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I suspect this isn't helpful and that I'm liable to be shot down - but it's a thought!! Have you thought of having the organ silent during Holy Week? - except for the Gloria on Maundy Thursday thereby making it's impact even more dramatic when it really makes it's presence felt at the Gloria on Holy Saturday night - and have you thought of dramatically improvising before it on an idea from the Gloria whilst candles and lights are filling the church with light! As a reflection on the three evenings before the Triduum we used to sing unaccompanied Compline. On the Monday a chamber choir sang, made up of volunteer excellent reading members of the full choir, on Tuesday the men sang unaccompanied plainsong and on the Wednesday, after full choir practice, the full choir sang. A goodly number of the congregation would turn out on all three nights more than, I suspect, for a Meditation with readings but, of course, that might be different where you are! 'His nibs' didn't/wouldn't have to think too much about it - but it makes for a hell of a week for those members who turn out every night! Having said all of that the three evenings of Holy Week do lend themselves to meditative ceremony to which reflective organ music would be splendid - especially if put together with some helpful notes for the congregation!

I used to use Peter Maxwell Davies "Eight Songs for a Mad King" - the last three songs, as a stimulus for a Year 7 Composition Project - and very successful it was too! I absolutely agree that young people are far more receptive than a lot of the 'older generation' would think! I agree with the suggestion that Dieu Parmi Nous might be better - but there is so much music to choose from I wouldn't know where to start!

Timothy Noon is the Director of Music - ex of Liverpool Met ......................... The organist is Philip Smith from St. Peter's in Ruthin, N. Wales

Hello David It says that your message box is full!! Are you interested in a set of, I suppose, 20 vocal scores of the Durufle? If you are I know where there is a set, hardly used and bought in 1990 for a choir visit to Rome which did happen - but we decided because of the unpredictability of the organs not to do it. I think we only did it once - in the Met. at Liverpool. If you are interested I can give you the location - but it will have to be 'snail-mail' I'm afraid because I don't have an e-mail address for them. That same location also has 40 copies of the Arthur Wills and the Alan Wilson I mentioned. Somewhere I have a single copy of the Matyas Seiber - but it is among boxes as yet un-packed - but I'll try and locate it over the next few days. It's quite good and choirs enjoy it! (Found it - a photocopy - in only the 3rd box I looked in!!) Also - have you tried the Knut Nystedt - Missa Brevis - it's quite dissonant but sufficiently rhythmical for congregations not to be too offended by it!

I;m afraid that I don't have any real suggestions but I am so pleased that you seem to have no loss of function. Strokes are cruel things. My late wife and I came back from Prague in 2008 where I had been conducting a performance of the Mozart Requiem. We had a simply lovely weekend, good food, good wine but a difficult plane journey on the way back!. Two days later she had a massive stroke. She had no loss of function as such, she looked 'normal' and could walk and perform the usual bodily function tasks but she had forgotten her name, my name and the names of our children. She couldn't read or write and had little or no memory for a conversation. She was embarrassed "People will think I'm stupid" she would say and became, over the next 2 years, very much, a recluse. During the few months after the stroke we, gradually, taught her to read and write again but it was a slow process and was like teaching a small child. Sometimes she would sit and just look at the piano. We met at Cambridge where we had read Music, previous to that she won a Piano scholarship to the RCM. Now she had absolutely no idea how to begin to play. It was sad, it tore me apart and she never played again. She had other serious medical problems and, three years later, she died. I said that I had no real suggestions. I suppose the most important thing is to be patient, to keep working at it, to keep trying and don't give up! Find somebody who you trust and who knows you and your playing and who, with input from yourself, can guide you and set you realistic challenges and goals to aim at. And very good wishes to you..

Hello David In response to your request for suggestions for, not too exacting (or, presumably long!), unaccompanied Mass settings, amongst others we used to sing: Matyas Seiber – Missa Brevis – just a Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Lotti - Missa Brevis (K,S,A) Gabrieli - Missa Brevis Monteverdi - 1641 Mass – easier than the 1650 setting Josquin des Pres - MIssa Ave Maris Stella ................ and there are lots of SATB Palestrina & Victoria Mass settings These two with organ: Arthur Wills – Missa in memorium Benjamin Britten (not as difficult as it looks!) Alan Wilson – Missa Sancti Petri (again, not as difficult as it looks and a choral setting as opposed to a ‘People’s Mass’) Yes, French Masses are expensive but the Durufle Cum Jubilo for men's voices is well worth having a go at - and comes in a full score and a vocal score (and if you were really interested, I know where there are about 20 vocal scores unused and likely to remain so!) ..................... and then there are the Mass settings by Langlais - unison (In Simplicitate), two equal parts (Missa D'Escalquens), SAT or B (Missa Misericordiae Domini) & SATB (Missa Solennelle - with org.- Mass in the Ancient style - unacc.), Men's voices (Missa Salve Regina) Have you thought of spending an afternoon wading through Choral Wikip? - lots of stuff you wouldn't touch with a barge-pole - and lots of poor editing too - but there is also a wealth of good material too!

The Abbey church of St. Mary the Virgin from their website: http://www.stmarysnuneaton.org/home ORGAN - URGENT APPEAL It has been apparent for a while that our organ has major problems. We asked Cousans organ builders to survey and suggest what could be done. Their assessment concluded that: to put the instrument in good working order would cost £80,000 plus vat. Minor repairs would cost £20,000 plus vat. And just to keep it limping along in the short term would cost £5,000 plus vat. The PCC explored alternatives and discovered that we could purchase an excellent quality brand new all singing all dancing digital instrument for around £20,000 installed. We were left a generous legacy towards this but we are still £5,000 + short. We will have to start an appeal and on Epiphany Sunday (5th Jan) we are be having a Gift Day. .

I have quite a number of recollections of Priscilla Jackson. This isn't the time or the place for them but I know, only too well, how Francis will be feeling at the moment, he and Priscilla were married for a very, very long time. What I found most comforting at this time were, certainly, messages of condolence from friends far and wide, some of whom I knew well, others who were just acquaintances, but also the assurance of prayers for my late wife, who had gone to the God that she so firmly believed in, and for me who was totally devastated at her loss. Francis, I don't know whether you will read this but be assured of my prayers for Priscilla who, I know you will miss so much, and for yourself! May she rest in peace and rise in Glory.

I've just come back from doing a funeral in a church I had never been to before. I got there early and found the organ lurking in a back gallery. It made a change, it was eminently playable, no problems. I went 'downstairs' to find the priest to see what he wanted me to do and was confronted by a church 'worthy'. "Are you the organist"? he asked. I replied in the affirmative. "Sometimes it trips its switch" he said, "If it does it during the funeral come and get me". I asked him where he would be "Oh", he said, without a further thought "I'll be serving the Mass on the Sanctuary". I wondered for a moment what was going to happen if the organ 'tripped its switch' during a hymn and what I would do!!! It made a nervous hour! Another electrical 'problem' which I think I have recounted before here was at a church in Birmingham playing a funeral on an electronic. The Priest was late and the church was locked and I found myself waiting outside with a lady who clearly knew the church 'set-up' "Are you the organist?" she asked. When I told her I was she told me "You know those buttons under the keys?. Well, don't press the second one along" I asked her why! "It cuts all the electricity out in the church. During the service I had cause to, quickly, change registration and, without thinking, pressed the 2nd piston under the Great Organ. She was right - it did!!!

In the 'Parish Evensong' debate. Our Parish Mass was a real mixture - of old and new - in English and in Latin - using polyphony and plainsong as well as settings by composers working today but always trying to make sure we remembered what Vatican II was about! We tried really hard to make sure that the congregation felt part of it and not just spectators at a musical event! But we used to sing Vespers, once a month, on a Sunday evening. It was,essentially, a choral service followed by Benediction. There would be an introit, sung opening sentences and a hymn. The choir would sing the Psalms antiphonally between men unaccompanied and women accompanied by organ followed by a choral Magnificat from the 'Anglican' tradition! Into Benediction with an alternating choral and hymn tune 'O Salutaris' and 'Tantum Ergo', followed by a hymn, either choral or congregational, to Our Lady. Usually there were 35/40 in choir and the congregation sometimes made double figures - in a Parish with a Mass attendance of 3000! The Parish Priest thought it was important, and that numbers were unimportant, and so did we! Sometimes in the quiet of the Abbey I would look at the reredos at the High Altar, carved by a German brother who couldn't speak English, and think of those generations who had worshiped God in that place. ........................ and then we got a new Parish Priest! I'll leave you to work out what happened - but it didn't take him long!

http://www.uquebec.ca/musique/orgues/france/amiensnd.html It appears that only the case is left from the 1429 instrument! http://www.uquebec.ca/musique/orgues/orguef.html Here you will find all kinds of gems!!

It often happens - and, as noted by Paul Morley, a discreet note in the Order of Service always helps (there was no note in today's particular Order of Service). I remember well this happening years ago, one Maundy Thursday when the Queen was giving out the Maundy at Ripon. The congregation very loudly and heartily began singing 'All people.... ' during the organ introduction! I can't remember exactly what happened after that! And yes, Vaughan Williams complained bitterly about the peers observing pauses at the end of each line at the coronation! I thought the music today was, as always on these occasions, absolutely stunning!

There are all kinds of stories told about the Governing Body at King's College during the 1960's and most of them are apocryphal and amusingl!! True, the college did have a certain informality about it, perhaps stemming from the 1960's. Tom Sharpe's comments, I won't quote them so as not to cause any offence, in 'Porterhouse Blue' are, perhaps a little typical of other college's view of King's! Speaking personally I found that the mixture of formality and informality highly conducive to college life. Several things amused me about the clip and a lot impressed me, some have been mentioned already but what I did notice and I have noticed before on 'formal' occasions that have been broadcast, was the general lack of 'congregational' participation in the hymn - and I'm not talking about the third and fourth verses!

Thank you for that - all answers solved - why didn't I search the NPOR more carefully and realise there was a DBOB? ............... and W. Johnson is there!!! JOHNSON William Floruit: 1861-1900D Located: Moxley, Wednesbury Trade: ob worked at Bilston Congregational Church Many thanks

A friend of mine is the Parish Priest of a rather beautiful church in the ‘Black Country’ with a rather ugly three manual organ in the West Gallery that has clearly been an instrument that has had substantial additions made to it that are, visually at least, certainly not in keeping with the rest of the instrument. The original builder is given as W. Johnson with James Bird and Son having done further work to the instrument. Walter James Bird, according to the NPOR, operated around Birmingham, I think in the Selly Park area, between 1888 and the 1930’s. I know he rebuilt the organ at Coleshill in Warwickshire in 1913 and is, seemingly, the original builder of an instrument in St. Mary’s Selly Oak – the plate on the organ there gives “Bird, Selly Park”. Roy Massey suggests that Walter James Bird may be responsible for the choir organ addition at St. Alban's Conybere Street, in Birmingham I would be interested if any member can shed any light on the work of these particular organ builders. Are Walter James Bird, “Bird, Selly Park” and James Bird & Sons one and the same? How many more instruments exist from the forty-odd years of the firm’s existence Does any member know the work of W Johnson? Many thanks

Yes. I went to Mass one Ash Wednesday in Northern Germany in 1982. It was an experience that, neither I or my children, will ever forget. At the end of Mass we ended with that particular song which was transposed up for each of its innumerable verses - in exactly the way you describe! As amusing as the transposition was the fact that my, rather small, children speaking little German were able, enthusiastically, to join in with singing the first word "Danke...................." on every line?

There is a recording by Gerben Mourik - he has a website with a contact address. http://www.gerbenmourik.nl/en Hope this helps.

I looked on the Skrabi website. They have built a one manual chamber organ (Opus 266) for St. Joseph's Bradford but there is no new instrument for St. Joseph's Bradford although Skrabi do seem to have done some work in 2012 on the two manual Hopkins that, as I said in my original post, came from South Lane Methodist church in Hessle! It would be interesting, from my point of view, to know what they have done to it, the specification remains exactly the same, so, presumably it is some internal work! NPOR says nothing about Skrabi's involvement either in the new Chamber organ or the Hopkins rebuild.

Rev. Tony. Isn't the new Scrabi in St. Patrick's in Huddersfield? I always thought the instrument in St. Joseph's Bradford was the instrument built originally by Hopkins or York for South Lane Methodist church in Hessle - and transferred and rebuilt in St. Joseph's in the 1970's. It was the first instrument I ever played, when it was in Hessle, and I always hoped to make a 'pilgrimage' to Bradford to see it again at some time! I'd be sorry if the instrument had been replaced.

Succinctly and accurately put - and I couldn't agree more

Sensible man - they last forever! You find them up and down France in farmyards where the farmer has taken his ducks to market, every Thursday, since Noah was a lad!!!

You may, very well, be right but I wonder how well you know the building. It's not a big concert hall as in a large 19th century 'town hall' nor is it on the scale of 'symphony hall' in Birmingham or the 'Bridgewater' in Manchester. My feeling, having felt the hall's acoustic and looked at the specification, was that it was about right - for what it was going to be used for. Of course, the proof of the pudding (or the biscuit!) will be in the eating!! I have to say, though, that I do think that 'contrabourdun's' suggestion of the 3 manual from Biddulph is way off the mark! http://www.venuebirmingham.com/bramall

Glad you have found it. Do you know the B minor symphony for organ by Labole? - a four movement work - Prelude(?) - Fugue - Aria - Final - which is well worth playing.

You must have a very talented daughter!!! Or, perhaps, you just feel very strongly about the new console, perhaps you have to find your way around it on a regular basis! I think that, like with so many things, the French seem to have a habit of putting, what we often see as, extreme architecture or extreme style next to something or part of something that is completely 'traditional'. For those of us who have lived in France (and will again soon!!) this is quite common and the style and design of the new 'Notre Dame' console surprises me not one little bit. Having said that I'm not sure I like it but, of my four very talented children, not one of them could 'knock up' something as good as that!!