Colin Pykett
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Posts posted by Colin Pykett
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I shouldn't imagine the BBC has anything against the organ per se. Rather, it probably has more to do with meeting the interests of the majority of listeners. The BBC quite likely thinks that there wouldn't be much point wasting even more hundreds of kilowatt-hours of RF energy by broadcasting to an R3 audience which is already tiny enough as it is. The organ just isn't up there at all when it comes to matters like this. Example - how many people actually knew it was International Organ Day yesterday? It's not just the BBC as I listened to a good few hours of Classic FM on and off throughout the day and it never figured at all. Then there's its repertoire - although large, much of it is regarded as absolute rubbish by an educated musical public, and they have a point. The majority of people I meet deride things like Franck's L'Organiste even if they've come across it, Elgar's Vesper Voluntaries, S S Wesley's later output consisting of endless Andantes etc, and so on. Even some of the latter's finest pieces such as the Larghetto in F sharp minor or the Andante in F are in the 'slow and funereal' category which typifies much organ music in the mind of many, and bores them to death. And, of course, a definite downside is that you have to go to church more often than not to hear live performances. And so it goes on.
At the time I thought the BBC did us a favour by broadcasting a homage to the organ, lamenting the way it is vanishing, at Christmas 2022. What a bitter taste arises now that we know more about the man who presented it, himself an organist, though the blame for that can hardly be laid at the door of the BBC. But from time to time, programmes like this show that they do at least try.
I'm not saying that I hold or support these views myself, but I can understand to some extent those who do. As I've said before on here more than once, until the organ world starts to comprehend the mindset of the 'customer' for the organ in its broadest sense, things are unlikely to get better, and they might even get worse.
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Without getting further involved in the religious aspects, I have to agree. These sentiments remind me of a professional musician friend, though not an organist, who disparages the organ as 'the lackey of the church', in addition to his dislike of it as a 'horrifyingly inexpressive instrument'. Although these are only his opinions they appear to be quite widely held among musicians more generally. Even a very well known pipe organ builder once referred to the products of his firm merely as inexpressive instruments played via 'an ivory-covered switchboard'.
For what it's worth, my opinion is different and it can be reduced to something along the lines of 'if it was good enough for Bach then it's good enough for me', and a lot of his output was either transcendentally absolute or secular and disassociated with religion. But the point surely has to be this - FACT: the organ is closely wedded to and identified with the church; FACT: the church seems to be of little (and decreasing) interest to the majority of the population; DEDUCTION: therefore the organ is also of little (and decreasing) interest to them as a musical instrument.
I wish things were otherwise. From time to time, others here have said that the salvation for the organ increasingly lies in relatively cheap electronic organs in the home. For instance, you can currently get a new 2 M/P one with lots of stops and several different voicing options using the very latest sound-engine technology for under £9k. Second hand prices of decent instruments can be as little as £2k (not long ago on the same manufacturer's website). You just plug it in and off you go (quite different to VPOs, which either require an educated DIY-er or a plug-and-play one which is significantly more expensive). However, whether this will ever be enough of a compensatory 'salvation' in the long term remains to be seen. I've had a succession of electronic instruments in my home for over half a century, but most visitors (save the tiny minority who play themselves) merely express polite curiosity, at best, in my presence. When out of earshot my spies tell me they are significantly less restrained, such as the one who apparently raised loud titters at a dinner party at which I was not present by saying 'most people satisfy themselves with body building, but Colin prefers organ building'. You can pretty much guess at the pornographic channels the well-lubricated conversation degenerated into after that, apparently! (He was my boss at the time, by the way). I expect most of us have experienced something similar. In the big wide world out there, organists and their instrument are regarded as little more than weird nowadays.
So is there really any hope for the organ in the long term? There could be, seeing that we have a King who is a convert to the cause who has an impressive track record of badgering powerful vested interests into action over things like architecture and the environment. At least, it might help.
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I might be behind the curve on this one, but have only recently become aware that the King has concerns for the future of the organ and related matters such as the shortage of organists. For instance, the following appeared in The New Yorker concerning advice he sought from Andrew Lloyd Webber (having written this, I hope the latter will forgive my informality - I think his correct title is actually The Lord Lloyd-Webber):
A few years ago, he [the King] urgently summoned the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber to his office to present an idea. "He was worried about . . . the fact that there wasn’t enough access for young people to go and learn how to play the church organ,” Lloyd Webber told the Washington Post. In April, 2021, Charles marked International Organ Day with a message to the Royal College of Organists, urging its members to secure the future viability of what, as he reminded them, Mozart had described as the “King of Instruments.
(The link to the Washington Post article is best followed from within the above extract itself - it doesn't seem to have imported properly here).
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37 minutes ago, pwhodges said:
... even with a single pedal stop, there will be places where you get cancellation or reinforcement on odd notes (different at each place, so making an "ideal" microphone position hard to achieve - maybe this is a case where multimiking has an advantage over single-point techniques!) ....
Paul
Yes indeed, and worse with large stopped (as opposed to open) flue pipes because they only speak from a single aperture (the mouth). Open flues speak from two apertures (top and mouth) which are well separated by a half-wavelength, so the pipes radiate a more complex dual pattern of standing waves which has a better chance of filling in some of the acoustic not-spots which you sometimes get with stopped pipes. The problem can be really bad in some buildings with stopped 32 foot pitch flues such as a Contra Bourdon. A lot cheaper because the pipes are only half length, but in other respects it can be a good example of you only get what you pay for. Haskelling an approximately 16 foot pipe can be more successful in getting a 32 foot pitch than stopping it, because again there is radiation from two apertures. But sometimes the tone quality is unsatisfactory for some purposes in this case.
Similar issues can afflict electronic basses, where the number of speaker cabinets and their placement needs careful judgement, and sometimes a certain amount of experimenting, to reduce the not-spot problem. Phasing different cabinets (reversing the connections to one loudspeaker(s) relative to another(s) some distance away) can also be helpful. Pipe organ builders who elect to use digital basses, please note!
Even so, these are different matters to the one I raised which was the slow dynamic beating effect due to two slightly out-of-tune bass pipes speaking simultaneously.
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Listening to a radio broadcast of organ music recently I noticed that a loud and sustained low note on the pedals seemed to come and go every few seconds. What was happening, of course, was that there must have been two 16 foot stops (probably flues) which were not quite in tune, resulting in a beat with a period of about 5 seconds in this case. It was most disconcerting that the sound almost vanished owing to phase cancellation at the microphones every few seconds. It implies that these stops would have been of comparable power otherwise there would not have been that degree of cancellation of the fundamental. I have sometimes noticed this effect in other circumstances, such as on organ recordings.
Does it imply that one should check the tuning of such stops (e.g. an Open Wood plus an Open Metal) before combining them? Or only use one such stop at a time unless there are pressing reasons for doing otherwise?
I've also noticed a similar effect where a sustained low G on the pedals resulted in a faster (c. 1Hz) beat with mains hum at 50 Hz, probably from the blower motor. This has nothing to do with the effect above which is caused by multiple pedal pipes speaking simultaneously, but it is equally annoying. This example occurred on a CD sold by a top flight firm, but all they said when I complained to them about it was "ah yes, the blower at (redacted) cathedral is rather noisy". I didn't notice any enthusiasm for refunding my money ...
Mind you, either effect only happens if your listening system is good enough to render it noticeable.
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I see that Anna Lapwood has scooped one of today's 'Best Classical' artist awards. Thank goodness there are a few such as her able to remind the public that there's an instrument called the organ still around.
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It would be nice to know if anyone who has posted their (armchair?) opinions above has actually played or even heard the Sydney instrument - I've posted, but only while comfortably seated half a world away. Failing that, I'll risk seeding further dialogue by mentioning Haskells or helpers.
(Now heads back to armchair and waits ...)
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Subwoofer (bass) loudspeaker units can fail over time in several ways. If the cone is supported by a foam or synthetic rubber surround this will have a high probability of disintegrating over some years owing to reactions with moisture and atmospheric gases. Or the moving coil (motor) unit simply burns out if the speaker is working close to or beyond its design power limit - some of these big speakers can get too hot to touch after a spell of long sustained 32 foot pedal notes. The solution here is to over-specify the speaker in terms of its power rating at the design stage, but of course this adds to the cost. Or the sheer amount of movement which the motor and cone execute eventually weakens or damages the suspension. Or the cone gets eaten by rodents - instead of just leaving them exposed I often wonder why designers don't cover the speaker apertures with the type of substantial metal grilles which are readily available and made for the job. These are mainly intended to protect the cones from physical damage when the boxes are being carted around by pop bands, but they are also helpful in an anti-rodent role. Similar grilles should be considered for apertures into enclosures such as reflex or tuned pipe cabinets. Or the water vapour in the cold and damp air in churches can soak into the fibres of some cone materials and destroy their mechanical integrity over time so that they eventually become little different to flapping bits of damp cloth in terms of effectiveness.
And so on. But the moral is that electronic basses won't necessarily last as long as one might expect, particularly in large buildings where they have to be beefy enough to radiate large amounts of acoustic power.
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18 hours ago, peter ellis said:
The church has the size to accomodate the sound of 32’ pipes but not the physical space for multiple ranks. So - why not digital.
Some might think that a valid reason for 'why not digital' is that 32 ft electronic stops in large buildings are hard on the loudspeakers, which not infrequently fail. This potential danger afflicts all bass speakers which get hammered hard, as pop band roadies know to their cost, and it also happened at Southwell Minster. Another digital organ firm, not Copeman Hart (the original installer), was called in to replace the speaker units.
But the above also shows that, if Dobson are deemed to have sinned at Sydney, they certainly weren't the only ones to have given in to temptation ...
Seriously though, this story merely confirms that both pipes and electronics need servicing from time to time, especially after some years of hard service. So perhaps another and equally valid point of view is that one should be thankful that the Southwell organ was not only repaired but fairly readily repairable.
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I'm only an amateur among a number of professionals here, but the thing I like best about music, and indeed all the Arts, is its difference from science (where I suppose I can claim to be a professional because I succeeded in raising a family by doing it as a day job).
With science, the topic you are studying defines what you do, to an extent which imposes the strictest of bounds on how you can think. The more you study this topic, the more restrictive those bounds become. For instance, once Newton had proposed the laws of gravity as then understood, both he and everyone who came after (until Einstein) had to follow them. In science you can't un-discover something and go in a different direction. Einstein was only able to do this with gravity because he was clever enough to discover something beyond Newton. Those who have since followed him, because they had no option, have also been trapped within his thinking.
But with music, you can become a Cage. The topic does not define you, you define the topic. This does not mean you can just think of things willy-nilly. You have to be able to bring others of similar intellect and capabilities along with you, at least to some extent, otherwise you have difficulty avoiding charges of charlatanism, ignorance and worse. Having studied what Cage did and tried to understand at least some of his thinking, I consider it wrong to dismiss his work lightly. Instead, I have tried to understand it. However, as I said in my last post, that still hasn't persuaded me (yet) to spend money queuing outside concert halls where his most extreme works are to be performed.
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12 hours ago, John Robinson said:
... Can you hum along to this particular 'piece ...
That's actually a deep question. One can hum an SATB hymn tune, but how many people bother to ask why only the topmost (highest-frequency) line is singled out for humming? Put another way, why do we not conventionally hum the alto part? Questions like this were explored by Cage and others of the avant-garde movement.
Although I find the academic background to their work interesting, by and large I'm afraid the interest isn't great enough to persuade me to spend money attending performances. But now we've descended to me merely expressing an opinion, which is pretty worthless.
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An article has recently been published in The Organ entitled 'Henry Hackett FRCO (1872-1940) - Organist & Composer' by Nigel Hackett, Henry's grandson. It includes details of Mr Hackett's time as sometime organist of St Modwen's, Burton on Trent, which is one of the three Burton churches of which the late Stanley Monkhouse was priest in recent years.
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11 hours ago, innate said:
At the risk of outstaying our welcome I’d echo this; and not just for simulation of pipe organs. It’s quite an old-fashioned view but I still think synthesised orchestral instruments are more useful and coherent in live situations eg theatre than sampled instruments. In lock-down I bought Organteq and found it very good for doing recordings of hymns etc.
I also feel we might be outstaying our welcome here, but I might as well join the party ...
A reason why synthesised sounds can (in principle) be more attractive is to do with voicing flexibility. With sampled sounds you are pretty much stuck with what you've recorded beforehand. Although things like loudness and treble and bass rolloff can be adjusted for each sample if necessary, these are relatively minor tweaks. Changing the timbre and other speaking characteristics (such as the attack transient) of a recorded organ pipe to the extent that a voicer can do with a real one is not possible. Nor can the simulated pipe be redesigned from scratch by changing its scale or other parameters. It's much like listening to a CD of an organ - whatever you do to the sound by twiddling the controls on your listening system, it will always sound more or less like the same instrument. With synthesised sounds this restriction does not exist - you could turn a simulated flute pipe into a tuba if you so desired. The only limitation then becomes the skill of the voicer and how much money you have paid to the manufacturer to do on-site voicing (some of them make several ranges of basically similar organs but of which only the more expensive come with a detailed tonal finishing option).
So compared to this, I think the OP's demo recordings which kicked off this thread rather miss the point. They merely demonstrate that recording an organ in two different ways produces very similar sounds.
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30 minutes ago, Cromorne said:
Yes of course. But although both are recordings, there are differences, have you heard them?
I doubt my opinion will be of much interest.
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The video is comparing a recording of a pipe organ with a recording of a pipe organ. That is not the same thing as listening to a pipe organ in a building and comparing that experience with listening to a recording of it.
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I feel a special link of some sort exists between the piece and performing it on the organ. Yehudi Menuhin described the organ as linking "the mind of the Creator (or the Universal Mind if you prefer) with the human mind", and elsewhere as "an instrument of the elements, a superhuman instrument born of wind and rock, of air and shapes". The composition itself seems similarly elemental to me. Other aspects might illustrate the differences between acoustic art (music) and visual art. For example it is easier to give an immortality measured in many centuries to great paintings (such as the Mona Lisa) than to do the same with (the actual sounds of) music, so perhaps Cage had ideas such as this in mind.
I believe he also envisaged the piece being played on the piano. Here, there might be a connection with his concepts of silence which he explored in other works where nothing is actually played. Yet in these cases one does not hear nothing at all, and on the piano the sustain ('loud') pedal can be used to amplify and extend the duration of whatever ambient sounds exist in the auditorium, because they excite the strings into resonance.
At the very least, it makes one think I would suggest!
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Were any forum members at the recital (links below) at Halberstadt when the note last changed yesterday?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible#Halberstadt_performance
and
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68209691
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Thank you for highlighting the plight of this museum and, by implication, that of similar ones which have fallen on financial hard times in recent years.
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After several days nobody has replied to your queries even though there are several (mainly professional organ builders) who are eminently qualified to do so. I have wondered whether to reply myself, since I have to say that I cannot for the life of me imagine why you would want to conceive of making the hundreds of electromagnets that would be required for an organ action! The matter is not simply related to designing and making the magnet coils, as your post seems to imply, because the associated issues of the magnetic circuit of a magnet are important as well as the electrical one, together with the formidable mechanical engineering problems of fabricating the complete magnet assemblies from scratch.
Having said this, you might find the following to be of interest:
http://www.colinpykett.org.uk/electromagnets-and-solenoids-in-electric-actions-design-issues.htm
and
http://www.colinpykett.org.uk/HJ_OrganActions1889-1903.pdf
(see the section entitled 'Magnet design' starting at page 14).
I have to ask why you apparently do not wish to buy the magnets from a trade supplier, as your questions suggest that you are not yet at all close to being able to make them successfully yourself.
I hope you will forgive the tenor of this message, as it is intended to dissuade you from embarking on an enormous exercise which could easily prove fruitless and disappointing. Please be assured that I have your best interests at heart in saying this. And yes, to answer your first question, I do have experience in (trying to) make my own organ electromagnets. The scars (and you do get scars, believe me!) rapidly persuaded me of the folly of ever attempting it again ...
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Malcolm Williamson perhaps? He seems to have been quite prolific as a composer. Some of his solo organ works are listed here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Malcolm_Williamson#Works_for_solo_instruments
Not quite sure whether any of it falls into your 'Adagio' category, but the 'Elegy for JFK' might be a possibility (says he without having heard it).
There's also a link to Tom Winpenny's CD here where you can sample all the tracks:
https://toccataclassics.com/product/williamson-organ-music/
'Fantasy on O Paradise' might fit the bill?
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There do seem to have been some action issues. It was reported c. 1995 that a 'comprehensive computer crash' occurred following an electrical storm, though the date when this happened was not mentioned. However it was also said that this ruled out some planned recordings of Messiaen's works by Gillian Weir. Then the builder's website currently states that 'in 2010, the electronics were replaced with a state-of-the-art bus-technology system'. Probably the former, and certainly the latter, will have involved significant expenditure, in common with all major refurbishments of electronically-controlled organ actions. Those just mentioned are in addition to the planned work mentioned by Keitha above. Against this could be set the argument that major interventions in the affairs of pipe organs every few decades might be deemed reasonable, particularly for large and important instruments such as this one which see heavy usage.
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1 hour ago, Andrew Butler said:
Phhoenix' UK website hasn't been updated since about 2008......
There are several Phoenix-related websites, all apparently rather old, which adds to the confusion. But doesn't this rather confirm the problems of trying to keep an elderly electronic organ going, such as when the firm which made it might no longer exist? An ailing elderly pipe organ has a better chance of long term survival in that any organ builder can attend to its problems (although those related to hi-tech electronics in its action put pipe organs into the same category as electronic ones when it comes down to questions of rapid obsolescence).
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14 hours ago, Martin Cooke said:
... There remains, though, the nightmare of how difficult it is to learn the organ. Quite apart from the need to develop skill on the piano first - a traditional stance, I realise, which no doubt people, these days, call into question - there is the whole business of access to a suitable instrument upon which to learn and practise ...
Surely it is here where digital organs (including virtual pipe organs) in the home have their place? The UK domestic market for 'plug-and-play' conventional digital organs (the sort which you buy from a high street dealer) well exceeds that for churches and other venues according to estimates I have seen, currently running at a considerable number of hundreds per year. They must be going somewhere. Even if to older people such as retirees, many of these will be grandparents or other relatives and so younger children in their families will still have some sort of access to them if they are interested. I don't have comparable data for VPOs, and doubt hard figures are available as many of these are put together by DIY-ers. But it would probably be over-pessimistic to assume that youngsters in the families where they reside do not play them. There are members of this forum, excellent musicians, who teach pupils on their own home VPO.
As to learning the piano first, the days of the acoustic piano are long past in most homes (I had to give an excellent one away to a dealer to avoid the trauma of just seeing it go to landfill), but again they have been replaced by digital ones, some of which are very good value both musically and economically.
Until we ditch the unfortunate mindset that 'the organ' equals 'the church', which still stalks this forum I am sorry to say, then I agree the problems outlined by Martin will persist, but digital technology provides the springboard to escape from it. I suspect that this may well be happening, perhaps more widely than we realise. It is probably more of a problem to identify exactly what a child will do with organ-playing skills today though. Even if drawn to the church as a teenager, say, how many churches use their organs nowadays? If the child is good enough to aspire to cathedral or equivalent status, the competition at the top for the few available posts must surely put many such youngsters off? Even if they succeed in getting such a post, the financial problems of making a living from church music must be horrifying, except perhaps for the tiny minority who might have independent means. I have in mind the sad story of a well known assistant organist at a top-flight cathedral who wrote down the problems, both financial and domestic, he had had over the years in trying to make ends meet. I'm sure he is not alone.
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I was reminded of this thread just now while indulging in my personal Christmas Eve ritual of listening to a thirty-year-old CD by the Taverner Consort, Choir & Players under Andrew Parrott. It was one of the early cover CDs distributed by the BBC Music Magazine (vol 2, no 4, BBC MM116) in 1993 entitled - you've guessed it - 'Music for Christmas'. Sixteen exquisite miniatures including no less than three versions of 'In dulci jubilo', two by Praetorius together with a piano solo by Liszt. And to stretch one's eclecticism to the limits (at least, mine) there are also appearances by Webern, Bruno and Schoenberg. Flawless performances and wonderful sound quality to boot, enhanced by the acoustic of St Giles, Cripplegate. I remain as bowled over by it each year as I was when first listening to it all those years ago.
A real gem, complemented on this occasion by a nice single malt.
Merry Christmas to one and all!
What does BBC Radio 3 have AGAINST the organ ?
in General discussion
Posted
Personally, I don't see this as too much of a problem. My circle of friends and extended family are not, by and large, anything like as attracted to the organ as I am but I've never had any problem in making them just sit down and listen to the damn thing from time to time, on the basis of "how can you say you don't like something if you've never even tried it"! Poulenc's concerto seldom fails to work its magic, on one occasion leaving a 20-something youngster open-mouthed in astonishment bordering on rapture - admittedly, he was a bass guitar player in a pop band as well as running his own recording studio, so he had an educated and innate feeling for music beyond the organ. It helped that I belted it out at realistic volume on big speakers though - one has to be immersed in a realistic acoustic for pipe organ music to work properly in my view. Some time afterwards he received a commission to make a CD for a quite well known pop client, and persuaded him to include some riffs and other background snippets made on a big Compton theatre pipe organ. Beforehand I had no idea he was doing this until he invited me along to the recording session so that I could have a go afterwards! So his previous introduction to the organ via Poulenc had obviously made an impression and resulted in positive consequences.
The Poulenc is a case in point in other ways as well. Written to a commission from an aristocrat, I believe this was his first composition for the organ and that he himself was not an organist. Perhaps these are reasons why the work seems to speak so powerfully to other non-organ music buffs?
On a similar occasion I did the same thing with the final movement of the Saint-Saens organ symphony, and learnt something myself - the guinea pig on this occasion told me that one of the themes has been used by a pop singer, which I did not previously know. In so many words, she also said how much she enjoyed the sheer simplicity of nothing but scales in C being used in a masterly manner to weave such powerfully-emotive music, together with the integration of piano and organ sounds with the orchestra.
The Saint-Saens also came into its own when I was conversing with a psychologist (another non-organist), and we veered towards the interesting psycho-acoustic phenomenon that our perception of musical pitch seems to go flat as volume is reduced fairly rapidly. Interestingly, I had already noticed exactly this effect on the same Saint-Saens recording after the final tutti chord is released. As the reverberation dies away on this particular disc, the effect can be heard distinctly. I played it to him and he made a note of the piece and the CD so that he could use it as a future object lesson.
So perhaps the moral here is that the organ can speak at many levels to many people if the circumstances are propitious enough. Maybe one lesson which can be taken away is that arranging various types of interactive events, or informal lecture-demonstrations of the sort hinted at above, might be more effective than merely expecting people to file meekly into church and sit silently through a "recital" (what an awful and out-of-date image that word conjures up!) where the player says nothing and might not even be seen from start to finish. There's nothing new in this idea of course, but such events don't seem to be staged often enough in my view.
Sorry for yet another over-long diatribe.