Colin Pykett
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Posts posted by Colin Pykett
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Although not directly relevant to the topic, a few more words about NPOR might be appropriate. Whilst not perhaps in a dire situation, my reading of it suggests that its funding position is some way from being assured, and it depends very much on the support of BIOS (which in practice means the BIOS membership, who are supporting it via their subscriptions whether they are aware of it or not). This seems somewhat inequitable to me, given the enormous value of the service which is used gratis by the world and his wife, most of whom are not BIOS members of course. Therefore it would not seem unreasonable in my view for NPOR to become a subscription-only service. Not long ago I wrote to NPOR management suggesting this, and I received a lengthy and very helpful reply which, inter alia, pointed out that if this were to be done, they would almost certainly experience a large drop in usage. More to the point, they might also run into difficulties with the charitable status of NPOR and BIOS by which they are expected to 'educate the public'. Hence NPOR's 'Wikipedia business model' by which it remains free at the point of use but seeks voluntary contributions to maintain a small core staff.
This being so, perhaps more users might be moved to make the financial contributions which its website exhorts us to do. If there was more more money available maybe they could use it to improve the shortcomings perceived by forum members in their posts above.
CEP
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Indeed. I'm visiting Blenheim Palace shortly and have asked them if I can play the Willis organ (still complete with roll player I presume) in the Long Library. It's in a bit of a parlous state and they are seeking an awful lot of money to fix it. However, small pieces of publicity like this can only help their cause. So I'll let you know ... (Look, no hands).
CEP
Well, I've been to Blenheim Palace but could not play the Willis organ because the Long Library is absolutely full of scaffolding - a veritable forest of the stuff - to do with an art exhibition they are laying on. Not only could I not play the organ, but it could not even be seen because of the density of the scaffolding. It's not my business, but it would seem to be an appalling safety hazard to me. I can't imagine what would happen if a fire broke out in there. It would be next to impossible to get fire crews and their gear in I should have thought. In that eventuality nobody would ever play that organ again ...
Sorry to have led the thread away from devices for operating swell shades, but thought this might be of interest.
CEP
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Sometimes I have a root through my CD collection and find one I'd forgotten about, and this happened today. It's 'The Organ of Chichester Cathedral' played by Sarah Baldock (HAVPCD 364). It was issued around 2012 and as of just now it's still available on Amazon and ebay new, with used copies around also.
For what it's worth, I derived much pleasure in renewing acquaintance with it. The instrument courtesy of our hosts comes over spendidly - this is not sycophancy, as anyone who knows me will confirm I'm not much given to that! As I live within half an hour of the cathedral I can visit easily, and I would judge the mics were placed somewhere opposite the instrument which is where I prefer to sit at a recital if given the choice. Every pipe can be heard there without being drowned in the acoustic. Also one of the advantages of a mechanical action is that the action thump of a large instrument at close-ish range is much reduced compared with an electric or pneumatic one, because a capable player can coax the pallets to open and close at her/his rate rather than that decided once and for all by the organ builder. And so it is on this recording.
The programme takes in Purcell, JSB, Rheinberger, Howells, RVW and all of Whitlock's Five Short Pieces. I particularly enjoyed these, partly because Whitlock's stamping ground in Bournemouth is also not far away. They almost seem to me to be written for a chamber instrument rather than a cathedral organ (well, maybe apart from the last (Paean) which demands a tuba or similar loud reed of course). The contrast between the first four quiet pieces and Rheinberger's Sonata in E minor illustrates well the breadth of capability both of the organ and the performer.
CEP
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It is indeed a sad occasion when someone such as he passes away. Apart from the fact he invented many aspects of Christmas sacred music in Britain in the twentieth century, as others have said, was it not the case he was also expert in other fields such as Tudor music? I ask the question genuinely because I have no independent knowledge, having merely picked this up more or less accidentally during my travels as it were.
CEP
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Anyway, if we just have roll-player attachments installed, it frees the hands up for all sorts of other things.
What fun we could have in the happy-clappy age!
Indeed. I'm visiting Blenheim Palace shortly and have asked them if I can play the Willis organ (still complete with roll player I presume) in the Long Library. It's in a bit of a parlous state and they are seeking an awful lot of money to fix it. However, small pieces of publicity like this can only help their cause. So I'll let you know ... (Look, no hands).
CEP
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No-one has mentoned the crescendo at the beginning of the Reubke Sonata on the 94th Psalm, where there is a crescendo while both feet are occupied.
MM
That's a very good point, and it identifies a rationale for some of the unusual devices mentioned in this thread, especially those in which the swell shutters can be moved by parts of the anatomy other than the feet or hands. There are countless other instances where such a facility would be useful. Sometimes I have wondered whether these inconvenient hairpins were merely inserted by the editor or publisher simply because they looked nice. But now I realise that these works were intended to be performed on instruments equipped with gadgets such as those described here.
(Sorry MM, I'm not trying to score a cheap point! Like you, I do wonder how we are expected to render crescendi and diminuendi in cases such as that you described).
CEP
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It depends on what you mean by "composite substitutes" and "windchests". Properly treated and finished marine ply is not too prone to warping with age and not too sensitive to humidity changes, moisture and even liquid water resulting from things like leaking roofs. MDF does not warp if kept reasonably dry but it is sensitive to moisture, indeed it could be said to be hygroscopic. As it is little more than thick cardboard it swells and develops an uneven, sometimes 'pimply' surface when exposed to too much moisture (and certainly to liquid water) which is far removed from the pristine flatness it exhibits when new and fresh. It slowly turns into extremely fine sawdust when subjected to movement such as rubbing from adjacent components such as sliders.
As to windchests, these disadvantages are more serious in the case of slider chests where changes in the frictional characteristics and dimensions of the components are less easily tolerated than in the case of unit chests, where there are no moving parts made of these materials and the only function of the chest is to form a box to contain the wind.
Having said all this, perhaps this revised topic ought to be continued somewhere else?
CEP
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I tried, and failed, to find a website for EOS through Google. How would I go about buying a copy from you or finding what else you have available?
Maybe try contacting Margaret Phillips directly using the information given on her personal website?
http://www.margaretphillips.org.uk/index.htm
CEP
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"They are an enclosed order of nuns"
Doesn't the Wanamaker Organ in America have a similar division, installed specifically for the performance of Lefebure-Wely's Andante in F? On lesser instruments, resort must be made to Vox Humana, strings and Tremulant.
I always fancy that the Pastorale movement of Guilmant's first sonata evokes something similar. The tum-te-tumming of rustic yokels outside a church conjured up by the dialogue between the quiet solo reeds, contrasting with an order of nuns (enclosed in a swell box or otherwise) singing distantly inside the building, imitated as David suggests (and indeed called for explicitly by the composer). Like Jon Dods though (#48), I have yet to come across a stop called 'order of nuns', even though I'd be the first to admit to the limited confines of my education.
CEP
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At Southwark, due to the odd position of the console, one of the most arresting effects the player heard from the Swell was the crash of the shutters if one forgot about the nature of the Swell pedals.
In the original infinite speed and gradation patent there is mention of an automatic deceleration feature to prevent the shutters slamming shut as they got near to the fully-closed position, but it does not say how it might have worked. I figured out a possible mechanism but have no idea whether it, or an alternative, was ever implemented (PM me if you want to prolong this discussion privately as it is probably not of wide interest). Hope-Jones had used an electropneumatic brake much earlier which was activated when the shutter speed reached a preset level.
On the grounds that most organists are not required to sing whilst playing, a plastic pipe (thoroughly disinfected, of course) could be provided which the organist could place in his/her mouth and control the opening/closing of the box by blowing or sucking. I'm being perfectly serious, I assure you, and the technology is certainly available to sense air pressure or vacuum.
Breath-operated MIDI pressure controllers have been available for a long time to simulate wind instruments. It would be a simple matter to integrate these with a modern electric action.
CEP
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As the instigator of this topic in which I cheekily suggested that firstrees might go and have a look at this organ, I must thank him for all his efforts in providing the pictures of the instrument and now for having gone to the church again to hear it. His remarks accord with what I can remember of it myself a rather long time ago. I still recall it as a striking and somewhat unusual instrument in a beautiful village church setting, well worth visiting in that picturesque part of the world.
CEP
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I agree that it is important to consider retaining a consultant. Those mentioned in previous posts are members of the AIOA (the Association of Independent Organ Advisers) whose website is at:
http://www.aioa.org.uk/index.htm
The Association itself might suggest which of its members would be best suited to your job, which is clearly a substantial one. You also indicated that you are in a fortunate position regarding funding (if I understood what you said correctly), so perhaps you might decide this is one of your early priorities.
Also as mentioned previously, it is necessary to bring the local Diocesan Organs Adviser (DOA) on board at an early opportunity - assuming yours is an Anglican parish church. I expect you are aware, however, that their job is not to advise you (even though some let their enthusiasm run away with them!) but to advise the Diocese. This underlines the need for an independent consultant who will act for your church. It's a bit like extending your house - you need to inform the local authority and get their approval, but their officers, however helpful, do not act for you. Hence the need to retain your own architect.
Best wishes with the project.
CEP
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In an earlier post John Mander mentioned John Scott's recital at Christ Church, Spitalfields only a few weeks ago, and coincidentally I have just finished reading Andrew Benson-Wilson's review of it in the latest Organists' Review which arrived only yesterday. He describes more of the instrument than the pieces played, but he includes a link to his website where he amplifies the latter aspect:
http://andrewbensonwilson.org/2015/07/01/john-scott-gala-opening-recital/
This might provide some leads, especially in the direction of the Georgian organ music in which John Scott was interested.
Bridge's Adagio in E might also be appropriate for the occasion, which he himself plays on youtube.
CEP
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Could it be Gary Owens's firm who have collected it somewhere and are selling it on? He's based in Brecon.
Yes, I think it is. The instrument is also advertised as a used one on his website - see:
http://www.go-organbuilders.org.uk/usedpipeorgans/
However I didn't want to blow his cover, though I can't really see that it matters. The additional publicity here can't but help, and I can't see that it breaches forum guidelines on advertising because it's not Gary himself who is doing it, and I have no connection whatever with his firm. So purely altruistic, m'lud ...
CEP
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Currently there are several pipe organs listed on ebay. Two strike me as interesting because they illustrate the sort of straightforward mechanical action organ built frequently in the 19th century and into the early 20th, compared to the rather extreme use of extension sometimes used later in the 20th. Both are by reputable builders.
The first is by Speechly. The listing is due to expire in a couple of days' time but I'll give it anyway:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171884826173?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Sometimes you can still see an item after its sell-by date, but the item ID is 171884826173. This also sometimes enables you to find it retrospectively.
This organ has 10 speaking stops and 534 pipes. The seller says it is in Brecon but there is no NPOR entry for a Speechly organ there, even though s/he gives a screenshot of what looks like part of a web page taken from NPOR.
The second organ is by Walker. Its link is:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252049039304?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
and the item ID is 252049039304.
It has 84% of the pipes of the Speechly if my arithmetic is correct (450 vs 534), yet 120% more speaking stops (22 vs 10).
I do not dismiss extension organs out of hand as some of them can be moderately musical and useful to my mind. However this one seems to take things to extreme, and in some respects it also appears wasteful. However I have no idea what the customer might have insisted on, so it would be unfair to heap all criticism onto the makers. There are only 4 ranks, none of which is a reed whereas the Speechly has one. Moreover, one of the flue ranks is a 3 rank mixture duplicated on both manual divisions. (Thus one could argue that the mixture occupies three ranks, but as far as I can see all of them are treated electrically as just one and denoted as 'rank D' in the stop list). The whole thing is enclosed, thus it seems juvenile to denote one of the divisions as a 'swell organ'. Even providing couplers could be criticised as fairly pointless if not wasteful, though with care there could be some occasions when they would add something which the intrinsic extension does not provide, I suppose.
I wonder rhetorically which one I would prefer to play. I never make such a decision about any organ that I have not played, or at least heard in its environment, and I have played nor heard neither of these. The Walker electric console would probably be easier to manage provided the action is still in good condition, but the fact that only flue ranks are provided, together with the somewhat excessive use of extension (to my mind) is a potential disadvantage.
I must admit that I am only posting this message, which some might quite reasonably consider time-wasting, because of the appalling weather. Both yesterday and today I donned gardening clothes, determined to do something about the summer's crop of weeds, only to be driven in again after less than half an hour on both occasions, covered in mud and in a correspondingly filthy frame of mind. I hope members will not think I am taking out my frustrations on them.
CEP
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I wish I had heard the old instrument prior to its removal. It sounds very colourful from this recording.
It could be, depending on how it was played, but it was also immensely powerful and the temptation to submerge the audience in over-long and near-deafening phalanxes of sound seemed to be something that not every performer could resist. In the 1970s I lived fairly close by so went often to the cathedral, and came away more often than I would have liked feeling that my ear drums had been assaulted yet again. It was difficult to choose a listening position where this did not happen, because if one attempted to attenuate the SPL by sitting further away, too much detail simply got lost in the acoustic.
On one occasion I went with a friend and we both sat in the crossing (they had arranged chairs there) while George Thalben-Ball did his thing. The same thing happened again, and I began to wonder whether it was in fact difficult for the player to judge what effect he was creating in the building. The following day my friend complained that his ears had not stopped ringing throughout the previous evening. I knew what he meant.
CEP
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Perhaps some benefactor would buy the console and donate it back to Doncaster as an exhibit.
That's a really nice idea. However I suspect the probability is greater than zero that they would say they'd rather have the money!
CEP
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Take a look at this then!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Five-Manual-Console-/261997176001?hash=item3d003fa4c1
Actually it's not bad value for money as it's advertised at £750 buy-it-now. If you could get it cheaper by bidding it would be even better.
I have a lot of respect for the person who's selling it and would be very tempted to take it off his hands if I only had the space!
CEP
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The Delius is one of the Two Aquarelles, arranged by Gregory Murray (Delius would probably have been furious at the idea!). It sounds very well, but demands thumbing and is thus tricky to play.
I'm wondering whether we're talking about the same thing. My arrangement (of one of them) is indeed by Murray but it's pretty straightforward and with no thumbing indicated, though I can see where it would heighten the effect at certain points. I solo various bits here and there on a separate manual though - but not by thumbing.
I play it on my website (the home page, near the bottom) but won't give a link here as it's rendered on a pipeless instrument I'm afraid! (The reason for mentioning this is not so much to advertise my approximation to the composer's intentions as to help establish whether we are indeed talking of the same piece).
CEP
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Not quite rivers, but aqueous nonetheless:
Summer Night on the Water (Delius)
On the Lake (Heinrich Hofmann)
Fountain Springs (Enrique Granados)
The Sweet Rivelet (Francis Jackson)
Some are arrangements - I can give you details if interested.
CEP
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I have a feeling that history will not be enamoured too much with Downes meddling. His Buckfast creation is now gone and his influence on the organs in the RFH, Gloucester and St Albans cathedrals has all but dissolved.
I have some difficulty with the term 'meddling' being applied to Downes's work. Views about organ advisers naturally vary widely, but he worked at a time when several (if not many) of his peers were not musicians at all - Cecil Clutton was an example, who could barely play a note. I have seen him described as "a boorish and independently wealthy dilettante with too much free time whose disproportionate influence and lack of social graces bore scant correlation to his actual talents". This too might be unfair, and it's a view which is unlikely to be universally shared, but it confirms that we all probably have our own favourites among both past and present members of the breed. Clutton's close buddy and another amateur, George Dixon, dismissed in print the sound of the instruments Bach played as "sausage frying". That sort of thing is not organ consultancy.
Looking at him objectively, Downes was highly qualified and experienced as a musician (unlike those just mentioned) and he also did a great deal of research to support his consultancy interests. Even today one can still learn much from his book 'Baroque Tricks' about the scaling, voicing and other organ building practices of great 17th and 18th century European organ builders. It is a testament to his dedication that he was able to discover so much about their work while the Cold War was at its height, with access to some instruments, and indeed to much scholarship, being so difficult.
So I would not say he was a mere meddler. His legacy is bound to be viewed differently today, if only because we are all experts with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight. But I venture to suggest that many will still pause to consider what he did carefully before forming a judgement.
CEP
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I'm a bloody fool!
Nice one John - you and me both! I can't speak for HW III as I never met him, but I do find people who adopt an 'I'm always right' attitude to be wearisome. Sometimes there is only a single and inarguable answer to an issue, but more often there is room for dialogue.
CEP
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I used to go to many of the Bank Holiday recital at Newcastle, when Tim Hone was DOM, it was in fine voice then, I think
My first organ teacher, Russell Missin, preceded Timothy Hone at Newcastle and he always sung its praises. I only knew him personally prior to his Newcastle appointment at St Mary's, Nottingham, and I was probably among the last few who played the 4 manual Walker there before its terminal collapse and its replacement with a rather different instrument (which has, I gather, now been augmented with a digital, a situation which some might think tells its own story). He was apparently well liked at Newcastle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Arthur_Missin
So, although St Mary's is not a cathedral, there is nonetheless some congruence with the topic here.
CEP
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Not wishing to open a new topic, I decided to post this here, though there are several others dealing with it. It contains some queries about which edition of 'the' toccata is best (assuming there is an answer to this question) and some interpretational points. I'd like to clear these up, if only because one is asked to play the thing so often and I'd like to establish how I'm supposed to be rendering it, not that many would notice at the average wedding ...
I have always used the Hamelle edition dated 1929. Is this regarded as good, bad or indifferent?
Next, as to speed, the crotchet=100 marking is frequently exceeded though I find it comfortable, and it also fits most acoustics in the sense of not allowing the notes to run too much into each other aurally.
Then, articulation. On the first page and into the second, until the pedals come in the following is apparently prescribed:
The first chord of each quaver-pair is accented, with the corresponding pair of semiquavers in the right hand being slurred. After bar 2 the slurs vanish though the accents do not. Everything else is marked staccato. But after the pedal entry this changes, everything becomes staccato without exception, and remains so thereafter. Was this initial subtlety intended? If so, it's surprising it isn't re-introduced in the pianissimo section on the Recit for manuals only (bar 33).
Virtually nothing can be gained by listening to recordings, partly because the usual distant mic-ing and thus the reverberation drowns out such minutiae. However there is a recording by David Briggs at St Sernin where he adheres more or less to the written articulation before the pedal entry. In fact his performance is light and bouncy to an extent seldom heard. But thereafter the pedals cover much of the detail and I cannot tell what he's doing most of the time.
Maybe that's the answer - don't bother overmuch once the pedals start to dominate things?
CEP
Chris Tambling
in General discussion
Posted
It's particularly shocking, because Christopher was only in his early fifties, and his son Edward, not yet 30, has lost his father.
CEP