Rowland Wateridge

“Playing the Organ Works of César Franck” by Rollin Smith is currently available from abebooks.co.uk in two editions, 1997 and 2009, with different publishers but the same number of pages and a substantial difference in price, the cheapest in softcover costing £44.23 including UK delivery. I have found Abe Books to be invaluable in locating rare works, but stress that I am not an agent!

The grounds of Pershore Abbey are the final resting place of the ashes of Carlo Curley and his mother. An organist friend of mine, and also friend of Carlo’s, (Professor) Jim Wilkes, English born but most of his life and career spent at the University of Michigan, USA, who unfortunately died just before Christmas, visited the Abbey a couple of years ago and was saddened that there was no visible memorial to Carlo. Whoever he met at the Abbey was unaware of the above facts. I don’t know whether things have changed by now, but dedication of one or more pipes in Carlo’s memory would be a very fitting memorial.

I was at a recital in Salisbury Cathedral in the mid-1990s given by a well-known player, happily still with us, and suffered the full effects of the Salisbury tuba(s) - plural possible as he may have used the 4’ clarion as well - and very shortly after had a perforated left eardrum with excruciating pain. Nevertheless I greatly admired the Salisbury Father Willis, and still do. HW III left his mark on his grandfather’s organs at St George’s Hall and St Paul’s Cathedral, and I have often wondered whether he did more at Salisbury than Sir Walter Alcock possibly realised.

An opportunity to remind people that Margaret Phillips is giving tomorrow’s lunchtime recital, streamed online at 1.05 pm. Easiest link is via organrecitals.com and clicking on ‘Programme’. Arnold Loxam is not forgotten and was a name which used to crop up on “The Organist Entertains”. Although living in the deepest south of England I have enjoyed many visits to the Town Hall and some memorable concerts there in the company of Yorkshire friends. One unforgettable performance was Francis Jackson’s Eclogue for piano and organ - played by Darius Battiwalla and Simon Lindley respectively - during a thunderstorm! At one point Darius Battiwalla looked quizzically up at the ceiling during a lengthy rumble of thunder, but this did not interfere with the performance. As I recall, the concert was a celebration of Francis Jackson’s 100th birthday, and John Scott Whiteley also played.

Live online organ recital today, Darius Battiwalla at Leeds Town Hall, 1.05 pm As far as I can tell, this hasn’t been previously announced. Programme includes JSB Prelude and Fugue, in C minor BWV 546, Hollins ‘A Trumpet Minuet’ and Reger Choral Fantasia on “Hallelujah, Gott zu loben”. Not to be missed! Access via Leeds Town Hall website or, easier, go to organrecitals.com and click on programme.

There is this somewhat cryptic note on NPOR N03901 about the Redcliffe organ in its 1726 Harris & Byfield state, i.e., before Vowles rebuilt and enlarged it in 1867. Accessories "There is a (?spring) of communication that will give octaves on the pedals; but it has a bad effect.". Organist Mr Allen. C.W. Pearce, 'Notes on English Organs' Could the organist be Robert Allen?

These, surely, are the celebrated chamades so often referred to by pcnd5584 on numerous earlier threads. Rather amusingly, in the original Dorset volume of ‘The Buildings of England’, Nickolaus Pevsner, clearly unfamiliar with chamades, described the Wimborne ones as “a charming idea”! The resonators are of spun brass, and I’m sure pcnd5584 once told us who made them - was it Boosey & Hawkes?

The mystery of Folkstone Place is solved, thanks to a book by the distinguished Oxford historian Professor Martin Biddle. It was "a row of four dwellings along the North side of Abbey Gardens to the East of Abbey House" and probably built circa 1800. However, I think these no longer exist, possibly victims of road widening, although I can't be sure of that. They must have been sufficiently attractive for Richard Baigent to have painted them. Sotheby's might have a photograph of that painting - worth a try if you are sufficiently interested. This location would have been a very convenient short walk for Robert to the Cathedral through what is now the Water Garden entrance to the Inner Close by a footpath direct to the South Transept entrance, the most direct route for access to the position of the organ.

Our Bristol members may be able to help with William Allen. Folkstone Place is something of a mystery and isn’t currently known by that name. The artist Richard Baigent found it important enough to include in a very fine series of Winchester paintings dating from the 1830s to 1850s, sold at Sotheby’s in 2003, but now, I believe, possibly in Canada or USA.

Fascinated to read this. In itself interesting that FHW delegated such an important job to his apprentice. As you go on to say, the necessary adaptation of the 1851 Great Exhibition organ (three manuals and 70 speaking stops) in its 1854 new home at Winchester Cathedral (now four manuals and 49 stops) was very long drawn-out and that received humorous press reports at the time. When the great day of its inauguration finally arrived, S S Wesley had mustered the services of most of the other cathedral choirs of southern England; among the choristers on that occasion was the juvenile John Stainer from St Paul’s. It’s too big a subject to go into here, but I still wonder how the 32’ pipes were conveyed in the 1850s from London to Winchester - they are full-length and still going strong 170 years later. Do your family records include any details where Emma Elizabeth was born and baptised?

I would guess that a weight would be the least harmful thing to use for this task. There was a post here some time back strictly enjoining against use of a pencil - the risk of graphite particles contaminating key contacts. I suppose a rubber in good condition might be safe. My local cathedral has a strict instruction to visiting organists not to use a rubber on scores on the music desk, again, particles potentially getting down into the key spaces. I think Contrabombarde makes a valid point about using the organist's nose! As for knives! - with electric actions? Not wishing to be a killjoy, and a controversial question, possibly, but are organists sufficiently respectful of their instruments, especially the console? Someone once made the point that a fine console should be treated with the same respect as a Steinway grand, and that you wouldn't insert drawing pins into the music desk of the latter! I possess a very old LP with a cover picture showing the cathedral's music list actually secured with drawing pins to the music desk of one of our most celebrated cathedral organs! There's also the famous story of a student attaching a mirror to the Ahrend organ (designed by Peter Williams and Gustav Leonhardt) in the Reid Concert Hall at Edinburgh University using nails! - predictably resulting in the apoplexy of John Kitchen!

This is somewhat closer to home, and aimed at young people.

Is there any way of accessing those articles without buying (if that is even possible) the 1991 Bulletin?

On a slightly different tack, they also seem to get matters of clerical dress wrong pretty frequently. I’m certain that no C of E bishop would have worn a purple cassock as a dinner guest in the mid-19th century. Father Brown has been mentioned. He has done several bizarre things: wearing a surplice (of C of E style) and something like a black stole - much longer than a stole, certainly not a scarf and much narrower, and on another occasion a proper stole over his chasuble. In the ‘Father Ted’ series (with Irish actors who really ought to have known better), a trio of RC bishops wearing birettas wrongly-orientated! But all these are nothing compared with the blunders about legal dress and the correct forms of address for judges, but I will spare readers those details. It used to annoy my late wife when I exploded reacting to these - like Mary Berry in S_L’s post.

“Frail as summer’s flowers” was included in the Australian hymnal “With One Voice” (first English edition, Collins, 1979) and I duly played it at a church where we used that rather fine collection - which did not, however, widely catch on, and in our case was replaced by ‘Common Praise’. As you say, “Frail as summer’s flowers”, verse four, is set to the same harmonisation as verse two. Out of interest, I checked S S Wesley’s ‘The European Psalmist’, (1872) but neither words nor music of “Praise my Soul” were included.

Martin: TN’s published accompaniments are in the same keys as in the current ‘Common Praise’. Agreed there has been a lowering of pitch, particularly noticeable in A&M New Standard, which happily reverted to more comfortable ones with NEH and Common Praise.

S_L: Please see my (admittedly long-winded!) comment directly above. As far as I can tell, Tertius Noble was using his own arrangements in the hymn accompaniment - there were only the two hymns - and they are both in the same key as in present-day use. I think there is a feasible explanation for the high pitch.

I have, at long last, located my copy of the American edition of Tertius Noble’s “Free organ accompaniments to well-known hymns”. Firstly, “The strife is o’er, the battle done” appears as no 20 in his collection to the tune “Victory”, of course, and it is in the same key as it presently appears in ‘Common Praise’! Noble adds the metre 8.8.8 with Alleluia, Palestrina and the direction “With dignity”; f throughout and ff for the Alleluia. “Jesus Christ is risen today” is no 22; “Easter Hymn” 7.7.7.7 with Alleluias; Lyra Davidica 1708 Revised 1749; key C major; direction “Broad, not too slow”; f throughout. So there are some possible clues. When Brizzle mentioned the high pitch, I wondered whether we were hearing the recording in ‘real time’. Interestingly, one of the comments on the YouTube video makes the same point and it does seem a feasible explanation. There was clearly substantial editing, so I can’t comment about gathering notes. The verses do appear to follow in quick succession. On viewing again, and looking closely, one can see Noble ‘conducting’ from the console, and quite vigorously, during the anthem. I don’t know which hymnal was in use in 1929, but it certainly wasn’t ‘The English Hymnal’ from the numbers on the hymn board as the choir procession enters.

I don’t remember anything said by Christopher Dearnley on those lines. His response was a gentle and good-humoured rebuke “You got it wrong, Sam!”. Incidentally, until then I had never heard Cecil Clutton referred to as ‘Sam’ - this was 1979. There was separate correspondence in the OR around the same time from the organbuilder Richard Boston, questioning the use of pipework by Stinkens in an Australian organ! Boston, like Clutton, was a person who spoke his mind and wrote forcefully, but I don’t recall a response to his letter. Looking back now, it seems a remarkable thing for the BBC to have relayed a live transmission of the inaugural recital from Australia. Would that happen in present times, I wonder?

Well, this was 92 years ago, and Bairstow succeeded Noble at York Minster in 1913. I wonder whether any other recording of Noble’s playing exists.

Easter 1929 at St Thomas Church: If you follow the link to the video referred to in Martin’s post above, in the right hand column there is a YouTube recording in which you can hear and see excerpts from a service at Easter 1929 from St Thomas’, New York with Tertius Noble playing the Ernest Skinner organ of 1913. Don’t be put off by the noise beforehand during the street scene outside St Thomas’. The two hymns are instantly recognisable and the short anthem is “The Risen Christ” by Noble. At one point there is a momentary glimpse of Noble at the Skinner console.  I wasn’t allowed to embed the link to the St Thomas’ video, but it can be viewed readily.

To be clear, my comment did not imply any criticism of Kenneth Tickell or the suppliers of the transmission and capture systems. It is possible that the problems stem from things done by an independent third party. That was the situation at Portsmouth Guildhall in the example which I quoted. It emphasises the necessity for someone knowledgeable to coordinate works to take account of possible damage and prevent it happening. I won’t shame them by naming the venues here, but I know of two fine organs damaged when other works were carried out due to lack of forward-planning and, sadly, simply ignorance.

That strongly suggests a major electrical ‘accident’ rather than an issue of routine maintenance. These things happen, unfortunately, and some details at Worcester already quoted might afford a hint. I remember the late Carey Humphreys, former organist/ curator of the Compton in Portsmouth Guildhall, relating that he made a routine visit during major building works there just in time to prevent the organ’s main cable to the mobile console floor socket being cut.

An interesting post, thank you. A personal memory, not dealing with the technical matters you mention. The 1979 inaugural recital of the Ronald Sharp organ in Sydney Opera House by Michael Dudman was broadcast live from Australia by the BBC (I seem to recall this involved staying up to a late hour), and I recorded it on tape. It resulted in a waspish letter from Cecil Clutton in ‘Organists Review’ criticising both the organ and the performance with a somewhat cheap jibe about Michael Dudman being well-named. As I recall, among other things he particularly objected to a cadenza added to the Passacaglia in C minor. The next issue of OR contained a firm rebuttal to Clutton from Christopher Dearnley “You got it wrong, Sam!”, adding that this was a magnificent organ!

Checking on Google to confirm that Sidney Campbell was a Member of the Royal Victorian Order, I discovered this gem which ‘features’ two of our Members. http://www.anglican-chant-archive.org/psalm-memories/