Colin Pykett

You are right about Downes's opinion of the pedal reed which he wrote about in his book Baroque Tricks. Quoting: "One prominent feature was the so-called Contra Trombone 32-feet, the first I had ever met at first hand: making an excited first trial of this stop I was astounded at its literally thunderous effect, so much as to lack credibility. What was there of 'trombone' about a sound which merely threatened [it seemed] to wreck the organ gallery? It was only after I had inherited its younger brother at Brompton Oratory, fifteen years later, that I could appreciate how this stop had been conceived and why it was basically so wrong". So he used the same adjective 'thunderous' as I did a few posts above, without consciously recalling his remarks at the time. Like me, he had also taken lessons on the instrument, though there the similarities between us cease! I might add that my teacher (the late Russell Missin) seldom allowed me to use it, and if it popped out with a piston he usually poked it back in again. The bell ringers didn't like it either! But organs reflect their time and place, as does so much of human culture. It was just part of the zeitgeist of the Edwardian period. Having not played or heard the Wimbledon organ which started this thread, I wonder what its Contra Trombone is like today? CEP

Yes, now you remind me of it Richard, I do recollect that. Thank you. I may have have forgotten which ranks, but have a memory that a swell reed and a mixture were included? I recall with more certainty that the thunderous 32 foot Contra Trombone went to Cape Town cathedral. I think all this happened after the instrument was advertised as nothing more than a list of bits and pieces in Musical Opinion! CEP

Thank you, most interesting. I've had a quick look at the links to these instruments on the Mander website provided in another of today's posts by your webmaster. Concerning Wimbledon, it is gratifying that we still have an organ builder in the UK who is at home with, nay an expert at, pneumatic actions, and I take my hat off to you when thinking about the thicket of tubing and other mechanisms! What patience must have been required, quite apart from the necessary skills of course. In the Restoration Report is a mention of one of the near-contemporary organs from that Walker stable, that at St Mary's Nottingham which was said to have been broken up in 1973. In fact this was some years after the instrument collapsed completely in 1968. However I consider myself fortunate to have had lessons on it prior to that, and despite its shortcomings (one of which was a near-ludicrous position in the building), I still recall vividly its tonal beauty as experienced at the console and nearby. Not wishing to be a party-pooper, might I also point out a slightly embarrassing typo on the page on your website where you refer to the "Specification of the Walker Organ at the Scared Heart Wimbledon" ! (It happens to all of us from time to time ... ) Best wishes. CEP

Indeed, and Hope-Jones did in his first prototype instrument at St John's, Birkenhead. It's possible if not probable that the dynamo was made by Henry Royce. But town gas was little different to mains electricity in those days in the sense that both were seldom available outside large towns. It's still much the same today with gas. Hope-Jones pre-dated the lot of them though, because he described the principle of additive synthesis in a lecture to the College of Organists in 1891 (they were not 'Royal' then). Unusually for him though, he never seemed to have patented it. I don't know about church caretakers necessarily being humble - I've come across some pretty aggressive ones in my time who almost frog-marched me out of the building having previously switched off the organ blower. Mind you, the way I play sometimes could have given them the excuse ... CEP

This is certainly very interesting MM and thank you for posting it. I might add that MM has also provided a lot of historical background to me on a personal basis relating to Compton's work. I also find it interesting to reflect on the wider background to the subject. There seem to me to be two threads running through the development of electric actions for organs. One of them is how national electricity supplies evolved. In the early days, organ builders such as Robert Hope-Jones were severely constrained by the limited availability of mains electricity which was almost unknown outside the larger towns. This meant they had to use batteries for organs in rural areas with all their obvious drawbacks. Even when mains power was available, there was no standardisation of voltage or frequency or even whether it was AC or DC. In at least two important cases, Worcester in the UK (I think - from memory) and Ocean Grove in the USA, Hope-Jones had to cope with a sudden change in voltage imposed by the suppliers after he had already procured the blower motors. And when using the limited power from batteries he was consequently driven to use electropneumatics to operate much of his equipment such as coupler relays and motorised stop key actions in order to get enough force for the mechanisms. However by the 1930s when Compton was active on the scene, the National Grid had arrived in the UK and mains voltages therefore rapidly began to stabilise at the 230V 50 Hz AC we still use today. Similar things happened in the USA once the 'AC - DC Wars' (Tesla vs Edison) were resolved in favour of Tesla. This enabled Compton's to re-engineer some of Hope-Jones's early electropneumatic mechanisms to use electromechanical (direct electric) operation because prime power was no longer an issue. This happened with their coupler relays and stop key units for example, and in particular with their very clever combination capture systems which were also all-electric rather than electropneumatic. I hope he will not mind me saying so, but forum member Lucien Nunes is the world's greatest living expert on this aspect, having recently restored the 80 year old systems at Southampton Guildhall on both the classical and theatre consoles. And when I say 'restored' I actually mean restored in the sense of getting it all to work again at the level of individual magnets and contacts - not just by chucking it all out and fitting a solid state capture system. Standardisation on AC also enabled the Hammond organ and the Compton Electrone to appear because both relied on a stable mains frequency to remain in tune. Both would have been unthinkable until this happened. The other historical thread is the motor vehicle. The Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust in Manchester recently unearthed the fascinating fact that a certain Henry Royce, before he became half of the R-R marque, manufactured magnets and (probably) low voltage dynamos for Hope-Jones in the 1890s. And as MM has shown, this continued with Compton via A H Midgley and his connections with what became CAV-Lucas, a firm well known throughout most of the 20th century in motor vehicle electrical parts as many readers will no doubt recall. In fact the contemporary fascination with automobile engineering in the 1930s even surfaced in Willis III's infinite speed and gradation swell mechanism. Organs get louder more quickly and cars go faster the more you press on the pedal of either, and vice versa. There is also a 'neutral' position in both and an automatic 'decelerator' in the Willis scheme to prevent the shutters audibly slamming shut. These terms were actually used in Willis's patent, and I have long wondered whether the similarities were deliberate or unconscious. There even exists a tenuous analogue of the 'kickdown' feature in automatic gearboxes, which were under development in the 1930s - if the swell shutters were allowed to close completely a subtle mechanism kept them tightly closed after the pedal had returned to its central ('neutral') position, until you next pushed it forward again. Then of course the position of the swell shutters was also indicated at the console using actual car dashboard fuel gauges! All this was invented mainly by Aubrey Thompson-Allen who was perhaps the Willis equivalent of Compton's A H Midgeley, until he left for America and founded his own firm that is. All fascinating stuff. Thank you, MM. CEP

All we need now is for someone to play the batpipes. CEP

Rather an old thread to be replying to, but I came across bombarde32's post (#27). For some reason the forum isn't currently allowing me to quote it, but s/he said that Sir Walter Alcock used to file the axle boxes for his model steam locos during the sermons at Salisbury! The reason for searching the forum on the connected subjects of 'steam' and 'Alcock' is (1) I didn't want to start a new thread without having done so, and (2) I originally wondered where Sir W's locos went. There were apparently two, made by him, and capable of pulling a man in his various gardens including that in the Salisbury Cathedral close where the neighbours apparently weren't too keen on the noise, smoke and soot. The answer is that one was at one time (and might still be) in the Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum. The other is (or was) in the Buckfastleigh museum of the South Devon Railway Trust. This and a lot more interesting information about Sir Walter's hobby, which attracts a good number of other organists, is in the excellent sleeve notes to Daniel Cook's CD entitled "The Organ Music of Sir Walter Alcock" recorded at Salisbury in 2008 (Priory PRCD 1008). If you like that sort of thing it's well worthwhile in terms of venue, executant and technical quality. I do like it, if only because I was brought up on WGA's organ tutor and many of the pieces in it appear on the disc. Moreover, it has incidentally solved the problem of what happened to his steam engines as mentioned above. So it was an excellent acquisition on both counts. CEP

Yes, I agree, being a fan of Paul anyway. It's also good to see that he doesn't rely on a registrant. He really does play the instrument in every respect. And in Guilmant's Priere & Berceuse on that link in post #11 I was also pleased that he didn't take it at the gruesomely slow speed marked in my copy. Glad I'm not the only one who feels an imperative to get it over and done with! CEP

SL's views and experiences (#11) coincide so closely with mine that I could have written his post myself, including the miserable old git bit. Yet I could not have been a 'normal' child because the majority of my peer group were certainly not drawn towards church and 'classical' music as I was. Even my parents did not attend church, so my experiences of that were with my grandmother, a staunch churchgoer. And it was she who arranged for me to have a go on the organ, after which I was hooked for life. I didn't think much of church services themselves (and never have), what with all that sitting down and standing up and incomprehensible sermons from people dressed in funny clothes, but there was a magical draw towards things like the array of organ pipes and the sounds which emanated from them. Therefore I do wonder whether it's something to do with the way we are wired - nature rather than nurture. If so, then no amount of dumbing down and trying to be cool and trendy will much influence people of all ages who aren't predisposed to it in the first place. But if they are so predisposed, then they will probably have an inbuilt appreciation of the quality of the material being fed to them. CEP

Marmite is a good analogy. It scarcely needs to be said that the various numbers comprising The Crucifixion vary widely in quality and that its libretto is largely awful. However it does not necessarily need a conductor if the choir is reasonably competent (maybe except in 'God so loved the world') and indeed it was written for average choirs. Unfortunately this latter factor can serve to emphasise the more insipid examples of the writing when the choir is less than average. Personally I find the inclusion of the congregational hymns one of its most attractive features, and 'Cross of Jesus' is quite beautiful in my humble opinion. It has brought a lump to my throat on more than one occasion. Olivet to Calvary is, I suppose, much the same. However I was surprised to find that both works are apparently valued elsewhere, with Olivet having been performed in places such as Leiden and New Zealand in recent years. CEP

Organists' Review has published some interesting information about making recordings in recent issues, though it also illustrates the enormous disparity in cost of items such as microphones. In the penultimate edition (March 2017) there was a useful article pointing out that good results can be obtained using quite cheap equipment of the sort which has been discussed in the posts above. In the latest edition (June) Gavin Barrett responded to this in the 'letters' section. He agreed, but also suggested the use of professional microphones for the highest quality work. As he omitted to mention their cost, I thought that forum members might like to know that those he recommended can easily set you back thousands of pounds for a pair. We are all aware that a Rolls is a better car than the average runabouts most of us can afford, so I'm not sure that Mr Barrett's suggestions tell us more than what we already know! On the other hand, the article mentioned above contained a lot of sensible and practical advice in my view. If I could venture to add an extra tip, it was suggested that when making a recording one can play a passage over and over again until one gets it right. One then selects the best version for inclusion in the finished product. While this is self-evident, do ensure that you leave enough silence between each attempt to allow the reverberation of the building to die away completely. Even in a relatively 'dry' auditorium this can take a surprisingly long time, typically several seconds. Otherwise it can be next to impossible to do a subsequent edit which sounds natural. There are several CDs in my collection which are quite clearly and inexcusably marred by this defect. CEP

Thank you both for your replies - very useful. In my time I have worked on various aspects of AI, a technology whose time has still to arrive, and for that reason I shudder at the prospect of driverless cars (although observing the performance of some human drivers perhaps I ought to revise this point of view). Phone speech recognition systems are equally far behind the curve of acceptability (try calling BT to get through their forest of audio menus if you don't believe it), as are machine translation systems as this example has demonstrated. CEP

Not long ago our hosts undertook a meticulous restoration of the attractive and historic 1858 Walker organ at St Mary Ponsbourne in Hertfordshire. See http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=H00315 on the NPOR. By accident I came across a Netherlands website which also describes this instrument at http://www.orgelsite.nl/kerken68/ponsbourne.htm . As I do not read the language I asked Google to translate it, and it came up with the following: https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&u=http://www.orgelsite.nl/kerken68/ponsbourne.htm&prev=search This describes a 'mechanical trolley organ with clutch and windshield' !! I am familiar with the Ponsbourne organ and can assure everyone that it does not have either accessory. Nevertheless I should like to know what the Netherlands site is saying, so if anyone can assist I shall be grateful. And while on the subject, does anyone know anything about the George Kirby who is mentioned? Many thanks. CEP

Yes, a fantastic piece especially played on the right sort of instrument. I once had a 7 inch EP of this played on the old Worcester cathedral instrument back in the 1960s or 70s by Christopher Robinson I think. In those days the reedwork was not much changed from when it was first installed by Hope-Jones in 1896, voiced by W C (Billy) Jones - no relation. I lived in Malvern around that time and often went to recitals there, and can confirm that that recording captured the sound pretty accurately. Your post reminds me that I also heard Mulet's 'Tu es Petra' recently, and the biblical text on which this is based makes my hair stand on end just as much as the music! (Matthew 16:18 I think). But I'm not going to get involved in the linguistic-theological issues surrounding this. Fascinating though they may be, you are best referred to a former thread on this forum! See: http://mander-organs-forum.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/2053-mulets-tu-es-petra/ CEP

You might not be asking the right question, as it is many-facetted with lots of aspects to consider. So I will suggest two approaches. Trying to answer the question as posed first, I have used a pair of Behringer C-2 capacitor/condenser mics successfully. They fall well within your price range and are excellent value for money. However you will also need to buy a set of leads with XLR connectors, a small mixing desk which can supply phantom power to the mics, another set of XLR leads to go from the output of the desk to the PC and finally some sort of adapter system to match the XLRs to the stereo jack on your PC. An alternative to the mixing desk is a small stand-alone phantom power unit. You will also need at least one microphone stand. But the whole lot can probably be obtained for around £100 if you shop around on the web. (A simpler option would be to simply use dynamic mics rather than capacitor ones - these would probably plug directly into your PC. But I've never used them so cannot suggest a type or brand). But you can see how complicated things can get. Hence my second suggestion, which is to invest, not directly in microphones but in a small stand-alone digital recorder. The Zoom H1 will probably fill the bill at somewhat less than £100, but other makes can be obtained (e.g. by Tascam). The advantage with these devices is that they have built-in mics, they are battery powered, and you upload your recordings as WAV files to your PC using a USB lead. Once in the PC you can then use Audacity or any other wave editor to tweak them up. If you go this route, you can also buy a dinky little accessory set for the Zoom at around £25 which includes a small tripod, the USB lead just mentioned, and a wall-wart mains adapter (but make sure you get one with a UK plug - many come with a US one!). Finally you will also probably need a micro-SD memory card to expand the internal memory in the Zoom because it does not have much of its own. These are tiny and they just slot in, much as with cameras, car dashcams, etc. Both approaches work for me, but reading between the lines of what you said, I suspect that the second one might be best for you. It has the incidental advantages that a backup copy of your original recording is retained within the recorder itself until you erase it, and you could also easily take it to choir rehearsals/performances and let them hear how they are doing. Hope this helps. CEP

I can't find another topic with this title, though admittedly my skill with the search facility on this forum is not of the highest. Having got really fed up with the variable and sometimes appalling technical quality of other signal streams, I have now settled at least for a while on internet radio. It knocks the others into a cocked hat, at least when listening on my hi-fi system. Classic FM on FM is hopeless because of the gross compression they impose for the benefit of those who listen in cars, and Radio 3 on FM is of variable quality for sundry other reasons to put it politely. DAB in this area likewise cannot be relied on either. In contrast, internet radio is a revelation and it really brings out the superb quality of much of the source material. What really prompted me to write, however, was the unexpected appearance of - wait for it - organ music on today's 'Saturday Classics' on R3. I just managed to avoid fainting with surprise, and so was able to take in Marie-Madeleine Duruflé's rendition of Bach's C major P&F (BWV 547) played on a Gonzalez instrument. I have not heard as much of her as I should like, but her style is similar in at least two respects to that of Helmut Walcha. She adopts a strict tempo throughout (except for a rallentando at the end of the fugue) together with minimal and therefore telling changes of manual and registration. This was followed by various choral works by other composers, which came over with astonishing clarity thanks to the internet. If you haven't tried it yet, maybe internet radio will press your buttons too. It's easy to access from Windows (just Google to find it). On Linux/Ubuntu I had to install the 'gradio' app, but having done so it works equally well. I can't speak for Mac. But to get the best from it you will need to listen using audiophile headphones or a good hi-fi system. CEP

Completely agree. In fact it was not until after Songs of Praise the following day that I realised quite how wonderful the whole Kings service was in comparison. CEP

Oh Tony. What a pity. I was so looking forward to seeing what came next ... ! (And I'm sure David was as well). CEP

There is another effect at work in David's recording experiment besides the remarkable ability of the Tascam recorder to transcend the bounds of ordinary causality (which my little Zoom machine doesn't do, incidentally). In fact there isn't any such thing as free will, because it has been amply proved that the brain gets ready for an action by up to 350 milliseconds before we even decide to do it consciously. See the work of Libet for example. Therefore what we like to think is 'free will' is in fact an artefact of our subconscious. This helps to explain the incredible dexterity of, say, a top-rank keyboard player who presses the notes apparently far more quickly than the brain itself can work! Consequently, when any experiments are done where times are measured with human beings in the loop, the results are indeed strange. I've come across Paril's work before somewhere - must look it up in more detail. But first I had better turn over the calendar in my study. Isn't it bad luck otherwise? CEP

Me again. Tell me to shut up if you are getting fed up. Just taking up your mention of Rheinberger, there might be some of his Twelve Characteristic Pieces which would catch your eye in this context, including Visione (marked adagio molto, so right up this particular street perhaps), and Lamento (marked largo). Together with Monologues VI (largo espressivo), and XI (lento). Some of these slower ones look rather treacly on the page, but they somehow seem to come to life and be more musical when actually played. I have all of these in an ancient Novello volume found in a second hand music shop which is literally falling to bits (the music book not the shop), but was told by a professional organist to take care of it because he said it's almost impossible to get hold of now (although that was some years ago and things might have changed). Re Guilmant, there are lots of his shorter pieces in volumes edited by people such as William C Carl, who unfortunately grossly over-anglicises the original French registration directions. They also seem to be of somewhat variable quality - mere note spinning to my ears in the worst cases. But I'm sure I'm only telling you what you already know. CEP

How about Barber's Adagio for Strings transcribed for organ - as per here: http://www.eddingsmusic.com/AdagioForStrings,Op11-SamuelBarber.pdf CEP

You probably know this, but perhaps there are several possibilities in A Little Organ Book in memory of C H H Parry. Not all are actually marked Adagio but perhaps they might fit your bill, though they are rather short. I have in mind the pieces by Parry himself, Alan Gray, Charles MacPherson, Frank Bridge (shorter but in much the same vein as his Adagio in E), Charles Wood and W G Alcock but other notables such as GTB are also represented. CEP

The thread seems to have taken a rapid turn away from the sad demise of the Peter Collins' firm towards the apparent lack of interest in the organ, topics which might well be linked of course. So an article which I saw recently in the Washington Post (but published about a year ago) might be of interest: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/freeing-the-pipe-organ-from-the-usual-grind/2016/03/10/ebf0f48a-e487-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html?utm_term=.bff6d29574a6 CEP

We really need a good organ builder to respond here, but in case that does not happen I'll cast my two pence worth into the pool. If that results in an organ builder or voicer replying, then this message will have served its purpose. Yes, the replacement rank needs to be properly scaled and, yes, it obviously needs to be voiced. (I was astonished to read Vox Humana's post #3 which said no voicing was done in the case he described). But what do the terms 'properly scaled' and 'voiced' actually mean? Scaling is a strange topic in that it is precisely defined on the one hand in terms of the arithmetical progression of pipe cross-sectional areas across the rank, yet on the other its subjective aural effects in a building remain vague and ill-defined (the late and well-respected organ designer, Stephen Bicknell, suggested that "scaling is better judged as a measure of intent than of actual results"). The meaning of voicing is obvious - isn't it? Well, yes, but only if one recalls that it refers to a whole raft of things done over at least two stages of the life of a pipe. When the pipe is first made it has to be brought onto speech at the factory so it speaks properly. Then when it is put into the organ further adjustments are made as part of the tonal finishing process. One of those adjustments relates to regulation, the process of adjusting the loudness or volume of each pipe so the rank stands comfortably within itself. The bass pipes should not dominate the mid-range for example, and the trebles should not scream. The whole rank also has to blend with the others in the instrument. Pipes are regulated by varying the flow rate of wind by adjusting their footholes (unless open-foot voicing is used, when it is done at the mouth). My personal view is that regulation is immensely important as part of tonal finishing, perhaps even more so than the nuances of timbral variation introduced by pipe scale and other types of voicing adjustment such as cutup at the mouth (which, in simple terms, varies the proportion of low to high frequencies in the sound). The late Ralph Downes also held this view, and in his book 'Baroque Tricks' he described in detail how to regulate based on the practices of the well known American voicer Anton Gottfried. So it is at least possible that the unsatisfactory pipe ranks mentioned in previous posts could be improved merely by re-regulating them as a first step before anything more drastic (and expensive) is done. But it will need to be done by an expert organ builder. CEP

I've made various very public b*llsups in several walks of life, not just while playing the organ. I can generally draw some solace from the old adage that "those who say they don't make mistakes don't really make anything". At one Christmas midnight carol service many years ago, packed to the rafters, we were to sing 'O little town of Bethlehem'. We had had many rehearsals of every last thing, including some in my home to save the choir from having to traipse to a freezing church each time. Unexceptionally, the (usual?) tune 'Forest Green' had been decided upon. Yet - on the night I gave out the alternative tune 'Christmas Carol' for some inexplicable reason ... When I played the first chord to bring them all in, nothing happened. The choir had all turned round and were glaring at me. The bemused congregation just looked, well, bemused. You could have heard a pin drop. So I then I just had to shrug, and just started the whole shooting match again by giving out 'Forest Green'. Then there were the several times I've started up with the Bridal Chorus before the poor girl had even entered the churchyard let alone the church. Everybody stood up of course ... (On each occasion I had misinterpreted signals from some functionary or other). Then was the time I was in the choir rather than at the organ. We were doing some anthem which started with the trebles only, yet at the previous practice the DoM had limbered us up by getting us all to sing the thing in unison. Of course, I was the only bass daft enough to accompany the lads that Sunday wasn't I ... And so it goes on. Write it down to experience and try to have a laugh about it if you can! But the one thing I refuse to accept is too much criticism about such things. Like most of us I imagine, I've been at many concerts, not just organ recitals, where the eminent professional performer(s) made the most appalling gaffs. It happens all the time at live music events, but no names, no pack drill. Maybe the most memorable was once at the RFH when a percussionist turned up late and clambered onto the platform after the conductor had raised his baton. He made his way to the timps after knocking over a cymbal ... At least I don't expect people to pay good money to see me making an exhibition of myself. CEP