the 1950's" in this instance. Paul

I've just noticed where you are. I played that instrument a while ago (for my son's wedding), and I can see why so few were made! Paul

Note that there are two 2-disk sets, and the second is longer :-) Indeed, set 1 is eight music tracks on DVD-1 and the extras on DVD-2, whereas set 2 is all music tracks, 21 of them. N.B. both sets say Region 2 on the box, which differs from what's said elsewhere. Look here Paul

Maybe no-one yet - but commercial options using HW are being developed. Some sample sets are designed as archival and documentary (generally the "wet" ones") rather than for use in existing spaces; and the prices and licence conditions do vary hugely. If they are not clear, you just need to ask. True, but it's probably very competitive on quality to price ratio. Paul

You could see where this thread goes on the Hauptwerk discussion forum. Lots of discussion of interfacing different types of organ on the Hauptwerk discussion board; essentially, HW is infinitely adaptable, so as long as you can identify the midi signals you get from the console controls, you can link them to the chosen HW organs however you like. HW can be configured to start and load a given organ on power up, and to shut down the computer again on a chosen MIDI message. Paul

Is anyone? I remember Sydney, and his stammer, with great affection. When I was a chorister he was the first person to suspect that I was seriously ill (I had the early stages of TB in fact) - before the school, my parents, or my doctor; I still have his letter to my parents on the subject, explaining why he was putting less responsibility on me than my position in the choir implied. When I was a student I found that he had kept a little homemade card that I had done for him one Easter while a chorister. He was a wonderful man, and I could never ever have thought of him as "Sid", which is why I was surprised by "Sid-in-E". (Actually, in my day the choristers called him "Egghead".) Paul

The cheapest CD-Rs are indeed truly dreadful; but decent quality ones are considerably better than pressed CDs. Try looking at the error rates on a few pressed CDs with a program for checking burned CDs, and you could be surprised. Paul

I like that - but I never heard it; "M-m-me in E" was the regular one. Paul

No - that's what went in the 1970s... Paul

Oh yes, quite a bad one really. I now recall it being particularly bad on initial "m" as well as "s". Paul

But the Swell double was (as I recall) a Contra Oboe which worked very well in the psalms, and the (enclosed) Solo Tuba was rather a good one. I always enjoyed listening to it, except possibly the time that I watched S-S-S-Sydney pushing in the Great upperwork as he progressed down the last page of a Bach fugue, ending up on 16' and 8' OD#1 only. Perhaps it's a shame that he didn't oversee a rebuilding, but he could see the fashion and simply said to me when I asked about it: "But my d-d-dear boy, my s-s-successors would hate me!" - and we did get the Rieger instead Paul

It's a college chapel; they have to keep the poor dears warm, because the schools don't harden them up like they used to... And I wasn't clear - I was led to believe that the organ is not merely out of tune, but mechanically out of order. But I'm open to correction by someone with closer contacts. Paul

I gather that at the weekend the heating at Christ Church, Oxford failed. The Clerk of Works brought in some of those jet-engine-like gas heaters and put them at the west end, behind the organ. So their full output went up into the back of the organ which I am led to believe is now unplayable; and the piano's gone out of tune too... Paul

I note that there is no 4' flute on the HW, even though there are flutes at 2 2/3' and 2', which seems odd. Also Zinck is commonly the name of a high reed stop, so this 2r mixture might be an early version of the Clarion Mixture being discussed elsewhere! Paul