petergunstone
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Posts posted by petergunstone
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2 hours ago, DaveHarries said:
Ah I see where you are coming from. If you watch the video of the announcement in the cathedral Dr. Plyming says at one point: "I know Durham Cathedral as a place of worship and as a former chorister whose faith came alive in services of Choral Evensong I look forward to seeing its worshipping tradition flourish." I may have made a slight error in assuming that he meant Choral Evensong at Durham: I have just found a bit in which he says that he "went to church as a child but came to a personal faith in Christ while at university." His entry on Wikipedia says that he studied Russian and German at Robinson College, Cambridge where he gained a BA in 1996. ANyway if he was a chorister, regardless of wherever, then there is the church music connection.
Thanks. Indeed, Philip is very musical, appreciates a wide range of musical styles, and gets the role of music (or various musicks) in worship. A wonderful appointment from this and many other points of view.
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12 hours ago, DaveHarries said:
Yep, with pleasure. It was only announced on Friday 16th June 2023.
Video of announcement (from Durham Cathedral's Facebook Page):
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=277615614814080Announcement from Diocese of Durham Website:
https://www.durhamdiocese.org/diocesan-news/-philip-plyming-appointed-as-new-dean-of-durham.phpInstallation, according to the announcement by Bishop Paul, is set for Saturday 16th September.
Dave
Sorry, I should have been more specific. My question was about your comment: "The connection with church music is that Dr. Plyming is, as he himself said at his announcing, also a former chorister of Durham Cathedral." The formal announcement, nor the Q&A included any reference to this, as far as I can see. Could you give a reference for this?
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12 minutes ago, DaveHarries said:
A snippet related, albeit slightly, to church music as well as clergy matters. On Friday morning it was announced by the Bishop of Durham that the next Dean of Durham Cathedral; is to be Rev. Canon Dr. Philip Plyming who trained for ordination at, and is currently warden of, Cranmer Hall and a member of the college of canons of Durham Cathedral. The connection with church music is that Dr. Plyming is, as he himself said at his announcing, also a former chorister of Durham Cathedral.
HTIOI,
DaveReally? I trained at Cramner with Philip as warden and he never mentioned this. Could you provide a reference for this, please?
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6 hours ago, peterdoughty said:
Items 61-64 on page 20 of the appendices are interesting - seems to suggest the organ is permanently but minimally miked. Is that for their own use or the BBC/broadcast I wonder?
From the introductory comments concerning the purpose of phase 2 of the works, the convenient live-streaming of recitals seems to be at least part of the anticipated use.
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This doesn’t answer your question about the organ but is perhaps useful background information.
The central aisle (nave & choir) is entirely laid out in collegiate form. The choir used to sing at the west end. The choir has moved to the east end on account of scaffolding in the nave and ante-chapel related to conservation and lighting works. The new organ is described as temporary.
https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/news/oxfords-cathedral/seeing-cathedral-different-light
As the east end is a more acoustically pleasing space for choral music (more stone, less wood), I wonder if this is also a time of experimentation concerning the liturgical layout of the building.
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I suspect that this recording was made using the organ of St Edmundsbury Cathedral where Philip Banks (presumably father of the organist, Ben) is Precentor. The shape of the loft and style of the console are certainly reminiscent of that place.
I assume that the lime-washed wood is a relic of the former decoration scheme of the organ and loft.
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Thanks for a very interesting post.
4 hours ago, Clavecin said:True 32's flue and reed stops in A.C-C organs are surprisingly rare beasts.
Could you point me to some literature on this point?
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8 hours ago, Jonathan Dods said:
I know our Basson was noted as 'acoustique" on the draft stop list the builders sent because it was half length in the bottom octave. Odd that they'd want to note it on the stop head, but maybe it doesn't have the same baggage as acoustic (or as our old organ had it 'accoustic') in the UK?
Paul & Jonathan - thank you, this seems to be the most likely explanation.
You raise an important point concerning nomenclature, Jonathan - the word ‘acoustic’ does carry a certain value here.
Concerning why an adjective might be added to the name of a stop, the funny thing is that we find qualitative adjectives completely normal for Harmonic, Doppel, or Lieblich Flutes, Open, Stopped, or Stentor Diapasons, etc, let alone adjectives concerning their pitch and genre.
So, if a Trumpet and Harmonic Trumpet, why not a Bombarde and Bombarde Acoustique?
Perhaps it is because - sometimes - such half length stops are seen as compromises? I rarely hear someone arguing positively for a half length stop!
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23 hours ago, DariusB said:
Hi Peter, hope you're keeping well.... It's probably a version of the artificial 32' reed that Compton used to make. I don't think they all had the same composition, but the one I've heard was surprisingly convincing. I can't remember where that was, but there's a composition of one here which looks extraordinary.....
https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N07503
Darius
Hi Darius, thanks and gosh - what an alarming composition! But, I understand that Compton used to set up (wire up!) these stops on site, to achieve the best effect. So, perhaps it worked well?!!!
Whilst such stops are sensible in organs that use extension, as no such derivation seems to be the case at Erveux, this seems unlikely to me for the case in point. But, I could be wrong!
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22 hours ago, contraviolone said:
It's just a resultant stop.
My question really concerns what sort of resultant stop this is, i.e. what is its specific composition? There has been much discussion of Harmonic/Acoustic/Resultant Basses of the soft a flue-quality variety and Pedal Cornets, but this (and the example above that DHM has drawn our attention to) seems to be in a different category.
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1 hour ago, DHM said:
Perhaps a "Harmonics of..." like this one? https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N01917
Interestingly, the previous specification for that organ includes a note, saying "Harmonics of 32 ft V is based on Pedal Trombone and Tromba with some quinted pipes from Open Wood and Open Metal" https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N01917
Returning to the Quorin organ at Evreux, it is an intriguing stop given that the pedal division is small, and that the other stops in that division are effectively a kind of 'Harmonics of 32' already.
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Could anyone enlighten me as to what an Acoustic Bombarde 32’ might be?
An organ that a recently released Jonathan Scott recording uses features one (see description for specification):
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On 12/12/2020 at 19:12, mrbouffant said:
Not a lot of money in cathedral music making, is there? At least accommodation is provided (tax free) which I guess must be the equivalent of another 20K gross on the base, approximately.
I'm not sure that "equivalent" is a fair term to use here. Whilst one might benefit from provided accommodation in terms of immediately reduced outgoings on account of said accommodation, one potentially loses the longer term opportunity of investing in one's own estate. Whilst I it is fair to reckon to offset some expenses when accommodation is provided, it isn't fair to consider such an offset in terms of a 1:1 ratio. Moreover, whilst the use of a property within the cathedral's estate may seem like a privilege, for all that privilege, the occupant may have otherwise chosen to live elsewhere, and simply accepted that provision as a part of (or, indeed, condition of) the employment package.
My simple point is to agree with you that there is, indeed, "not a lot of money in cathedral music making" from the perspective of this role. And then there is the lot of lay clerks...
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On 31/12/2007 at 16:53, Vox Humana said:
I think I would put the fugue at around grade 6 standard, but the prelude is harder - grade 7 or even grade 8.
The Prelude was an ABRSM Grade 5 piece in 1993. I know because I played it in that exam!
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1 hour ago, OwenTurner said:
Anything an employee gets given by employer for free is taxed as a benefit in kind in schedule D income tax.
Except, I understand, accommodation in cases where it is an occupational requirement/condition of service that one lives in accommodation provided for the necessary fulfilment of duties, e.g. house parents in a school, a minister of religion living in a house specified for their role.
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10 hours ago, DariusB said:
Thought I'd split this from the 'choir pits' thread as there seem to be two separate discussions going on.....
Someone said that in venues with two consoles, the attached one is rarely used. Just speaking from experience at the Bridgewater Hall, the attached console is nearly always used for orchestral concerts, as the mobile one takes up too much stage space when there's a large orchestra. The attached console has a much nicer and well-crafted feel but of course you can't hear the internal balance of the organ at all. On the other hand, the mobile console has a slightly light and plastic-y feel (I have heard that it was bought in and not made by Marcussen themselves, but can't confirm that).
On Barry Oakley's comment 'if only they'd used a reputable British builder' - not sure if that was tongue in cheek but historically aren't British builders are just as prone to miscalculation as anyone else? Similar remarks were probably made to the Manchester city fathers 150 years earlier when they chose Cavaille-Coll to build the Town Hall organ - which has been a fantastic legacy.
Almost twenty years ago, when the composer Anwen Lewis and I were delivering “Organ Works”, a Key Stage 2 educational project at the Bridgewater Hall, the attached console of the Marcussen organ played an important role. That the console is physically part of the instrument helped the children to understand that they were encountering not just some sound-producing machine, but an organ, a unity with which they could interact in a tactile way.
On their first visit to the hall, I used to guide the children to play a key on the Positive 8ft Principal, Gedeckt or Quintadena (IIRC). It seemed to me that the sense of physical connection with the instrument that the attached and mechanical console offered was a significant moment in the whole programme of encountering, beginning to understand the expressive possibilities of, and compose for that organ. Such intimacy is an immensely valuable experience of the organ, one that is physically different from that at the mobile console.
(That said, we did use the mobile console for the group performances of compositions on the second visit, for practical reasons.)
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Very sad news. My thoughts and prayers are with the company and all others who will be impacted by this.
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Yes. When I was MD at St Andrew’s, North Oxford, it was as, if not more likely, that a wedding couple from the congregation would request band-led music than the organ (although often this was in addition to, rather than instead of, the organ).
Such engagements did not feature as a part of the ‘general duties’ of the band. I mention this because the participation of individuals in ‘the band’ (in reality, a collective of about 40 musicians who indicated their availability and whose involvement I programmed) was voluntary. So, their involvement at a wedding would be on the same basis. As the employed MD, I was the only person with ‘general duties’.
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9 hours ago, Damian Beasley-Suffolk said:
Riffing a bit on the topic of compact subbass registers from the house organ thread, I read that Buckfast has installed an electronic 32' stop. [...]
Details at: https://viscountorgans.net/contra-bourdon-for-buckfast-abbey/
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I had the privilege of reading the fascinating correspondence between Edward Bairstow and Arthur Harrison concerning the rebuilding of the organ in Leeds Parish Church. This was in Harrison & Harrison’s archive.
From my recollection, Bairstow was anything but a passsive client when it came to matters of tonal design and the disposition of the console. In particular, I recall their correspondence featured a polite but robust conversation concerning the arrangement of the stops: ease of hand registering was a strong driver for Bairstow. I think that Bairstow wanted the swell stops to be arranged around the strings, flutes, Vox Humana and tremulant being in close proximity, rather than a straight flues by pitch then reeds.
Robert, I wonder if similar correspondence exists between Bairstow and Harrisons concerning any of these or other aspects the 1931 York rebuild? I wonder what they discussed!
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Recently announced on Škrabl's website, a new IV/48 organ 'following the work of' Cavaillé-Coll, using 'only part of' the existing instrument: http://www.skrabl.co.uk/news-item.asp?NID=42
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Nicholsons are to undertake a major rebuild, including replacing the mechanical actions with electro-pneumatic:
http://www.nicholsonorgans.co.uk/portfolio/rugby-rugby-school-chapel/
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Some further details are available here: http://fhbrowneandsons.co.uk/portfolio/st-john-the-evangelist-mongeham/
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F.H. Browne have recently published the following picture of their new organ for Mongeham
Appointments 2
in General discussion
Posted
Bradford Cathedral seek an Interim Sub-Organist and Assistant Director of Music:
https://www.cofepathways.org/members/modules/job/detail.php?record=5759