Colin Pykett
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Posts posted by Colin Pykett
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Thank you indeed for this. I saw your other post under 'The Organ' which looks the same, and found that one downloaded with fewer problems than this one (not that I'm blaming anyone for that other than myself and my pesky setup!).
Although not intended critically, I found the recording sonically rather top-heavy and found that some bass EQ evened up the balance a bit. I only have one other recording of this organ, by the late Roger Fisher made in 1984 (the year after yours) and live at a recital in 2011. He confined himself to French romantic works whereas the programme here is more eclectic, so they complement each other very well. I was particularly surprised how well Bach came over - not at all opaque as he sometimes does on other C-C instruments. Also C-C's rather strange mixture compositions sometimes work against the 'theoretically purer' (if I can put it like that) vertical chorus work of the baroque era, at least in Schnitger-style Werkprinzip organs up to c. 1700, though this was less noticeable here than with some other of his organs.
And (somewhat late) congratulations to Gillian Adams.
Is the CD you mentioned available?
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Later edit:
I have tried to download again but only the Bach F&F G min seems to be there now. Is it just me? (Quite likely ... )
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From my personal and professional perspective there is an aspect of the 'game' which interests me, and that concerns the acoustical physics of organ design and placement in a building. A detailed mathematical analysis of any particular situation is impossibly difficult, but some general guidelines can be developed which can help decide, for example, how many stops and of which tonalities and powers might be appropriate for each division. It helps if acoustic measurements can be made in the building by placing loudspeakers in different positions radiating various types of tones including the sounds of recorded pipes, continuous noise and transient noise bursts to judge the effects at various microphone positions. By doing this, usually by having instructed an acoustics consultancy, some organ builders in the past have developed scaling and voicing strategies for their proposed instrument. It is standard practice in acoustics and no different in principle to doing the same thing when the acoustical treatment of a concert hall is being designed. My personal involvement with the 'game' obviously could not go this far in this case, though I wonder whether it has been done. When details of the organ are finally revealed it will also be possible to play the 'game' again to compare the before and after results.
These days it would also be easily possible to create a virtual pipe organ and use it as a test bed to try out the effects of various stops and combinations of stops. The loudspeakers would be placed in various positions to assess their relative effectiveness. As to the sample set, the obvious thing would be to generate one with a similar or identical stop list to that proposed for the pipe organ. At least some organ builders have now assembled enough electronic sample libraries to enable them to make a VPO which should approach closely to what the final pipe organ will sound like. Even if they haven't, they can be readily purchased. Since there is a VPO already in service at Gloucester I would be surprised if the opportunity had not been taken already to experiment with it along these lines.
I wonder whether these suggestions would fall into the category of the 'claptrap' mentioned by an earlier contributor to this thread?
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@father-willis
I would be sorry indeed if you felt you had to delete the thread. After all, it has already attracted three replies (excluding your own) in about 6 hours, and that's a lot better than many of mine which still sit in splendid isolation years after they appeared. Not that it concerns me in the slightest, as Martin Cooke said. And if one can be bothered, one can look at the statistics to find out how many have read it, which is a more important aspect. And as you said yourself, it's only a game, and one which has been played often here in the past. There is currently a vacuum about the plans for this organ, so I can't see any harm at all in what you suggested.
Thank you for having helped to inject much-needed new life into the proceedings.
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Peter, I echo S_L's apologies for not knowing much about the area. But there appear to be 'c8 boxes' (presumably meaning 'about 8 boxes'?) of parish records available at this link going up to the time the church closed:
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/aab45786-aa37-4088-95f2-87419300d8d4
So there might be some organ-related material there?
More generally, elsewhere the web suggests that the church itself, still a handsome listed building by the look of it, now houses a business centre (if I've identified the correct church, that is). See:
https://www.walkersingleton.co.uk/commercial/st-johns-business-centre-calder-street-hx4-8aq/
There might conceivably be some tenuous leads from this, backtracking via sources such as the local council's planning department to the events which led to the development, and hence, perhaps, to people who might have some organ-related information from the time.
I've done similar searches myself, not for churches I must admit, but for the history of a particularly interesting Victorian house I was brought up in. This was demolished to make way for a petrol station in the 1960s, along with some very old adjacent properties which today would almost certainly have been granted listed status, so the demolition likely could not have happened. Anyway, I managed to find out a lot about the house by searching through the most unlikely records, such as Kelly's Trade Directories and the like. It took a long time but eventually yielded the info I was after.
Along the way I discovered there are individuals and organisations who will do this sort of thing for you, but at a price of course.
Good luck.
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On 26/09/2023 at 09:04, Martin Cooke said:
... we're not completely averse to occasional discussions on digital instruments - he said, controversially - they are a fact of life and lots of us play them at home and at church... and the blogs etc on the websites of the major players in the UK are often very interesting. Actually, in the case of Church Organ World (Makin, Johannus, Rodgers & Copeman Hart + sheet organ music) it's Keith Harrington's weekly newsletter that carries useful commentary about new music etc - and it's worth writing to him to ask to be included in the mailing. Whereas, the Viscount website has a blog and info about new installations which is always interesting to keep up with.)
There seems to be a quietly-evolving situation regarding digitals on this forum. Not all that long ago I recall the 'rules' saying quite explicitly (in large letters IIRC) that this was not allowed. But having just checked again, I can no longer find this mentioned, assuming I'm looking in the right places. Within reason, in my view it's sensible of course, given their acceptance by a large number (the majority?) of players and their presence everywhere from cathedrals downwards. However it would be unfortunate (but again, only in my view) if the subject escalated in prominence to rival the rather dreary discussions about topics such as how to repair ancient Hammonds and Leslies, whether digital clones of them are as good, etc, etc, that one sees elsewhere.
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Many thanks for this fascinating info about (literally) cleaning up old records. Re worn down shellac, I once calculated that the pressure on the groove created by a typical massive 1930s pickup head playing via a steel needle at a tracking weight of around 8 ounces (getting on for 230 gm) was about 30 tons psi! No wonder playing a new record just once physically ruined it thereafter in those days. Terrible pity really.
57 minutes ago, carrick said:... listening to live broadcasts from the 30s, 40s and 50s is where you get to hear the "raw" Reg and it's electrifying, especially when he's backed up 5000 people in the ballroom whistling and shouting for more.
Those were the days! But I think we're still fortunate to have a goodly number of players who can help recapture the spirit of those times with their breathtaking technique. I find this one still raises the hairs on the back of my neck every time I play it:
Just unbelievable!
I also love to listen to Reg Dixon playing the same piece in one of his several arrangements I have in my CD collection.
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Yes, these recordings are interesting. Thank you. I have a considerable number of them on the Sterndale 'Dixonland' CD compilations from the 1930s where they have been rather heavily CEDAR-processed, so it will be interesting to compare the sound quality of those with yours. 1950 is quite late for a 78 rpm recording, so this one is pretty good in terms of noise level compared to earlier ones as one might expect. Have you processed them in any way before uploading them? Audio issues apart, his technique was fabulous when he really got going, and so was the Wurli organ action in being able to articulate it so precisely.
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During the signing of the registers the music was played by a very good string quartet consisting of young people at a London conservatoire, friends of the bride. They were grouped around the detached console of the organ. After the service, having observed me playing, one of them said "I had no idea organists played with their feet."
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Having just this minute posted on another topic I thought I'd contribute to this one before signing out.
For what it's worth:
@ Martin Cooke: Yes, I think we are dying out. If not, then I don't know what else a dying forum could possibly look like.
@carrick: I don't know why people bother to join either, if they aren't intending to contribute. It's an open forum so they could save a few hundred nanoJoules of biological energy (and, indeed, electrical energy) by not bothering to join if all they want to do is lurk and read.
@Bruce Buchanan: I have difficulty agreeing with your self-analysis of laziness. More importantly, I greatly value your contributions. (NB As those who know me will attest, I am not given to sycophancy ... )
Incidentally, your BOT's purple prose shows just how pathetic AI is. It's always so easy to spot when reading such drivel. The real danger of AI is the increasing number of people who take such stuff seriously, especially those in positions of power who have no independent means of verifying what is dished up because their own grey matter is so akin to a bowl of spaghetti on the subjects they are supposed to be dealing with (aka 'expert at'). Am I thinking, inter alia, of politicians? Surely not ...
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The days of traditional fora are long over, having been overtaken by social media. But I find the superficiality, silliness and (often) sheer nonsense of what one finds there to be scarcely worth the bother, plus other factors such as the difficulty of searching for the bits you want. But then, that's social media for you ...
To be honest, I think this forum ought to be shut down, but until it is, I'll continue to annoy people from time time.
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1 hour ago, Rowland Wateridge said:
There’s an excellent photograph of the St Paul’s case (and a brief history) here:
https://www.theburtonthree.com/st-pauls-church/
Speaking of photographs, there's a picture of the former Hope-Jones console at St Paul's, Burton in one of my web articles. If you go to:
http://www.colinpykett.org.uk/HJOrganActions.htm
and then download the PDF version of the article (it's far too long to have put it on the website itself), you can see it on page 51. This is the actual console which still exists, not just a copy of an old photo. The console is now preserved by the Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust in their Hope-Jones museum at Manchester. The museum also houses the similar-sized Hope-Jones/Norman & Beard console from St Modwen's, Burton. Equally fascinating but quite different. When Stanley and I were conversing about them he said that he was intending to go there and have a (silent!) play on them! I don't know for sure whether he did, though.
For those with the interest there's also a lot of technical detail about the actions of these organs elsewhere in this article which you can find by searching for 'St Paul's' or 'St Modwen's'.
Forgive me for what might appear to be grandstanding or self-promotion. This is absolutely not my intention, but as this thread is still obviously very much alive, I thought it might be of interest.
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27 minutes ago, SomeChap said:
... was Fr/Dr Monkhouse involved in the 2009-ish transplant of the big 2-man Conacher into St Paul's Burton-on-Trent? ...
I may be wrong, but suspect he was not. I think his tenure as vicar did not begin until 2014.
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15 hours ago, pwhodges said:
Ten of the 21 stops have "over 50% of original material" according to Wolff & Zepf "The Organs of J.S.Bach" (2012). No reeds and no pedal stops, though. With four of the missing stops being pedal, that says that something over 50% of the pipes are original, not a mere 25%. Five other stops are modelled on a single surviving pipe, which means that at least the general style and scale should be in the ballpark. The pedal stops and manual reed are modelled on examples from the same builder or his contemporaries.
Paul
That's at odds with what the builders of the new instrument (then known as Orgelbau Otto Hoffmann) themselves said in publications which they issued at the time, authored in collaboration with the then Director of Music at Arnstadt, the late Gottfried Preller. According to this 'from-the horse's-mouth' material, the original pipes which they managed to recover had previously been incorporated in a romantic tubular pneumatic instrument as a few so-called 'Bach Registers'. My versions of these publications are in hard copy form, supplied to me personally from the organ builders who were extremely helpful, but originally in German which I translated myself. Being more specific, the total number of pipes in the instrument ('pfeifen insgesamt' in my sources) was quoted as 1252 of which 320 were said to be original ('originalpfeifen'). Presumably Orgelbau Hoffmann knew exactly how many new pipes they had had to procure for the contract, so it's difficult to see that the figures can be disputed.
What sources did Wollf & Zepf quote?
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On 28/08/2023 at 15:55, davidh said:
Recently many videos have appeared by Paul Fey. He is a 25 year old German organist who speaks excellent English. He travels widely, has access to many important instruments and fills some gaps using Hauptwerk. Most of the videos are demos of stops and registrations. He seems to have a good understanding of the possibilities of each instrument and knows exactly what he wants next and how to find it.
I agree, and (presumably) so do 26k other subscribers. His video of the 'Bach organ' at Arnstadt was particularly interesting in view of its rather singular disposition compared to contemporary organs further north with their complete vertical chorus work and relatively few unison stops. The opposite was true at Arnstadt - incomplete (gappy) chorus work but far more choice of 'horizontal' colour at unison pitch, showing the emergence of a distinctly Thuringian type of instrument. See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpNaouE6KZo
I don't know whether he has also demonstrated a VPO version, though a sample set exists. However bear in mind that the current pipe organ, from which the samples were taken, is a modern (c. 2000) reconstruction in which 75% of the pipework is completely new. So it's impossible to say how close the organ sounds in comparison with the original which was largely lost c. 1860 if not before.
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15 minutes ago, S_L said:
There have been some splendid 'Prom' concerts this year...
But no more under this conductor I suspect:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66604555
(What an extraordinary story. I had to double-check in case the date was last April ... )
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Recently I met a consultant surgeon (FRCSI), now practising in England but who had qualified at Dublin. I asked him if he knew Stanley and it turned out that he was his Professor of Anatomy at the time. He said that Stanley "had a fine mind", although he did not know of his musical activities and professional qualifications, saying that "he must have kept that well hidden from us". He was saddened to hear that Stanley had passed away.
The conversation reminded me not only of how well known Stanley was within so many different circles, but of the large number of people he helped to qualify and, in so doing, to have assisted them to go on to help so many others in their turn.
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He was one of those of whom countless anecdotes could be related, many of them hilarious and enhanced with his own brand of wit, though I can imagine that not everybody would 'get' some of it and others might even be offended. I first came across him many years ago when he contacted me out of the blue about the large 4 manual Hope-Jones organ that had been installed in St Paul's, Burton upon Trent - one of his three churches there. He had come across an article on my website which discussed it in detail, and I recollect that he was intending to print it off and leave copies at the back of the church. (He might have thought better of it though when he discovered it ran to 100 pages!). He was also delighted to learn that the console of this instrument had been preserved by the Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust and placed in their Hope-Jones museum in Manchester, where I believe it still resides (along with another H-J/Norman & Beard console of similar size from St Modwen's, Burton - another of his churches).
Rowland mentioned that Stanley had lived in Nottingham when his career took him to the medical faculty of the university, and as part of exercising his musical talents there I know that he also became President of the Organists' Association for a spell.
As well as the interview in the Church Times which Rowland linked to above, together with his contributions to 'Thinking Anglicans' ("yes, yes, I know" quoth he on one occasion), he also maintained a blog where he posted many essays as the muse moved him. As I write, the last one can be found at:
https://ramblingrector.me/2023/06/28/why-do-i-bother/
By clicking the 'previous' button at top right you can move back through as many of the others as you wish.
Many will miss him, and will also want to wish his family well at this sad and difficult time.
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I can't add anything of substance to what has already been said, except that Stanley was one of those people whom I never met (other than through internet correspondence) but wish I had.
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It would be interesting to get an opinion from a visually impaired organist concerning illuminated stop controls, including touch screens.
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39 minutes ago, Adnosad said:
Symphonies, as one can imagine are rare but plenty of solo pieces, including organ and recordings made " at The Front ".
I was raised in a home where there were cupboards full of pre-war 78 rpm recordings encompassing a wide range of genres, but I particularly recall a heavy boxed set of Beethoven's fifth symphony conducted by Toscanini on HMV. I think it occupied five twelve-inch discs with sides numbered non-consecutively so that they could be loaded onto an early autochanger which then played the symphony complete, only requiring one manual intervention when you had to invert the whole stack of discs half way through.
Coming back to organ music, Sir Walter Alcock admitted to sometimes "coughing discreetly" (as he put it) when playing his own recordings to others, as he was aware that not all of the performances were flawless and of course he knew in advance where to do the coughing ... I don't want to be picky, but thought I detected one or two slips in Dr Prendergast's recording of Wesley's Larghetto, but with an engineer behind him holding a stopwatch and no doubt prodding him from time to time to get a move on, is it to be wondered at, given Reginald Foort's reminiscences quoted above?
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33 minutes ago, Rowland Wateridge said:
Interesting that a 1927 78 record of Dr Prendergast at Winchester Cathedral found its way to Australia.
... without getting broken in transit.
It reminds me of an anecdote retailed by my father who spent part of WW 2 at RAF Benbecula whence they flew sorties trying to catch U-boats going around Scotland on their way to and from the Atlantic. He said a 'chippy' there knocked up a wooden transit case for him so that he could safely transport 78 rpm records to and fro between the base and his home in the Midlands when on leave.
As for this interesting recording, I noticed that all of the repeats in my edition (arr. H A Chambers, 1947) were omitted, presumably so that it would fit on one side of the record. With the repeats, it occupies about 5 1/2 minutes whereas without them, this recording lasts for only 3 1/2 minutes. I also thought that the last section was rather hurried, perhaps for the same reason.
This reminds me of yet another anecdote, this time from Reginald Foort, who said that in his experience the most trying aspect of making recordings in the 1920s and 30s was the difficulty of ensuring the piece would fit on the record. Endless rehearsals against a stopwatch were necessary to ensure this, but on occasions when the actual take was a shade too long, the wrath of the engineers was something to behold on account of the expense involved in writing off a wax master disc and the costs of obtaining and setting up another. Apparently, according to him, the most successful recording artists were partly chosen in those days because of their skill at timing their performances to a nicety.
Thanks to you and Stanley for posting this link.
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The continuing secrecy here surrounding something which has been advertised for all and sundry to see in the public domain is beginning to strike me as slightly silly! Nevertheless I won't be the plot-spoiler, but if anyone still wants to find it, just google for the following extract from the OP's post:
The shortlisted candidate was required to play:
A Prelude or Fugue by J S Bach
Widor’s Toccata
A hymn given on the day: play first verse, improvise for 2 minutes, modulate up a tone for a final verse.
Short-listed Candidates will also be asked to direct members of the choir in practice for about 20 minutes to prepare a new psalm and accompany a Rutter anthem on the piano.
Simples!!
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Not knowing anything more about the post than what you gave us above, nevertheless I can see what you mean, but it might have attracted the attention of a youngster in the VIth form who perhaps might have failed to get an organ scholarship somewhere more prestigious. The ability to add it to her/his CV when applying subsequently to a uni or conservatoire would probably carry some weight - and the fees for someone of that age would be rather more than the average pocket money many would otherwise get I suspect! (see *** below). Alternatively, a retired person might also find it of interest. In both cases there is the implication that the church in question knows what they want and that the standard they expect of their musicians is relatively high. And if the organ is a good one, it would add weight to the package. But I can also see that the chosen person might not be there for too long before moving on to greater things.
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*** My first organist/choir trainer post was when I was a VIth former. It paid £60 per annum, paid quarterly, and it bought me my first motor cycle which was necessary for the commute between my home and the church. Without the stipend I could not have afforded it. This figure will indicate the approximate time that has since elapsed! I had quite a nice well-maintained two manual organ about 30 years old with pneumatic action and I felt very lucky and was happy to be there for those couple of years until leaving for university. When attending for interview for a physics (not music) uni placement, the interviewer was at least as interested in my musical activities as in exploring my depth of scientific knowledge, and I was offered a place. It transpired subsequently that he was also an amateur organist, though he did not say so at the time. Some years later when attending similar interviews with prospective employers, the same thing happened - they were just as keen to explore my extramural musical interests as anything else. Much later when I found myself interviewing youngsters for jobs, I placed weight on those who had multidisciplinary interests as it seemed to make them more interesting and well-rounded individuals who would be more likely to survive the cut and thrust of a high technology career in a large organisation.
Not wishing to be too pompous, I have bored you with all this because it goes back to what I said at the outset about the post that S_L mentioned being a potentially useful investment for a youngster early in their journey through life.
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Lucien Nunes, a former member of this and other forums, died before his time on 11 June. Intellectually still in his prime, he had been fighting cancer for some years although you would not have known it from the characteristic vigour and extraordinary depth of expertise that flowed undiminished from him until the end. Among some top rank performers and within the organ building world he was known as one of the unsung heroes who were involved with painstaking restorations such as that of the fabulous twin-console Compton instrument at Southampton Guildhall about 15 years ago. Richard Hills recorded a CD of the organ around that time and paid tribute to him by name in the sleeve note.
An electrical and electronics engineer by training, Lucien always argued for the greatest care to be taken in preserving the structure and integrity of the instruments he was faced with, particularly their actions. At Southampton he was personally responsible for bringing the original electro-mechanical combination capture actions from the 1930s back to life, for example. Among many other features of this organ, the system illustrated the extraordinary capabilities of the Compton company in its heyday and it was therefore most gratifying that it was restored (and, indeed, that he deemed it restorable) to working order after so many years. Most other interventionists would have just ripped it out and replaced it with electronics. A similar story unfolded a few years later at Battersea Arts Centre, formerly the Town Hall, where the historic four manual concert organ built by Norman and Beard using the Hope-Jones system of electrical control was similarly being cosseted back to life by Lucien and a few others until the disastrous fire of 2015 put an end to much of their efforts. At the time he was probably the only one who fully understood the labyrinthine complexity of Hope-Jones's electro-pneumatic combination action sitting behind the stop keys, an early precursor of the system which appeared many years later in Wurlitzer theatre organs.
I felt privileged at the time to have met and interacted with Lucien over many years, and certainly do so now that he is no longer with us. In recent times he worked tirelessly to promote his ideas for MEET, the Museum for Electrical and Electronic Technology, in which several Compton Electrone electronic organs will be showcased, together with examples of pipe organ control systems. It is to be hoped that it will continue to move towards fruition in the future as a tribute to his energy, enthusiasm and courage in the face of overwhelming adversity.
Deepest sympathies go to his family and friends.
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If you mean the ebay listing of the Buckfast console, it's at:
I don't know about the other auctions that S_L referred to.
Hope this works.
Are we dying on our feet?
in General discussion
Posted
Re the health of the forum, there has always been a substantial number of members as far back as my memory goes - currently it stands at about 1220, and I recall it being over 1500 some years ago. That's about twice the membership of BIOS! Older versions of the forum listed their user IDs, and since many of them used their own names (and, then as now, one had a pretty good idea who many of the others were) there were numerous illustrious members of the 'organ Establishment' (particularly organ builders and performers) both here and in other countries represented. Yet even in the halcyon days, in the noughties say, when one could hardly venture to say anything without attracting hordes of replies, it was the case that the vast majority of signed-up members never put electronic pen to paper. This was, and is, a great pity because how wonderful it would be if some of the same great names had participated in the proceedings, and if they did so today. All along it's always been left to just a few active names to keep things alive, granted that those few have gradually been replaced with others over the years.
So it is a most curious situation that so many apparently rushed to join the forum when it was set up yet have never been active in its deliberations. Why? And why do people keep joining even today (good) but then never post (not so good)? Answers on a post card please, because I'm clearly not going to get the answers here!