mgp

Agree - and some of Widor's songs are quite attractive too. I have a Canadian CD of Violin & Piano music Musica Viva MVCD1110 (1997) which contains Vierne's Violin Sonata in G Minor - a substantial work of just over 30 mins, Guy Ropartz's 3rd Sonata & the Messiaen Theme & Variations - all excellently played

Opening is based on O Filii e Filiae and dedicated to Widor. Any sugetsions as to what what triggered Stanford into writing these sonatas - 3rd uses St Patrick's Breast[;ate & 4th Hanover.

We've gone for two events. One at the War Memorial in the Town Square tonight. The "chain gang" etc will be there and it will be outside whatever the weather. Very low key, based on the CofE Vigil. Two hymns - O God our help and Who would true valour see - Regimental Hymn - accompanied by Brass Band. There's a second service in church on 14th Sept (1st deployment of local regiment - colours laid up in the church) aimed at those unable to be present tonight. Still juggling the liturgy/music for this. Introit likely to be Lloyd Prayer for peace, Anthem Kyrie or Agnus Durufle Requiem or A New Commandment Tallis depending on the final choice of readings etc.

an alternative solution is to install a copy of XP or whatever inside Virtual Box - that way you can share files via a 'spoofed' network connection. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox

Two advantages: Less drawstops, less likelihood of overlapping their use.

Presumably there is some re-use of the H&H ranks - eg the Salicional unit?

The Adagio and Variation (3rd) sections of the Durufle Veni Creator require top F#. Demessieux Etudes require top G (and manual top C).

Sounds like 'Animae hominum' Melody by Alfred Blanchet 1868-1926. Its in Anglican Hymn Book (480), Hymns for todays Church (443), You can see (most of) it as a scorch file at http://www.jubilate.co.uk/scorch/preview/animae_hominum_arr

I'm hesitant to say too much before I get my first 'live' upfront experience of all 103 stops when I prepare to play in the RFH in July. The tender spec of late 1948 specified a set of enclosed Gt reeds and a Solo division that was - to all intents and purposes - a 'super' Cavaille-Coll Recit of the 1840/50 (Flutes 8 4, strings 8, reeds 16,8 plus two heavy pressure reeds - named Tuba probably to keep people quiet - all enclosed). (Baroque Tricks 1983 ed pp 93-5). By mid 1949 the Tubas had become Trompette/Clairon Harmonique respectively with the (now unenclosed Gt Reeds & Cornet) transferable to the Solo. At no stage did Downes contemplate an HH solo of families of Strings. Harm Flues & Orch reeds. (The first sketch included a complete 16' Cornet from 16' - 3 1/5' plus septieme 2 2/7'). Downes admits (p 133) that he DID worry about whether the organ would be powerful enough and so in late 1950(?) transformed the Solo into a 5th Principal chorus to 'support massed singing' - thereby 'clinching the organ's success in practice'. This reflected the fact that all the soundboards had already been made and there was neither time nor material to do anything else. He also acknowledges (p177) that he panicked and the organ was too loud at first - all flue pressures were reduced by 1/8" or so shortly after the 'launch'. . To my (possibly heretical) ears Downes ended up pretty near to what CC night have done in rebuilding a Cliquot or similar, preserving the classical choruses and adding symphonic voices (as in St Sulpice and elsewhere) BUT designed for a concert hall (cf the Salle des Fetes at Trocadero). There are all the classical choruses/contrasts and yet a grand symphonic whole (provided you know what to leave out of particular combinations). For the English repertoire there a perfectly good Open Wood on the Pedal, a luscious Harmonic Flute and a 'Claribel' on one of the manuals if you use your ears in exploring and not rely on eyes ticking off a list of stop names. There are even some quite good strings ...albeit with a clear recognition that dimenuendi 'a niente' effects are completely pointless in that room. I'll post my experience of the whole thing when I've been lucky enough to spend a few hours exploring later this year. mgp

and Lincoln to say nothing of some big non-cathedral jobs. The timing (just before half-term) suggests school priorities rather than church ones perhaps?

Thanks Vox - the first phrase is exactly the point HW uses for the Kyrie and the 3rd is used for the Christe. All the other movements use modified versions of one or the other.

Palestrina Missa Brevis SATB except -the wonderful Agnus II with Canon between s1& S2

I too am a WebMaster (usually building code from scratch) and I agree that live environments do occasionally throw up oddities but I'm afraid I don't accept your premise that the kinds of errors seen here are in this class. Quite simple structured testing processes (established many years ago) would have found them offline (eg links that go nowhere, cobwebs - files left on the server that are no longer linked from anywhere, css text format errors causing lines to overlap - these are not server/version specific but generic faults). Using test environment tools like XAMPP or WAMP or something as crude as QuickPHP would have thrown all of these up as would a visit to the free Google Webmaster Tools webpages. Equally, a quick post go-live test would have found them and they are still there 48 hrs later ... I appreciate this may seem harsh but a basic level of resilience/stability is the norm on the web in 2014 and anything below it rather tarnishes the image of the whole organisation.

It is certainly less than solid at present - entering "iao.org.uk/members/" leads to another set of jumbled links or "iao.org.uk/organ/" yet more..... Clearly it is in the process of being loaded and should shake down in the next 24 hrs but its not a great advert for the webmaster and hosting company's process for developing, testing & making webpages live.

And some older Harrison's had a "Swell & accomp to Ped" and a "Solo & accomp to pedal" offering another set of sub-generals.

I fully support the KISS concept and in making sure things default to the 'obvious' on power up. I've run into several situations where because of the expense/absence of room for more drawstops, various things are operated by reversible piston/light/switch only. Examples include G/P pists, Sw Trem and more at Chester , a well-hidden pair of switches converting S/G & G/P toe reversers to "-" and "+" on the sequencer (Wells) and a system that allowed any piston (including reversers) to do anything (I believe a variant of the Denham system -but I could be wrong) , In the case of Wells someone left the switches on sequencer so the addition of s/g in a quiet psalm by yours truly fired up the final tutti of the previous night's recital (Tuba-Gt and all)....Yes there was a note explaining this - buried under a pile of music. I'm agnostic on whether Gen cancel should take in G/P pists - provided the control is very visible. I did fall over this at Chester where it cancels - a small LED at the top of a stop jamb being the only indication.

I've experienced problems with a number of sites when using IE11 even though they are W3C compliant. All work fine with Chrome or F'Fox. Here ends any use of IE by me other than for compatibility testing...

There's a set of Variations on Greensleeves by David Briggs... Merry Xmas all mgp

I agree - there's some really great stuff in the two suites. I have a copy of D Roth's copy of the Diptyque made with Mme Grunenwald's permission. I believe only 1000 were ever printed by HW Gray. If you can get the OK I can supply pdf's. mgp

I'm glad that some distinction is being drawn between the sound (GBD mollified by John Bailey in th early 80's) and the appearance (pure George Pace especially the west 'back'). To my ears it sounds a much lesser instrument than in its original guise which so stimulated my ears in the early '70s (and the choir matched). I remember many occasions when a simple combination supported a verse anthem or illuminated a psalm in a way that differed so markedly from the equally colourful but oh so different Willis/Harrison in Durham (1935 & 1970 incarnations).

As one of the 'unintelligent', 'uninformed' but yet a surprised suppporter of David Lumsden, his choir and the GDB he commissioned, and who is outside the charmed circle of the cognoscenti, I hope his replacement is chosen purely on merit

I've just compared FJ's recording with John Tuttle at St Pauls Toronto (albeit rebuilt in the 50's the original instrument HW had in mind). http://www.gothic-catalog.com/Willan_Introduction_Passacaglia_Fugue_Tuttle_p/g-48629.htm FJ's is a much more 'poised' performance and a much clearer recording. Of course THAT Tuba helps! Interestingly, the St P's chorus reeds and Tubas are mostly Harrison & Harrison and it does sound more lush that the 63 Walker with its very bright mixtures.

Electrifying - Shame they cut the final reverberation off....

Guy Bovet - see http://www.guybovet.org/composition_fr.html

1st & 3rd lines of Belfry Praise (AMR 496)?