Nigel Allcoat

In my opinion there have been boundless subtle changes in music since the very earliest times. The problem of how to notate the nuances and the territorial differences in musical performance has been a perplexing subject for a number of delving musicians since notation in all its forms has evolved. I am certain. You even see it in discrete lengthening of notes that create the most complex of Gregorian melodies - in my mind providing because of no systematic pulse, a direct link with those 20th Cent works from the pen of Jehan Alain (Trois Danses) for instance or Messiaen. Quite rightly so, Improvisation is frequently at the forefront of interpretation. Much of the music I concede must surely have been captured on paper from the minds of many such improviser/composers. Therefore, before it was distilled into ink, the free spirit was just that. For many such composers, putting pen to paper when they are improvisers has been slightly more difficult than bottling a Gene. As I said before, we must put ourselves in the mind of the composer. The notes are just the indications of pitch and length. How we interpret the message to produce the mosaic of sound and silence that we all call Music is what I consider to be Performance. Registration is the orchestration. Timbre the colour, and dynamics the frame around which everything becomes alive. As stated, we have become washed by the Romantics and for some ("I have yet to play or understand the French Baroque music" we often hear or read), that earlier areas of music has been pushed further away by the newer as if an artistic galaxy. The organ constructions have changed and have not helped very much in keeping the older fires alive. As an example of this (where I think all is not what it seems and we must revel in being Baroque), comes near the start of the Buxtehude Prelude Fugue and Ciacona in C BuxW 135 - you know, after the pedal solo and you have those dashing scales after the big chords - shooting stars, I call them and which are portrayed in wood all over the organ case in St John's College, Oxford. When I was in his church in Lübeck with its vast acoustic created by a Gothic space that makes Westminster Abbey seem like a Chantry Chapel by comparison, I came to the conclusion that those scales (after Tutti chords) should be the musical equivalent of gold leaf halos in mediaeval paintings. In other words, played on a soft(er) sparkling group of registers, perhaps using nothing no lower than a 4ft as the foundation because of the speed, so that they embellish the tonality in the resulting echo and not chase it with a sound more like the score falling unevenly on the Hauptwerk. In a large acoustic for me, those scales played loudly detract from the forward resolution of the chords. I have tried this and have made students do it. You have to 'play' the acoustic though. You have to have style. You have to have it in fantastical abundance too. But the whole passage becomes quite unequal in pulse when organ and large room meet dramatic player. But it sounds hopeless without acoustic to me. No meaning. It's marvellous and sensationally dramatic in the right place with an organ up to the job. A zippy Brustwerk is just the ticket (for a change!). Swing is also an inequality that can be traced through all manner of composers. It just gets labelled in the first half of the 20th Cent. as such when it was necessary to do something about large ensembles in Jazz so that they all flowed the same way at the same time. And it's in Buxtehude dear friends too! All the best, N

This is always a fine way of getting to know music and also the multifarious organs that are strewn about France in different levels of restoration and reconstruction. However, there are not many instruments that perhaps show the more delicate flavours of the Couperin era. The Saint-Maximin instrument (with chamades) began life around 1775 I think and a couple of generations after Couperin Le Grand. We all know how styles and fashions change. The organ that Couperin knew in St Gervais was created in a new modern style of the times beginning in 1674 and finishing in 1684. Likewise the other two either date from the latter part of the 18th Century or have been reconstructed in that style by an Italian builder. We can all ponder how in the UK in any one century how music and organs changed from the Restoration or through Victoria's reign or even through our last from 1910! Granted, France was perhaps not so radical as some of our changes, but certainly fashions did change, and some of those were considerable. It is strange how we all sometimes forget that an 'old' organ must be able to play all 'old music' when in fact it is a marriage that is stylistically generations apart. Over this situation I am as a teacher, sometimes like a parent who finds the daughter is about to marry a man 76 years her senior! I was interested to read that the inner parts of the Chant movements are ornamented. The fashion was not to ornament very much - or if at all, as it creates some fussy detraction from the Cantus firmus. I have students from all countries (and a good number from France!) who ornament because they think it is old and needs to be. They are not very happy with the austerity of these movements when they see how much ornamentation is adorning others. But to me that is the evidence and furthermore someting that underlines the solemnity of the Plein jeu movements. Ornaments begin to flutter under the fingers when the strong unequal temperament creates a sourness and an ornament tempers the accidental - but that is the music influencing the player. And each time it will be different as you play it on a different organ. To jump a country - it is fascinating to actually play one Bach's most extra-wonderful works (the 'Great' B minor Prelude) and relish the almost tortuous harmonies and the chords, reminiscent of string players double-stopping, on an unequal tempered organ. One then can see why the final chord is also written so short as B Major is not the most endearing of chords to ever play with it's most prominent D#. In normal course of events in much music these notes would be tempered in certain situations by a mordant which 'wobbles a wolf', so to speak. I am sure that much of the spice and flavouring is lost in equal temp. as it so affects the player. The same can be said of French Church Modes (which must be understood before embarking on the repertoire). There are so many influences (not least the Lute, as has been pointed out - and I didn't, for thinking of it adding extra mist to the subject). The repertoire is so vastly rich and I feel so sad that in this age so few people in the UK have had a Damascus moment. To witness such a moment (as happened the other week with my organists from Oxford) is a reward and a joy that can hardly be described. You get this having again had a flight cancelled coming back from Saint-Antoine and so constantly inégale all morning. I came From Lyon via Sweelinck to Birmingham late last night. I mused whilst waiting in Schipol what all our composers from the Baroque would make of our present age of travel and common influences and how the composers and players in 200 years will move about then. As you see - I have too much time on my hands! Seasonal greetings. Nigel

Having just had my Air France cancelled this morning I am feeling most inégale - so have a moment to respond! This subject has always seemed to me to be a Pomme de terre chaude and I have never had definitive explanations or enlightenment. Furthermore great exponents of this music also seem to have differing views of it should one have the time to analyse their method. I just like to boil it all down to common sense and what you as a player feel happy with on each particular instrument. That is where I start in all this. I think we must always remember that the French as a nation have enjoyed being totally prescriptive. We have only to read the 'menus' of registration that a goodly number of composers thought necessary to write down for others to do justice to their music. But we forget that (as I personally think they sometimes did - even César Franck) that each organ is different and each is placed in a room offering entirely different acoustics. Their specific registrational schemes (wonderful for historical purposes nonetheless) are quite idiosyncratic and perhaps demonstrated the music in the best light on their own instrument. The schemes however, give us a very fine indication of the timbre they were thinking of and so I suggest we must use our ears on each instrument to find the optimum musical sound to do it justice. I write this, because in a way it sets a theoretical precedence when coming to other matters. Notes inégales belong to my mind to the world of ornamentation. And as we should know, this is an area mostly of improvisation - a spontaneous adorning of the music to give a note a highlight or a greater definition to take a couple of instances. The organ is a 'straight' sound, unlike the piano, harpsichord or voice. To give indication of pulse we have to lengthen some notes and shorten others. This in itself is producing inégale. The organ demands such nuance - for within a musical passage nuance is the watchword. French music is more akin to the Vocal whilst more Germanic is Instrumental. One has only to see how frequently the word Récit is attached to movements. Certainly in much 17th & 18th Cent. French organ music I think a good method to help embrace this music is to sing certain sections of it. The voice is the core influence in French organ music. And it is surprising how the voice lends itself so naturally to adding simple ornamentation and notes inégales. Why? It is for me because the voice is free and more expressive - a little like a folk singer who is quite uncluttered by formal musical education. They simply and straightforwardedly hit the mark by heartfelt performance. The organ is not the most expressive of instruments (not in a phrase sense) and we must make it so. Therefore by adding careful pathos or at other times elegance for instance, we get into the spirit of this extraordinary music in a better way I think. We have to stop the organ sounding like an organ. For me, the notes are dead on the page until we inject artistic haemoglobin to bring them back to life and off the page through our fingers and feet. If any would like a totally general rule of thumb on this matter, I would suggest the following. 1. An inequality of note length comes only when a group of notes move step-wise and not via intervals. 2. If one wants to be totally pedantic about the exactness of notes inégales (which it is to my mind a fruitless exercise), where the movement is in quavers (1/4 notes) when a Crotchet (1/2 note) is the beat (or the like, depending on the initial beat as some say that only half beats in the pulse are played thus) it is as if the music is played in a Compound Time with the first note being 2/3's and the second, the final 1/3. But if this is just done in a theoretical way the music sounds gruesomely stilted and totally heartless. A Theory has stifled spontaneous Art. And at the other end of all this comes the thinking that by dotting ( a ratio this time of 3/4 to a 1/4 between quavers), this makes the music trite and quite devoid of expressiveness to me. This is Gallant and few kilometres away from what is suggested by notes inégales in my opinion. I liken this sort of playing (by players thinking they are 'going French' by dotting everything willy-nilly), to those a few decades ago who by adding Positives to Romantic organs or changing a Mixture here and there, had a hope that they had miraculously transformed their organ into a German Bach organ. To actually transform one's playing in this matter, I earnestly suggest going somewhere to a wonderful expressive instrument in France and playing a Récit of any description (Nazard, Chromorne, Tierce etc.) and only on suspended action. This action is the most expressive of them all and obviously was a fruitful marriage between builder and player/composer. Do not be enticed away from the beauteous registers to play a Grands jeux or even a Plein jeu movement however great the temptation to batter the fabric of the building! Get to the heart of the organ first. Let the organ be the teacher if the ears be open and the mind receptive. Inégale playing is to me the musical equivalent of an upper lip quiver from Dame Judy Dench - a gesture that speaks volumes yet is quite unwritten on the page. Seasonal froliques. Nigel PS - all this above is purely personal and has come about through decades of playing and teaching and also what excites me in this music. It also comes from playing often these instruments. Others of course, will be entirely different in their thoughts. Good. That is the refreshing part of Music.

Specification We shall all no doubt be eager to see and hear the finished product in its Germish reincarnation. Best wishes, N

Having heard a rather intriguing lecture* concerning The Reverend SIR FREDERICK ARTHUR GORE OUSELEY (1825-1889) and also having done a little delving to gain a prize on here concerning the emergence of undulants in the UK, I think that this gentleman was a far greater influence on our organ and music scene than we realize. The Hill/Gauntlett fusion seems to have taken centre stage, but I am beginning to think that the guy in the shadows of history played an equal, if not a greater part in organ design. That we can assume to have had an undulant two years or so before Cavaillé-Coll in France could quite possibly be down to him, I suggest. It only takes a thesis or two or a strong paragraph in a book to increase the shadow. Best wishes, N * Dr Jim Berrow - Diocesan Advisers' Conference, Huddersfield, 1st September 2009

I would hazard a guess that the Haarlem St Bavo organ has always had an attraction since it was built. Just the vision of it is enough to attract people. The young Mozart or those who were escorting him, thought that he should play it. It is an iconic instrument, whether in its original state or in its 1960's state. One thing is certain - it is a monument in every sense. It is a sight (coupled with history perhaps) that rather did for my very first time there when I was booked in to rehearse for a broadcast at the start of my career. It was towards the end of the day and I used my key to enter on the South side of this vast building. I made my way into the church and in the dying light of the early evening I spied the organ. Pictures had never conditioned me for this moment. I was violently ill - the emotion far too much to cope with. Thus, I never played a note! Regardless of what it was like before Marcussens or after, nothing can ever take away the aura that surrounds this musical instrument. There are some stories surrounding the building and its organ that not too many people know. The occupation in the last War was swift and the folk of Haalem had little time to dispose of treasures. And anyway, the organ is rather too large to suddenly secret away over night. Nevertheless, the town's authorities secretly constructed a monumental concrete roof (above the wooden one) and over the organ so that a direct hit would perhaps save some of the organ, if not all. It must be around 5 or 6ft thick. It is there to this day. Extraordinary to see. Secondly the great screen separating Nave from Choir which is Brass or Bronze, could not be taken away also and so using a true Dutch tradition it was painted but to look like wood! It too survived intact. Sorry to bore with anecdotes. I just felt in the mood as I wistfully sat in my study dreaming of Haarlem and listening to Piet Kee playing from there. Best wishes, Nigel PS To keep the topic alive - yes, it is a most wonderfully positioned organ too.

I would also suggest that it is neater (and simpler at a glance) when the labels are handwritten. I would believe that when engraved, it became more common to have the fractions as opposed to the rounding-up. N

Are you sure it was Martin? I was on the Jury there with his father, Hans and I believe he was once (if not more times) a winner. N

As we know (from Christmas cards) all organists are Angels so, what is the translation of "Give us the wings of Faith"? Will the cry from a-loft be Geben Sie uns die Flügel des Glaubens?

Deleted at the request of Mander Organs

Deleted at the request of Mander Organs

And only to be used when Her Majesty, The Duke of Lancaster attends?

I thought about the same size as a Duchy Original. N

No position of any musical instrument (and I include the Choir in this), is well served by the modern approach to furnishing churches. It seems there is a fashion to lay carpets in all manner of places - even between choir stalls - and to have fabric chairs of un-penitential plushness. I have come across churches who are now quite displeased with the pipe organ and wanting to go digital because the actual 'presence' and carrying power of the organ has been diminished quite considerably because of Axminster. Architects and PCC's need to be forever mindful of acoustics I think. Any undue difficulties in audibility seem in their minds to be overcome by microphones and extra speakers. But the organ suddenly is left high and dry. Most start off with a difficult position and such unhelpful additions to buildings can be the death notice to choir and organ alike. I would seriously start a campaign to bring back acoustical awareness in our churches - certainly those of mediaeval provenance. All these extras make for a really difficult life for the organ which in some places is its death warrant. The Microphone has also produced a lazy society in reading properly, I think. The actual necessity of singing/intoning/chanting has almost entirely disappeared - singing, that was integral to the greatest liturgical moments. Those churches that proclaim "Sung Eucharist" think that it sometimes describes that the Choir will sing their 'numbers' when actually (as far as I have always remembered it, but please correct me), it is the Priest/Deacon that sings the Gospel, Preface etc. of the Eucharistic Liturgy that pronounces the service as Sung. I personally find it so incongruous that in Greater Places, choirs sing without reinforcements whilst the spoken word is. By all means have 'the loop' but for only huge occasions, use a microphone for the speakers. Projection! Clarity! Succinct notices! The organ is on decidedly dodgy ground when the ambiance is changed and I suggest that it is one argument to add to the debate on behalf of the acoustic when such matters are being raised. What do others think? Best wishes, Nigel

Strangely enough I can. It is the wonderful organ of 1770-1772 built by Guillaume Robustelly for the Abbey Church in Averbode (Belgium). In 1822 it was transferred to Helmond (Brabant), in the Church of Sint Lambertus. The church was taken down and the large neo-Gothic building that we see today was then constructed with Smits rebuilding/re-erecting the organ in 1860-1862 into the new church where it is quite a sensational instrument in the West Gallery. This part of the church was designed for it and fits perfectly, of course. Therefore this is the organ's third home, but twice on the same spot. However, it is like a musical tourist left behind in a different musical world. A wonderful case and a sound that is quite unlike that normally associated with The Netherlands' organs. (Thanks to the countless people here for the kindly Emails. I took heed of them, as you can see.) Best wishes, N

And this makes me want to leave again. Win some. Lose some. All the best John. Take my place.

There is a sort of sequence as sometimes I see myself playing on my village organ in France (in a jumper my mother knitted in Lorraine) which is hardly IAO territory - but a touch flattering! Best wishes, N

Deleted at the request of Mander Organs

And still furthermore - I am tracing things through Sir Frederick (what a guy!) - his first Curacy was at St Paul's, Knightsbridge and Gray & Davidson in 1843 had put a Voix celestes on the Choir of that instrument. That then pre-dates Cav-Coll in Paris doesn't it as La Mad was 45/46? Therefore we may deduce that this was the first example and the UK led France by un moustache. Can I claim my prize? N

And yet I forget Sir Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley at Tenbury. He was an extraordinary figure and perhaps less known as a designer than he should. I feel sure that he had a Celeste quite early on at St Michael's College on the Choir. This must have mid-1850's & before Willis went there in 1873, when his reconstruction/rebuild removed the Celeste! Win some - lose some. So if the Flight/Harrison organ of around 1854/5/6 was 'celestial', I imagine that his was the first in the land to have an undulant. He was a traveller and I think that he came across such stops on his early travels. Perhaps St Barnabas Pimlico had the first as Flight built that for Sir Frederick in about 1850. Anyone know? N

But wasn't the Dulciana of 1847 then made into an undulant in a subsequent enlargement and called Vox Angelica, David? By my thinking there was no particular string on the Swell in the first Willis but had 2 Open Diapasons. Now there we could have had a Fiffaro had he experimented! (Wishful thoughts, here). To show how things were moving on apace the 1867 instrument by Holdich for the Union Chapel and designed by one of those in the fore-front of British design (Gauntlett) and for his own use as a Congregational and accompanimental organ, he did not include any such stop. When it was shortly removed and installed by Holdich in my home town (1878), Hinckley it lost a few 'antiquated' stops like an Echo Dulciana Cornet V on the Swell and a Voix célestes put in its stead. We may assume how swiftly fashions were changing. Furthermore Gauntlett's replacement new organ by Williis (for his assistant, Prout?) of 1877 for the Union Chapel possessed a Vox angelica. However, Gauntlett died the year before it was built, but I wonder whether he was part of the designing in the years in-between when the new chapel was being built. best wishes, N

If it sheds light and as far as my memory goes, it crept northwards from Italy through Southern Germany and thence into France where Cavaillé-Coll I think introduced a Voix céleste on the unenclosed Positif of La Madeleine in Paris in 1846. I thought that England had its first taste (but have no knowledge of the organ) with henry Willis in the 1860's where it too was unenclosed on the Choir called Vox angelica and T.C. Lewis might have begun the tradition of positioning real strings on the Swell & he, at the end of that decade, was suggesting organs with two contrasting undulants. Therefore, I imagine that we must trawl through the list of Henry Willis organs of that time and see what could be the answer. A good thing to do when the snows arrive! Best wishes, N

It must always be remembered that the organ in Leicester came around the time that the building was elevated to cathedral status and the first organist was Gordon Slater who came from the grand church (and organ H & H basically) of St Botolph, Boston (hence the hymn tune naming). The Walker organ was stashed in a biggish North Transept position (behind the present choir stalls under the tower/spire crossing). In the re-ordering to go with its new status the building had a face lift with a dense chancel screen blocking Nave from Choir (which is and always has been a dreary separation musically) in a truly unlovely acoustic. The cathedral required to have complete openness all about the aisles to the High Altar and therefore the old organ (in its Snetzler case - rather like Kings Lynn) had to go. The Choir was embellished with new Canon/Choir stalls but a Choir gallery at the West End under the window was also constructed. The organ was positioned at the west end of the North Aisle and the console placed up on the gallery to one side of it. Matching Choir and Solo cases flanked the West window above the choir in the gallery making a symmetrical ensemble. However, for most of the services, the choir sang in the Choir which was beyond the Nave and Crossing and screen with the organ in another street, in reality. Certainly the Stopped Diapason I was told, came from the Snetzler organ. For really large services the choir returns to the Gallery and the organist is very much part of the ensemble, although the huge Great and Swell faces into the North Aisle in front of the choir and thus is not of much use. However, the Choir department is directly above the choir, as is the Tuba and Solo (which is boxed on the South side opposite the Choir which is directly above the console. The casework actually belies the largeness of the main organ chamber. My very first Tuba ever heard was in Leicester when I was about 6 years old. The 'sensation' has remained with me to this day. It came at the announcing of "O Come. all ye Faithful" at the annual Bach Choir Christmas concert. It was played as a solo in the Tenor register (by itself) by the Cathedral's Assistant Organist - Sydney Rudge. Next to thunder, it was the loudest sound that I had ever heard up to that point, and with dire consequences as I peed myself. Being a new Cathedral, the organ had to have an organ of up-to-date Cathedral status and I imagine that it served as a model of what was the necessary sort of instrument to possess in those days. Anyway, I would suggest that the Walker was badly placed to reach the other side of the endless-aisled Nave - one of the widest in the land) for Diocesan services and if made to, would have killed the Choir in front of it. Putting all musical resources in one place (at the West End) must have been a bold and radical move in its day. Therefore, it became a part of the re-ordering and which very soon will again feature in the new 'vision'. This was the fashion and taste to accompany the liturgy in those days. Best wishes, N Certainly I remember playing on a leathered 1st Diapason and having my early lessons registered for a large H & H instrument.

I have no idea what the pressures are now but the Gt Reeds are certainly Trumpets and not the huge round-toned reeds that are boxed away from the former instrument. The Harmonics went to Quints under Peter White's residency and a dreary change from Pneumatic to Electric action under H N B and did not work at all well with the Trombas to which the Harmonics were intended as married partners. This was an excellent case of seeing why Harmonics and Trombas went together. Take one away, and you spoil the original reasoning. So it was inevitable that leaving the Mixture unchanged from the 1970's rebuild, the reeds had at sometime to follow. But for 'conservation' purposes, the Trombas are kept. The present reeds are certainly Chorus-based and the 16ft useful (thought the Gt Reeds on Choir) to be on the pedal before the vast pedal reed (matching the Tuba in decibels) is engaged with its usual Harrison extension to 8ft. One thing that was made far better by H & H recently was the winding to the Choir division (in its own Case) which was never satisfactory, even in the original organ. I hear that there is to be a great redesigning of the Cathedral - so how the organ in its present position will fit in, I have no idea. It is a building of strange proportion and design. We wait & see. Best wishes, N

I think that I am right in saying that the 3 H & H Trombas on 10" or 12" at Leicester Cathedral have been substituted by H & H for Trumpets and the originals boxed and stored in the building. They were greatly loved by Dr Gray who had been (with Francis Jackson) students of Bairstow and who told me many tales of the original instrument from the first quarter or so, of the 20th Century in York. The H & H Tuba (on 15") at Leicester is still unchanged and provides the rest of the county and parts of the neighbouring ones, with an example of that stop. Best wishes, Nigel