Colin Pykett

Some recent posts have discussed things like youtube performances and various pieces of organ music. This has reminded me of a related topic I ponder about from time to time, which is how to construct a recital programme. There seem to be several aspects|: 1. Who are we playing to? Sometimes it might be an audience 'of the cloth' so to speak, in other words made up largely of organists. Such occasions will include recitals given to organists' associations. Compiling a recital programme for this sort of audience is probably not seen as particularly difficult by most players. But at the other pole, if we want to attract an audience from a wider and more catholic musical background, or those who are merely curious, which pieces should be selected? Perhaps another way to pose the question is to ask what organ tracks would you choose if you were hosting a Classic FM radio programme, where the advertisers have a keen interest in maximising the listening figures? Should we attempt to educate audiences by instilling into them our own (possibly arcane) preferences, or include a selection of lollipops perhaps? Should the programme be all lollipops? These questions seem important, because they are related to the very survival of the instrument at one extreme. And getting people through the door is also advantageous to the church, town hall, or whatever because it enhances the weight of the collection plate which helps to pay for the upkeep of the instrument and the purchase of the next one. 2. How do we know what people's preferences are in the first place? Has the audience research for organ music ever been done? If so, are the results available in the public domain? As it happens, I do have answers to such questions. Whether they are the right ones might be debated, but on the other hand, who could say whether they were 'right' or not? And if they were thought to be wrong, where are the alternative answers to be found? For what it's worth, I analysed the download statistics relating to the organ music tracks on my website over a six month period during which many thousands of people across the globe listened to (or at least downloaded) them. I could even give you the IP address of each individual download in theory, from which possibly interesting geographical and even demographic information could be extracted if desired. Several hours' worth of music is available on the site, played on various types of organ ranging from Arp Schnitger to WurliTzer and representing music from the 15th to the 20th centuries. From these stats, I compiled a Top Twenty list which had some interesting properties, including: 1. J S Bach did not appear, even though the number of items by him on the site is five times larger than the next most common composer. (This does not mean that nobody listened to Bach; merely that the number of those who did were not able to propel him into the Top Twenty). 2. People strongly preferred romantic music played on organs from the romantic era (19th & 20th centuries) rather than earlier music played on baroque instruments, no matter how interesting people such as us on this forum might regard it. Somehow I feel that this information has to be at least slightly useful. Firms and broadcasting organisations spend huge sums on similar market research, and precisely for this reason they are not about to throw their hard-earned data into the public domain for their competitors to see. But I think the bottom line is that recitalists might consider paying attention to results such as these, even if they do not reflect them in their programmes in every particular. Nobody likes playing to an empty church - do they?

David, your question is interesting though as I said in my post above, everyone's preferences for audio equipment are heavily subjective, so I would not wish to impose mine on you or anyone else who reads this. But as you are seeking opinions ... Having listened to the multi-mic clip in your initial post, it did sort of confirm what I would have expected from dynamic and capacitor mics, and it was an interesting listening opportunity - thank you. Dynamic mics seem to me to have noticeably lower bass compared with their mid-range, but this makes them good for vocals which they are often used for. But for organs and pianos I personally would go for the flatter and more predictable response of a capacitor mic, especially in the critical area of specialist piano tuning you mentioned. Nevertheless I share your irritation about the problems of powering them, and indeed have come across the noise and hum problems you mentioned. In one case this turned out to be generated by the mains power supply used by the phantom power unit. It was a switched-mode PSU which I would not have bought had I known this beforehand, as I always use linear PSUs for audio work especially in the low-signal-level front ends where mics are involved. When I replaced the SMPSU by a linear one everything was as quiet as batteries were. At the end of your post above you also said: "Likewise in that vein I heard a nice explanation about the rationale of the Shure SM57 with rising frequency response. Apparently people used to like them on account of their raised treble so that then they could turn down the treble on playback and reduce tape hiss . . . We don't understand that context any more today." Well, I would say that we do still understand that process - (adaptive) pre-emphasis prior to recording followed by (synchronous) de-emphasis on playback - because that's how Dolby noise reduction works!! But I do take your wider point about some of the 'white haired knowledge' having been lost. Another example is the universal habit of today's design engineers of doing everything possible in analogue signal conditioning by using integrated circuits, which often contain far too many transistors for the job you want them to do. One of the 'white haired brigade' who has indeed, and sadly, passed away was John Linsley Hood who designed a discrete op amp circuit in the 1970s using just three transistors. He called it the Liniac and I've used it widely in my own designs. But if I go on like this I fear my posts will, probably rightly, get deleted so I'd better stop now. However the topic itself is of considerable relevance to making decent recordings of the organ and other musical instruments, so it was reasonable of you to raise it I would suggest.

Mention of curtained organists brought to mind John Betjeman's description of St Enodoc's church in Cornwall: ... "A rattle as red baize is drawn aside, Miss Rhoda Poulden pulls the tremolo, The oboe, flute and vox humana stops; A Village Voluntary fills the air And ceases suddenly as it began, Save for one oboe faintly humming on" ... I think she was playing a reed organ, as the poem ends with: ... "The Lord's name by harmonium be praised" ... To me this is particularly and sadly evocative at a time when it's next to impossible to envisage visiting that beautiful place.

Like any other component in the recording and reproduction chains, one's choice of mics is as much subjective as anything else. I'm wary of posting on this topic because one can so easily sound preachy on audio matters, which isn't my intention at all. And David has probably at least as much if not more experience as anyone else. However, here goes. Steve makes some valid points with which I agree. One is that the inbuilt mics which come with the little Zoom, Tascam, etc recorder products are really quite good both for the modest financial outlay and for many recording situations. But positioning is indeed vital as he says, and to optimise this you desirably need separate mics. If, for example, you want to record the sounds of an organ at short-ish range, they become almost essential in some situations. Doing this is sometimes necessary to cut down on the excessively wet ambience of some auditoria, and if the organ case is elevated then proper mic stands are also necessary so the heights of the mics can be adjusted to taste. I've been recording for decades, and started my 'career' with some Calrec studio capacitor mics back in the 1970s which I thought were rather splendid at the time, though a bit expensive. Unfortunately my son cast envious eyes on them and eventually I gave in and thus they went in his direction. He was running a recording studio at the time and made some professional recordings with them for well known artists, including of the Gosport Compton theatre organ. His client was so impressed that he wanted some additional recordings of surfy sea sounds from the nearby seashore which were duly faded in and out on various tracks. However these mics became obsolete long ago, and they were also inconvenient to use in that they used non-standard (non-phantom) power arrangements and unbalanced audio outputs, together with unusual (Tuchel not XLR) connectors. Nevertheless they can still be obtained on the retro/pre-owned market should David's interest have been aroused. Cutting this exceedingly boring story short and coming back to the present, the latest semi-decent mics I've tried are Behringer C-2s. I think they might have been superseded since, but for the money I have to say that I find them pretty amazing value, and I've tried a few in my time. They are still available. Amazon's current price is £65 for an allegedly matched pair, and they come in a robust foam-filled carrying case with various accessories including a stereo bar. Without wanting to indulge in hyperbole, I would say that they complement the quality of the Zoom/Tascam type recorders quite nicely, though I usually record into a wave editor (WaveLab) running on a laptop when using separate mics. I also record in parallel onto a completely separate backup medium in case of computer disasters so that all would not be lost, such as a Zoom/Tascam or even a Minidisc recorder. I've been very happy with the quality of the organ pipe sound samples made using these mics. The downside of separate mics like this is, of course, having to drag around all the collateral bits and pieces including mic stands, cables and something to provide the phantom power such as a small mixing desk or at least a preamp. However if you are doing a job for somebody else they will certainly be impressed when you arrive with all this gear! Happy recording.

I agree with this sentiment Stanley. Even ordinary age related hearing loss (presbyacusis) is so gradual that it comes upon you almost unnoticed over decades, often starting in the late 40s. Yet unless one has an audiometry test done and sees the resulting audiogram (which can be a shocking experience the first time round - take my word for it!), many people won't even know they have it. The consequences can be profound, especially for those whose professions involve their ears such as tuners, voicers and sundry 'organ experts'. Consequently some of them blithely continue to do what they have always done, relying on their aural memory which was hard-wired into their brains when they were children yet which becomes increasingly detached from the reality of their defective hearing as they age. Since I now have moderate presbyacusis, I no longer attempt to pontificate on the tonal characteristics of organs either pipe or digital, except for my own purposes. As you implied Stanley, it's not much different to taking pocket money off infants otherwise and quite wrong in my view. A recent example concerns a sample set which I developed for my digital organ using my uncorrected ears. Yet when I played it using graphic equalisers set to compensate for my hearing loss (using a recent audiogram as a guide), it was intolerably shrieky in the upper reaches of the compass especially with higher-pitched stops and it required completely re-regulating. I'm not implying that the problem affects everybody in the business, but at the same time it's not one which should continue to be swept under the carpet. John Norman is a respected professional who set a good example when he wrote an article entitled 'The ear can't hear as high as that' (Organists' Review Feb 2011) in which he admitted that his own hearing no longer allowed him to hear the top few notes on a typical organ. That's my experience also, for what it's worth, but the reality is that it's worse than that in practice because it also means that I can no longer properly regulate such a stop over its top two octaves or so without using some form of audio correction. Nor can I properly assess the timbres of many stops even lower in the compass because of their extended harmonic retinues. As we've debated exhaustively on previous threads, hearing aids are of dubious value to a musician, and I've found the best form of correction to be graphic equalisers which can be set to compensate for my audiometry curve to a reasonable extent (though not completely, and this disparity is likely to get worse as time passes). Yes, it is off-topic, but it's important in view of the fact that many of those involved in the organ world are members of the gerontocracy, a good proportion of whom will have varying degrees of presbyacusis if not more severe hearing impairments. So I agree that it's worth airing the subject now and again in my opinion. You suggested that organ tonal "experts" should have a certificate of normal hearing. Maybe prospective customers should ask to see a recent audiogram before retaining them?

Yes, this is a commonly-performed demo, but of itself it doesn't mean that more sound is emitted from the mouth than the top. I obviously cannot know what Prof Wilkes intended or said at his lecture though. However the air flow through a pipe consists of two components: the bulk unidirectional flow of air coming up the pipe foot from the chest and through the flue slit formed by the lower lip and languid, plus the vibratory (to and fro) component starting at the mouth and going into the resonator which results in the sound. It might be easier to comprehend by taking an electrical analogy in which both DC and AC can exist in a conductor at the same time. In a flue pipe no sound is radiated by the bulk flow, and most of this air exits at the mouth into the atmosphere, with a minority carrying on up behind the upper lip and through the resonator (the pipe body) to exit at the top. It is the bulk flow which blows out the candle, not the vibratory component, so this is most readily blown out near the mouth where most of the flow emerges. (There is also an additional effect to take into account in that the bulk flow speed is greater at the mouth owing to the restricted area of the flue slit from which it emerges, whereas at the top of the pipe the area is much larger so the flow rate per unit area is much smaller for the proportion of the flow which travels up the pipe. Thus the flow speed is also smaller at the top. It's similar to the familiar garden hose in which one restricts the outlet area to get a faster jet and vice versa). I haven't done the experiment with a candle, but have used a piece of paper instead with various large flue bass pipes in organs which allowed safe access to both ends of the pipe. Both at the mouth and top the paper flutters, whereas at the mouth it also gets blown noticeably sideways by the bulk flow.

OK Stanley, since you asked so nicely, and because it's far too hot to think of going outside, here goes (with apologies to John if he thinks I'm paddling in his pond) ... Avoiding comment on your criticisms of specific organs and instead taking your words generically at face value, one which is 'hopelessly inadequate in the nave' is by definition unfit for purpose. It simply cannot be loud enough, because if it was loud enough then it would be heard better. But loudness is not simply a matter of making the pipes louder e.g. by increasing the wind pressure, although this can work after a fashion. It's a subjective phenomenon which also depends on how the acoustic power of a given sound is distributed in frequency, and for an organ this means that its sound at or approaching the full power of the instrument should have the benefit of lots of high frequency reinforcing ranks (i.e. mixtures) as well as loud harmonically-rich stops (i.e. reeds). Robert Hope-Jones did not realise the importance of mixtures because (a) the music establishment of the day since approximately Berlioz increasingly hated them anyway so he probably wouldn't have landed so many important contracts had he used them; (b) he happened on the scene when gas or electricity was suddenly becoming more available in towns for raising the wind and thus for delivering hitherto undreamed of pressures more easily (even his hand-blown tiniest instruments were voiced typically on 6"); and (c) his electric action was the means whereby he was able to confidently open his valves against these pressures even with the full coupler complement he provided. So his organs were usually deafeningly loud in the absence of mixtures. Although this approach therefore worked as far as sheer loudness was concerned, it meant that many of his stops were coarse-toned. But if mixtures will do the job without resorting to the H-J loudness method, then this defect can be avoided, or reduced. Often, though, one needs to use both approaches, and it's worth recalling that Gottfried Silbermann seemed to have twigged that high-ish pressures were the thing to generate power and presence even when mixtures were used as well. He used typically nearly 4" even in his smallest 2-deckers in village churches such as Fraureuth. I imagine that some members of the congregation (plus the organist) could well have left a service with tinnitus if they were sitting near the instrument. It confirms that organs of that era were probably not of the shy and retiring type often assumed (at least by some in this country) in the mid-20th century when the neo-baroque movement was at its height. So maybe in some organs from that period there had been misguided or uninformed pushiness from sundry advisers who insisted on something which might have been beautiful and 'authentic' in some ways, but in others it resulted in instruments which just twittered uselessly away because they were ill-matched to the building. As to the other architectural acoustics issues you raised, I can't comment much on lanterns, but glass has a low acoustic impedance (because windows flex, diaphragm-like, whereas the walls of the building do not) and therefore it lets the sound out. The lower the frequency the worse this gets, thus buildings with acres of glass can allow too much very low frequency energy to escape and so the organs within can sound thin and scratchy. (This effect is why one often hears the pedal stops faintly booming away first as one approaches a church through the churchyard). But returning to where we came in, an organ which isn't loud enough in the first place simply won't be adequate - which seems to be rather stating the obvious, and I now wonder why it has taken me so long to say it. As far as Southwell is concerned, it would be nice to get a view from John Norman or Paul Hale perhaps ...

As usual, it doesn't look like an organ builder is going to be bothered to respond to this so you'll have to put up with my purple prose. Answer to Q1 above: from the apertures at the mouth and top if not stopped. There is some radiation from the body but it's less. Uniform mouth orientation - not so much because it looks good as for convenience for the voicer, but sometimes nearby pipes have to be rotated to prevent acoustic interaction such as pipes 'pulling' each other in frequency. Sometimes ranks are made with staggered mouth heights for similar interaction reasons when planted on crowded soundboards. One reason can be the acoustic screening one rank by another which occurs on crowded soundboards, or to provide better acoustic line of sight for unenclosed ranks so they are not screened by a swell box for example. Doesn't matter too much for big flues as opposed to reeds because they have so few harmonics of such low frequencies that the sound can bend round obstacles which are small compared with the wavelength. What is the wavelength? Open pipes are half a wavelength long; stopped ones a quarter. Therefore an obstacle would have to be enormous in all three dimensions for it to be 'noticed' by a sound wave at such low frequency. (It's the diffraction phenomenon). The issue is the same as where do you site your sub woofers for your hifi - it's not particularly critical compared with where you site your tweeters, which must have direct line of sight to your ears. Same for organ pipes. So, yes, LF sounds do behave very differently at the lowest frequencies, particularly below 16 foot C - that 32 foot bottom octave is quite singular acoustically. There's a particular issue in this lowest octave re open vs stopped. An open pipe radiates from top and mouth. The two signals are out of phase, so there is a horizontal plane halfway up the pipe where you get phase cancellation - in an anechoic chamber. But organs are seldom built in anechoic chambers, so in practice this effect is not an issue in ordinary spaces. This is due to reflections which mix up the sound and prevent the 'cancellation circle' being formed. However a stopped flue in this 32 foot lowest octave only radiates from its mouth, and this means the sound space is robbed of a very useful additional source of sound as far as mixing-up is concerned. Consequently one can get 'acoustic holes' more often at certain points in the building with a stopped 32 foot flue than one does from an open rank. The holes form at certain locations if the direct sound from the pipe mouth happens to be in antiphase with that of a strong reflection from a wall. Because of the very long wavelengths the physical extent of these holes is very considerable. With the open rank there is an additional sound source, which therefore fills in the holes to some extent. Moral: don't be tempted to economise by using 32 foot stopped basses. They are not as bad at 16 foot because the wavelengths are shorter so the holes aren't so large and noticeable. Can't speak for Ralph D - who can? Maybe he mentioned it in 'Baroque Tricks' which I haven't got the time to look up for you at the moment. The top or wherever else the aperture happens to be, and to a much less extent from the body. Re hoods, good question. Cost has to be a factor. All that clever skilled mitreing and soldering costs time and money. Thank heavens for that.

But if merely playing it at sight as written isn't demanding enough, how about transposing it at sight as well (one or two semitones up or down, I don't care - the student may choose), and for good measure carry on extemporising at the end in the same manner for another couple of pages' worth? Why keep life simple when it can be made more difficult?

There's an entire 2-page exercise entitled 'Thumbs on a separate manual' on pp. 93/94 of W G Alcock's organ tutor ('The Organ'), originally published by Novello but now available on IMSLP when I looked recently. It's quite interesting, euphemistically speaking, to attempt it as written as Allegretto in 6/8 ... A diploma-level sight reading exercise perhaps, anyone?

Rather more than two months later I've succeeded in getting hold of this book which I had not come across before. However I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wants to augment their knowledge of the physics of music as it's pretty hopelessly out of date. Mine is the first edition (1969), published in the UK in 1970, thus 50 years ago now. Consequently it does not (because it could not) address a lot of the research into musical instruments which has been done since. For instance the explanation of how organ flue pipes work is now quite wrong and merely repeats what was currently understood in the Edwardian era when people such as Audsley were active. And of course, the chapter on electronic and computer music is similarly pretty useless now. Damian's later edition might be somewhat better in these respects. However if, like me, you enjoy reading material for its historical value then it's a book that is more worthwhile. This is as true for the physics of music as it is for the organ itself, where few would criticise Dom Bedos, Hopkins & Rimbault or Audsley for writing works which perforce can represent only their time and place.

This week we did some decluttering as it's now getting easier to get to the council tip (though you still have to book your visit two days in advance). So among other stuff I just picked up from my shelves, without going through it in detail, some substantial piles of sheet music I hadn't played, not only for some years, but for decades. Most of it was light music including a multi-volume set of G&S piano scores (I can't abide it anyway but used to play it to satisfy certain audiences in the distant past). The other numbers were mainly what I used to play occasionally on theatre pipe/digital organs, including odd stuff which pressed some people's buttons such as songs going back to the pre-1920s, plus South Pacific, The Sound of Music, Frank Sinatra's and Nat KIng Cole's output, etc, etc. There was also a multi-volume set of books called The New Musical Educator, dating from the 1940s and edited by Harvey Grace, as I've since bought a much better quality version of the original from the early 1900s edited by John Greig. Having looked around on the web none of this seemed to have enough monetary value to justify the pain and grief involved in ebaying it so I just chucked the lot of it away. The resulting empty shelf space was very satisfying to contemplate and has not been completely filled yet, thereby providing opportunities to acquire future items which will be more useful. A potential downside is that most of this stuff was not out of copyright so in that sense I've burned my boats since it's also out of print, but it's a risk worth having taken. Paraphrasing what Stanley said, if you don't use it, then lose it.

Thank you for this, Tony. The NPOR entry mentions a 2M&P reed organ which was displaced by this new pipe organ. Although this thread only has 'pipe organ' in its title, a large-ish reed organ can also make for an attractive house organ, which is what the OP seems to be mainly interested in. At least, some people think so, and although I'm not completely sold on them as a rule, I do find the larger ones worth considering compared to digitals in that they are aerophones in the same way that pipe organs are. Therefore their sounds have a 'liveness' in the sense that they are generated directly by disturbing the air as reed pipes do. So, out of interest, do you have any information about this former reed organ such as its stop list, whether it was still playable, and where it has gone?

I am quite sure the instrument is a work of art, design and craftsmanship of the highest order. But an alternative approach might be to increase the utilisation of the limited amount of pipework by using electric action to provide as much or as little borrowing/duplication as the client wishes, together with octave couplers if desired. With the addition of a little more pipework at the top and bottom (if there is the space) of that already existing, a modicum (again, as much or as little as might be desired) of extension could also be applied to provide additional pitches. The resulting instrument would be similar to those which were popular in the mid-20th century such as Compton's Miniatura range, still well regarded by some, and similar approaches used by many other builders at that time including Rushworth & Dreaper. I guess it just boils down to you pays your money and you takes your choice, bearing in mind that electric action would remove some advantages of mechanical action, which are seen as more important by some than others.

The organ probably suffers more than most instruments from a dead acoustic. The sudden cut-off of the sound at key release is amplified by the way our perception mechanisms work for all senses - sudden changes are subjectively accorded a greater importance by our brains. So in the same dry acoustic, instruments having their own intrinsic gradual decay such as the piano or guitar, can sound more acceptable because the cut-off is slower. Whenever I've done the mastering for a recording I am tempted to add more artificial reverberation to organ sounds than for other instruments on the whole. It just seems to cry out for the assistance of a 'wet' building - within reason, of course. I think the problem is probably worse today than it used to be in the days before recorded sound. Then, people had no conception or experience of what music could sound like other than when it was played live in whatever building they happened to be in. But nowadays I suspect few Tonmeisters can resist the temptation to make a dry-ish acoustic seem somewhat more spacious when they do the mastering, particularly for organ recordings. The organ may have biased my ears, though, against accepting the natural ambiences of the dryer auditoria for what they are. So I find that a piano can sound superb in a reasonably wet acoustic, wetter than those we usually experience for the instrument. This was first brought home to me way back in the 1970s when I happened to be in one of the Smithsonian museums in Washington DC (I think it was the Air & Space one), where a distant pianist was rehearsing unseen for a concert to take place that evening. It sounded absolutely wonderful in that space, and ever since I think I might have been guilty of adding too much reverb whenever I've mastered piano recordings. (Nobody has yet complained, though ... ) None of this might apply, or with less emphasis, to players of orchestral instruments such as woodwinds who can (perhaps subconsciously) 'play' the acoustic they happen to be in. In those cases it could turn out to be a travesty if Tonmeisters meddle with the ambience to the extent they might do for other sorts of instrument. As something to do in these bizarre times we are living through, why not get hold of a digital reverb/effects unit (it can be your PC with suitable software) and connect it in the signal path forward of your hifi amplifier. It is great fun, and can be instructive, to tweak the ambience of any recordings you happen to have. It can certainly transform the effect of the RFH organ for example, though whether for better or worse is purely a subjective judgement.

Since it will be a small instrument, why not just consider having all stops available on all keyboards? You would not be limited to drawing a stop on just one manual at a time - you could have it drawn on all three plus the pedals if you wished. But of course, if you then played the same note on the same stop on two manuals the pipe would only sound once! A bonus of this scheme is that you would not need inter-manual couplers, though you could include independent octave and suboctave couplers on each manual (and the pedals) which would only affect that manual. I am assuming that you will be using electric action of course. Naturally, you would need more stop controls, but these need not be too expensive if you use illuminated tabs of the type often found on digital organs, or something even simpler such as a push button for each stop with an LED above it (or an illuminated push button unit). It would not be excessively expensive to fit a combination system (pistons) either, though in saying this I do not know what your budget is. A digital control system would be required, but it would be straightforward to make if you are into things like Raspberry-Pi's, Arduinos, etc. Otherwise such systems can be purchased.

CAD-generated drawings of pipe organs are found quite often. 'Organ Building', the house journal of the IBO published annually, often contains them. You don't need to be a member to get the magazine as back numbers can be viewed and purchased at: https://www.ibo.co.uk/webStore/organBuilding.php I just pulled a random copy off my shelves, a rather old one for 2008 (volume 8), and there are at least two articles describing instruments with the help of such diagrams. This particular volume is available via the link above at £8 plus shipping.

Forgive me quoting my own post, but it mentions a CD which I've since obtained, prompted by Stanley Monkhouse's remarks above about Frank Bridge. I have to say that I've found it quite beautiful, though others may not agree of course. In some ways I would admit that it's not ideal e.g. rather old and probably not obtainable new any longer. However there seem to be lots of pre-owned ones around and I obtained one for a trifle from ebay. It was recorded just before the Hereford organ's rebuild in 2004, so on some of the quieter numbers you can hear some action noises which are occasionally rather too intrusive. But otherwise, the 25 tracks, together with the sound of the instrument and Peter Dyke's playing, are just my cup of tea - the Little Organ Book in memory of Hubert Parry, Stanford's six short preludes & postludes op 101, and the six organ pieces by Bridge as mentioned above by Stanley. It's called 'Sounds Idyllic', Lammas Records LAMM 148D. The words from 'Blest Pair of Sirens' quoted by Alan Gray in his piece (no. IV in the 'Parry' collection) seem particularly apposite at this time when choirs, organs and churches are silent: 'O may we soon again renew that song'. (Just a cautionary note - if your CD player is a bit of a prima donna about the discs it will play properly and those it won't, as one of mine is, you might possibly have trouble with this. Playing time is nearly 76 minutes, a tad over the recommended 74 minute maximum, and some decks even struggle with this. However I have an old Sony player which seems to accept just about everything I shove into it fortunately, jammy fingermarks and all.)

As SL said, a fascinating video. Thanks to Dave for posting the link. I winced when they took a pair of pliers to the wiring looms emerging from the console and just chopped through them, especially as I've done the same thing myself from time to time. Always seems sacrilegious somehow! It reminded me, though, of something I often ponder on, which is how on earth did the old organ builders prior to the industrial revolution manage to achieve what they did? Nothing other than horse power for transport beyond the church door, meaning that everything possible would have been done on site, either within the building or in huts outside in the church yard. Many of the workforce probably lived there with their families as well until the job was done - commuting would have been unknown. And only human muscle power for working winches - they might have used a man inside a wheel as when constructing the buildings themselves. Many cathedrals still have those in the roof space today, so maybe they were pressed into service again for organ building purposes. No steel scaffolding, just rickety wooden affairs. And the difficulties of working during the short, dark, cold days of a north European winter with only candles for illumination. Makes you think, and wonder at their achievements.

As everyone knows, a problem of only quinting the bottom notes of a 32 foot resultant is the awkward and often unpleasant 'join' between the lowest pipe of the 16 foot rank and the beginning of the quinted notes as you descend the compass. It can sometimes be ameliorated by having the 16 foot rank go some way below bottom C so that only the lowest few notes, rather than the entire bottom octave, is quinted. However, having a full compass Quint removes this problem. So, whatever 32 foot effect you get, for better or worse, is at least shaded gradually from the top to the bottom of the compass rather than having a sudden discontinuity at some point. It can be particularly effective when using digital pedal stops, where an additional problem is the difficulty of getting reasonably compact and economical loudspeakers which will radiate the lowest notes of a true 32 foot flue bass. In these cases the 16 foot and quint ranks can be radiated from different loudspeakers, allowing the two tones to combine naturally in the auditorium just as they do from real pipes. I don't think I need to offer too abject an apology for mentioning this here, given that so many pipe organs now use digital pedal stops. It can be even more effective in a domestic setting for a home organ, where there are many problems connected with radiating a quiet, 'breathing' 32 foot bass in a way which sounds reasonably natural. I have come to this view as a result of many experiments in rooms both large and small, although there is more than one way to achieve one's 32 foot Nirvana and I wouldn't want to be seen as dogmatic. Having both options, as at Bristol, would seem to offer the best of both (imperfect) worlds. Apart from anything else, it allows you to use the separate Quint with all the 16 foot flues rather than it being inextricably tied to just one of them. It might be found that the acoustic quirks of the building result in one combination being better than another.

That's fantastic! I'm so pleased he has made these recordings available commercially. Thank you for letting us know.

Thank you for opening this new window for me, Stanley. My education has been sadly neglected until this day. Is the D flat one Andante con moto? And am I right in thinking that Bridge didn't even play the organ? If so, it's that bit more remarkable how he wrote for it so atmospherically. Sheet music is available on IMSLP, and several recordings on CD and youtube (e.g. 'Sounds Idyllic' on a disc by Peter Dyke).

Interesting that some of the examples above relate to French romantic and later organ music played on an accordion. I wonder if this has anything to do with the prevalence of the harmonium in 19th century French musical life with its free reeds, which can sound similar? Cavaille-Coll himself started off his career with these instruments. Desirably the chosen instrument has to be expressive though, in the sense of being able to vary the power by varying the wind pressure. Accordions and harmoniums are (the latter by using the Expression stop), but suction 'American' organs are not. Many years ago I once wandered into one of those beautiful Lincolnshire fen churches (at Addlethorpe I think it was) where there was no pipe organ but a Mustel harmonium. It was an attractive acoustic, in fact the whole place was like a miniature cathedral (it called itself the Cathedral of the Marshes), and the instrument sounded remarkably like a Cavaille-Coll pipe organ in some of its moods!

Damian's mention of Sky reminds me that I remarked some while ago on another thread about the organ playing skills of one of its founders, Francis Monkman, who was classically trained. I hope Francis will not mind me saying that he has also carried out a lot of research into Thuringian organs and their builders and has recorded many CDs on them, some of which he kindly sent me as part of a private dialogue on the subject. It seems to me a great pity that they do not seem to be widely available, and I took the liberty of telling him so at the time! The combination of his scholarship and skills as an executant would I'm sure be appreciated widely by members of this forum and beyond. And on the subject of using the Saint-Saens 3 theme in the 1980s, I remember that one as well! But is it not something to do with copyright? I read not long ago, and not for the first time, that it's almost impossible today for a pop musician to take the risk of recording something which claims to be original music. If they do, there is apparently a high probability of being taken to court somewhere in the world for breach of copyright, sometimes for ludicrously obscure reasons such as "the third bar of this melody contains a note sequence which is the same as that which composer X used 6 years ago in the bass line of composition Y". The only sure fire way of preventing this is to use out-of-copyright material, which I guess is why much modern music often seems to evoke echoes in my mind even though I can't always place it. It also probably explains the prevalence of the repulsive sort of synthesised 'music' often used as the background to almost every TV programme, consisting of a slowly shifting sound canvas of such poverty of invention that it can scarcely claim to be a 'composition' at all.

Although it might be intuitively strange at first acquaintance, subjective pitch doesn't always track frequency. For this reason it's measured in mels, not Hz. As for cats inside organs, one of ours (long since gone to the great cattery in the sky) was in the habit of crawling into the swell pedal aperture of my home organ and going to sleep. More than once there was a yelping mew when I altered the volume ... Her sibling didn't make this mistake, but only because she always scurried out of the room whenever I started playing, thereby demonstrating a better-developed sense of musical taste and judgement. I agree the book mentioned by Damian sounds very much worth getting hold of - thanks Damian.