Rowland Wateridge

Actually, I think it is quite difficult to do. In fact I’m uncertain that it can be done accidentally! Quoting just an extract from your comment (omitting the final sentence) it comes up on screen in its own box as above. I can only add to or alter it by consciously typing inside the box. That was the ‘problem’ which I felt the moderators needed to address and to prevent!

But most of us do that already. As S_L made clear it was the accidental (?) insertion in his original post by another of unauthorised text which should not have happened - and I would add, should not be possible. That is also clearly Colin’s view.

It ought not be possible for others to ‘edit’ and change the meaning of what a contributor has written. A matter for the editors to take steps to modify the website to prevent this happening?

I did wonder whether one of our London (or East Anglian) members might know some of the answers to your questions from any contemporary material at the time of the installation of the Klais. I’m pretty certain that the late David Drinkell, sadly no longer with us, would have had some background. But to clarify some points. The church was St George’s Church, but latterly came to be referred to as Chapel. It is now totally converted to secular use. Sir Duncan Oppenheim (that’s the correct name: even my iPad spellcheck tries to convert it to Oppenheimer) was quite a remarkable man: artist (exhibiting at the Royal Academy), arts administrator, businessman and philanthropist. He was born in the north of England and lived to the great age of 98. The most surprising thing is that he held roles as different as both the Chairman of Chatham House and the Chairman of the British American Tobacco Company. There are Oppenheim families in East Anglia, including the area of Great Yarmouth, but whether any immediate family connection is not obvious. So, purely as a guess, I suggest that this came about from a combination of his artistic and philanthropic gifts. Having said all this, I don’t know, and it will be very helpful if someone can be more specific.

S_L, I’m not in any sense advocating abandonment of Mass in favour of Matins! I have occasionally played for services combining both, although I concede those have been on ‘high’ days like Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. But churches ought to be able to work out something to accommodate both ‘camps’ and those, like myself, with a foot in both. I realise this must be a major headache for those C of E incumbents with huge combined benefices, but somehow we achieved it in one with four parishes. Some of the faithful would commute between them. Your French services sound very interesting, and I’m sure we would all like to know more about the music, including what is chosen for the voluntary on the forthcoming great Abbatiale occasion.- which I have just realised is on the Cathedral Organs thread, not this one! There has been some overlap in these discussions!

The morning and evening canticles which derive from St Luke’s Gospel are all outstandingly beautiful, but from the morning ones I have to single out the Benedictus (also mentioned by Martin in his post above). Can there be a clearer, more inspired and beautiful statement of Christian belief? I used to ask for this to be substituted in place of Jubilate when the day or season made it especially appropriate.

I have listened to countless sermons - good and bad - and even remember some details from the good ones decades later! There was no escape route at any of the churches where I played! I wasn’t suggesting that my experience at York Minster indicated indifference by the clergy. The shrug of the shoulders might, on reflection, have been resigned agreement about the departing congregation. But my comments about the congregation and the sheer racket they made still stand. Incidentally, I am in no way singling out York! I’m sure most of us have had similar experiences elsewhere.

Martin, I will limit this comment to my experience of Matins and Evensong. Until my retirement my main job was playing for Matins, with an admittedly largely elderly congregation (and equally elderly organist!) who sang this liturgy as to the manner born. Over the years the choir dwindled to maybe one or two or three, more frequently none in latter years. Notwithstanding, we sang Matins totally unabridged - the full works - every Sunday except the first in the month. Some congregation members sang from pointed psalters - they were available for all in that church - but in the main, that congregation had absorbed Anglican chant, and we changed the chants at every service. The organist’s role is to lead decisively and rhythmically, not over-obtrusively, and that worked. Similarly we had hearty hymn-singing. Our repertoire did not extend to any settings or anthems. With a sermon of reasonable length, average service time was one hour. I greatly miss doing it! In other places where I played occasionally, there were variations, in one church omitting parts of the Te Deum but having Venite complete. I don’t count myself as any great organist, but playing these services, and latterly mainly without a choir, became second nature. Similarly, Evensong at another country church was much simpler. They insisted on the same chants every time for Mag. and Nunc! There are still organists capable of playing Matins and Evensong at parish level, albeit we might feel part of a largely dying breed (except in cathedrals, of course). In our parish the clergy were entirely supportive, but we had the luxury of two churches and the other one had the inevitable Family Service with Communion every week.

There is usually a Sunday afternoon recital of around 30 minutes (the scheduled time) following Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, also at Westminster Cathedral presumably after Vespers. I don’t know whether anything similar happens regularly elsewhere. But, I suggest, there will be a major organ work as the voluntary on Sundays in most, probably all, C of E cathedrals. That has been my experience for as long as I can remember.

I wasn’t sufficiently specific. My original post mentioned tuning - that’s what the heating issue was all about, and that the effects on the organ and acoustics don’t appear to have entered anyone’s thinking in these proposals. I hope I’m not being unduly pessimistic - see Martin’s post about cathedral organs - but except for a minority of people I feel that the fortunes of the church pipe organ in our country are currently at a low ebb.

Before the combination of old-age and Covid isolation set in, I regularly attended Evensong (as a Southerner) in our Northern cathedrals: Chester, Liverpool, Lincoln and York and, further south, Norwich already mentioned. At all of these there was a voluntary, finely played, at weekday services and something more major on Sundays. All of these also have recital series, the best organised of all, possibly, at Chester. But, and so often at Evensong, I found myself left entirely on my own sitting in the quire by the end of a great performance, and at the start there would be animated conversation, even laughter, by congregation members before drifting out - totally oblivious to the music and skill and artistry of the performance. I commented on this to a member of the clergy once - sad to say this was at York Minster - who merely shrugged their shoulders. The reality is that the majority of our fellow citizens are indifferent to organ music - I almost said classical music. So, how do we ‘educate’ or persuade them differently?

I thought John’s comment was in jest, but he hit the nail on the head in the light of what has followed here. This is about the organ, not wider environmental issues, heating bills and similar matters! When I posted this topic I had in mind (1) the impairment of acoustic, specifically reverberation and ‘bloom’, by carpets and additional soft furnishings being introduced, and (2) potential problems with tuning resulting from temperature variations (with which we are all familiar) when churches turn heating on just for Sunday services. This subject is also being discussed in the Church press and on Christian blogs without the above issues being considered or even mentioned. Hence my gentle admonition that people like Diocesan Advisers and the Victorian Society really should know better. I also foresaw that raising these matters would be likely to provide ammunition for people saying “you don’t get these problems with digital organs” - but DOAs and the Victorian Society (not to mention the members of this Board!) should be in the front line defending the pipe organ.

I had heard vague mutterings about these proposals, and a friend has since alerted me to the Daily Mail article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10429251/How-cushions-help-Church-England-hit-green-targets.html There is also this from The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/21/church-england-could-take-softly-softly-approach-relaxing-rules/ Unfortunately it appears to be under a paywall. Surely the Victorian Society and Diocesan Advisers - both architectural and organ - ought to be aware of the implications for tuning. We have had lots of discussion in the past about the problems of turning heating on and off, and people saying that keeping a constant ambient temperature is actually more economical.

R&D also had a music shop in Chester. Many, many years ago I admired a baby grand piano there which they were willing to deliver to Winchester at no extra charge! I have only played one organ of theirs (since further rebuilt by others), St Mary’s, Andover in Hampshire, in itself their rebuild of a Hele. I thought it was a fine Romantic instrument with a particularly sumptuous and comfortable console. But it’s certainly the case from earlier threads here that the company had a mixed reputation - or, perhaps reception - for some organists.

Didn’t FJ refer to this as “Me in G”? As well as a great musician, surely he will always be remembered by anyone who met him as the ‘perfect gentleman’.

70 years, gosh! I remember that day, while walking home from school, seeing shopkeepers draping their windows with black crepe material to mark the passing of George VI. A different era then. Along with something triumphant to mark the anniversary, might you include something contemplative? Sir William Harris was the Royal organist ‘in residence’ at the time and had also taught piano to The Queen and Princess Margaret: one of the Short Pieces, the Prelude, perhaps?

Well, indeed! wasn't there some sort of campaign to get him that? I believe the late Queen Mother took up the cause for GTB’s knighthood. There’s a moving memorial to him in the foyer of Birmingham Town Hall: Sir George Thalben-Ball CBE MusD FRCM FRCO (1896-1987) City Organist 1949-1983 City Organist Emeritus 1983-1987 Doyen of Organists And a true gentleman He was additionally Head of Religious Music at the BBC and sometimes accompanied ‘the Daily Service’ followed by a short extemporised voluntary, usually on one day of the week and a highlight for a late uncle of mine (not an organist!) who thought these were utterly wonderful.

The offer of knighthood was, in a sense, the ‘gift’ of Gladstone. Yes, Mrs Wesley received the Civil List pension. To my knowledge a more recent Winchester organist, William Prendergast, was offered a knighthood by George V, but declined the honour, apparently saying that he did not feel worthy of it. Although SS had a reputation for being parsimonious, according to Paul Chappell’s excellent biography, the Wesleys lived in some style.

Sadly, I can’t rise to your challenge! (Incidentally, in the other context I never thought for one moment that you had been referring to the great Francis Jackson whom I heard at the Minster almost 70 years ago - a totally unforgettable experience!) Racking my brain for more cathedral organist knighthoods, I drew a blank, but as examples from the ‘Wabbey’ have been allowed, and, as with Goss, going back as far as the 19th century, there was Sir Frederick Bridge. As VH has pointed out these were probably due to the Royal connection, as also Sir George Elvey at Windsor.

I can only agree with a single word of this summary: “minority”, and, yes, it is a sad reflection that high art can be widely perceived as belting out hymn tunes - “England, das Land ohne Musik”? Nevertheless, New Year greetings reciprocated to you, Adnosad, in the certain expectation that you will continue to provide us with similarly challenging thoughts!

I have read somewhere, possibly on an earlier thread, that Lambeth degrees aren’t ‘honorary’ - but can’t vouch for this. It seems that for these purposes Cantuar personally confers valid degrees! I believe the recipients conventionally wear the DMus or MusD robes and hood of their first or other degree of their own university. A select few possess both degrees; in the case of Francis Jackson, Dunelm 1957 and Cantuar 2012 - 55 years apart!

There have been several recent restorations involving this kind of money - and more! King’s College Cambridge, York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral and St Mary Redcliffe all come readily to mind. As to longevity, we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Father Willis organ in Winchester Cathedral back in 2004 and about 50% of the pipework now there, albeit some of it revoiced, is by Willis having remained there to this day.

No ‘instruments of torture’, but I hope a reasoned assessment! Coventry Cathedral organ is a masterpiece, nothing less. I was slightly saddened to see no reference to Cuthbert Harrison or David Lepine in the appeal announcement, but I guess those names are largely unknown to a younger generation. Surely Coventry ranks as Cuthbert Harrison’s magnum opus alongside the RFH, although he hinted quite strongly that Coventry was achieved without some of the constraints of the RFH. And, of course, there is no question that the organ “remains largely unused in a locked building”. I don’t think that comment could even be justified about most parish churches up and down the land. Actually, 60 years is a very impressive innings before a major restoration such as this, equalled only, I think, by the one planned at Norwich. Of course cathedral finances can be precarious, but it seems rather sad that these major instruments have to rely on public appeals for their necessary care and survival.

Quite a bit to read in it, but this article is helpful. ‘The Wilderness’ was a very early work when S S was newly-arrived in Hereford in his early 20s. I think the comparison with “Lead me Lord” is telling. Didn’t Liszt do something similar, ending some of his major organ pieces with a harmonisation of a Lutheran chorale - thought-provoking and, as you say, consolatory and in total contrast after the massive sounds which had preceded them. https://www.church-music.org.uk/articles/samuel-sebastian-wesley.asp

The Cathedral website indicates that services and visiting have resumed, but confined to the nave and cloister only. Certainly for the time being there is no question of the Tickell organ being playable. Very close examination of the photographs shows how close to the organ the damage has been. The external photograph shows a small-bore copper pipe (no idea what this might have been) passing from the first bay into the second now severed.