MusoMusing
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Posts posted by MusoMusing
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7 hours ago, Colin Pykett said:
Although your magnum opus has yet to appear, I'd like to congratulate you on the obvious amount of effort and sheer dogged perseverance that you've put into it. It will certainly fill a yawning gap in the literature and I look forward to being able to peruse it.
Your costings are certainly food for thought. However the figures do not seem to tally with the reality which I found when I was interviewed for a job at Compton's (it would have been my first) prior to graduating in physics. (Forgive me if I've said these things before - I think I may have done somewhere or other but it might have been on another forum). This was probably in 1966. The background was that I happened to go to some technical event staged one evening at the Royal Institution and, to my surprise, a small 2M&P Compton Electrone was being demonstrated beforehand in the lobby. I tinkered around on it and the youngish guy in charge seemed astonished that anyone could (a) play it and (b) was even remotely interested in it. Of course, a vaguely-interested group of people then clustered around, attracted by the sounds presumably. This obviously suited his purposes because he invited me to join in his sales-type patter with my own 'physics' angle on the instrument. He then asked whether I would be interested in joining the firm as a demonstrator. I indicated that my preferences lay more on the R&D side, so was invited for interview at the north London factory. During that occasion I was shown a door into what they grandly called their 'R&D Department', and expected to walk into some brightly-lit, spacious facility complete with people in white coats. Imagine my astonishment to find that it was hardly more than a large wardrobe, devoid of activity and personnel, and smaller and no better equipped than my own audio/musical 'research facility' then housed in my indulgent grandfather's garage. I was then led into the vast main factory space, almost empty but for a large 4 manual Electrone drawstop console feeding a Rotofon speaker high on one wall. I played this but was not much impressed other than by some nice flute sounds. So I came away with the feeling that I had just visited a dying ghost firm which hardly offered the type of career prospects I was looking for.
The main point of this otherwise inconsequential diatribe is to point out from first hand recollections that, if Compton's did ever have a large R&D setup which your figures suggest they might have been able to support, there was certainly no evidence of it in the decaying rump of the firm which existed in the mid-1960s.
CEP
My understanding is, that the electronic R & D was exactly as described....a small wardrobe. I suspect that Midgley had somewhat larger resources elsewhere....probably at home. (It was a very big house with a huge 4 manual console in the billiard room). In the taped interview with Roy Skinner, an electrical man at Comptons, he suggested that everything was done in-house. Like you, I have my doubts, because even the engineering is quite complex, even before a single squeak emerges from a loudspeaker.
However, I was intrigued to learn that you went to the Park Royal premises for an interview. What a sad, sad description you paint, when the glory years must have been amazing, with well over 200 people working there and the place crammed with organs and parts.
Did you spot any Compton space-heaters or folding caravans? Apparently, they even made a few juke-boxes, as did the Wurlitzer company in America. I don''t recall anyone ever crying, "Gee Dad! It's a Compton!"
MMEdit: Don't forget Colin, the figures I cobbled together were the modern equivalent, based on 1930's prices.
By the 1960's, the firm was in almost total collapse. -
4 hours ago, Colin Pykett said:
Still on the subject of Compton's R&D, the question also arises exactly what R&D would have been needed. Something as ground-breaking and complex as the Electrone could not possibly have been brought to the standard required for it to be marketed (and which it achieved) without very substantial prior R&D investment in time, facilities and therefore money. I have no idea how it was done in the sense of issues like whether it was all done in-house or whether there were significant extramural (contract) elements as well. Leslie Bourn and Wally Fair seemed to be associated with it from the outset until they retired if I'm correct. I know the former then did various organ-related things in his retirement, including being either the chairman or president of the Electronic Organ Constructors' Society in the 60s (might have been the early 70s), and I have some of the EOCS magazines from that time in which he wrote on one occasion words to the effect that "I will have to get to know more about these little electronic thingies called transistors", which suggested to me that he realised that the electrostatic additive synthesis-based Electrone had pretty much run its course. Somewhat later I met Wally for the last time in the 80s when he was very frail, and he was then interested in electronic tonal design using subtractive synthesis. Although this forum is for pipe organs, I hope these electronic reminiscences might be forgiven in that they might conceivably be of interest for MM's research.
As for pipe organ R&D, one major aspect concerns the scaling laws required for successful extension organs. With his usual pursuit of detail and perfection I doubt John himself would have simply tweaked the odd top or bottom octave here and there on an extended rank during its tonal finishing as other builders did. Thus, somewhere in the factory, there might have been a dedicated voicing area where these matters were worked on more systematically, at least in the first instance before more experience was gained. There would also have been a lot of work required on action issues, including the firm's amazing combination capture systems, but I know from private correspondence that MM has a good handle on these.
So forgive me, MM, if you think I'm paddling in your pond, which actually I'm not trying to do. I'm just intrigued as to how JC came to build the instruments he did, both pipe and electronic. I'm sure you will supply the answers in due course.
I don't have my notes and files in front of me, but I can tell Colin that the electronic research was not just down to Leslie Bourn. Albert Midgley was doing all sorts of things, including electrostatic research using vibrating reeds. He also pioneered the idea of a rotating disc tone generator "unit" which was not, if I recall, an electrostatic tone generator. That came later, and I think I'm right in saying that Bourn used that idea when developing the electrostatic technology. In point of fact, Bourn and Midgley were not just Comptin colleagues, they were also arch Compton rivals, and both patented a number of different systems.
This was the reason for the spat between John Compton and Midgley, and it is said that thereafter, there was an uneasy relationship between them, when JC favoured the Bourn methods. It also explains why Midgley took his own ideas to the J W Walker & Sons firm, to creat the Midgley-Walker electronic organ.
It's quite a murky path, and although I've attempted to plough through all the rubric of the patent applications, I'm still not entirely sure how the "Melotone" was arrived at. Almost certainly, the donkey work was all done in-house, but I suspect that Bourn brought a lot of prior research with him, because he ASSIGNED certain things to the Compton firm as the ASSIGNEE, which suggests that Bourn gave up the rights at that point. Incientally, "Jimmy" Taylor was busy designing amplifiers and things, and had a very good grasp of all thing mechanical....even patenting an automatic gearbox for cars. They were one hell of a team! Also, don't forget that Bourn had served in the RAF, so he would have been familiar with production/research methods etc.
When it comes to extension pipe organs, is it really all that difficult?
In romantically conceived instruments, there is a tapering of scales; a 4ft Principal being a few notes smaller than an 8ft Diapason, and a 2ft Fifteenth being a few notes smaller than the 4ft etc.So, with the appropriate switchgear, it is a relatively simple matter to draw on sounds from multiple sources. As I understand it, there was a fairly standard method of doing this; especially in the larger organs, where there are usually three Diapasons at 16.8 & 8. So the 16ft "Double" is quite subtle, and of a scale which leans towards that of a mild string such as a Geigen. The No1 is very dominant at 8ft pitch,, and the typical 2nd Diapason is a few notes smaller in scale. So he would, I think, take his 4ft Octave/Principal from the No.2, and the 2ft from the 16ft Double extended upwards.. The mutations (either separate or as part of a Mixture) would be from the 16ft rank, and the Mixture unisons from the 2nd Diapason or maybe a Geigen. It is common knowledge that the whole process was empirical, and what worked best was best employed, simply by altering the wiring.
I haven't come across much which refers to it, but my understanding is that pipes were of standard Compton scale, and even the nicking was achieved using "jigs", which apprentices used to nick the pipes. After that, it's just a question of regulation, leathering and toe adjustment......this was not neo-baroque!
I reckon that JC spent his entire life fiddling with things and experimenting. He became an expert on Diaphones, when no-one else knew the first thing about them. He invented an en-harmonic keyboard. He experimented with remote harmonics which we would call aliquots to-day, and when everyone had gone home for the night, he would play around with things in the voicing room.
So standard parts, standard pipes, standard winding systems, standard unit chests, standard scales....all devised at the practical level by Midgley. As I say in my tome, Compton looked at how organs COULD be made, rather than how others thought they SHOULD be made, and it worked brilliantly and VERY profitably.
MM
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Looking back through this thread, a question was raised as to how John Compton could afford to carry out so many experiments.
I did a few rough sums....they need to be polished up.....but to give board members some idea, a three manual WURLITZER 260 with 15 ranks and 32ft Diaphones, cost £15,500 in the UK in or around 1930 at the tjme of the great depression.
That translates to about £749,000 to-day, which in turn, works out at a mere £49,993 PER RANK!!!!!
Compton organs were less expensive, but I think it would be fair to suggest that around the same time, a 15 rank Compton cinema organ would be, in today's money, about £600,000, which means that each rank could be yours for the bargain price of £40,000 per rank.
In the best years of the Compton firm, they were churning out something like 35 cinema organs a year....not all of them 15 ranks, but usually 5 to 10 rks plus a Melotone Unit and/or a piano attachment. Some of the big ones were up to 20+ ranks. Even if we drop the price to an average of £400,000 across the board, that means that the income from the cinema organs must have been in the order of £20,000,000 in the peak years, to which may be added any number of classical organs; some of them quite large, as we know.
I reckon that the total turnover was therefore around the £30,000,000 per year in today's money, with profits probably around £2,500,000 nett, and that doesn't include tuning and routine maintenance work.
It's very easy to see why the company ran into difficulties when the war ended, and the cinema organ market collapsed!
MM
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I just did a word count of my "tome", and it now stands at 53,000 words. I now need to expand the cinema-organ side of things, because that is the thing which will have most appeal to a great many people. Then I need to include a bit about the "Solo Cello" device, which used a real string and a rotating wheel acting as a bow. The notes were selected by big EP fingers, and each one made a real clunk as it clamped the string. (Ridiculous idea!)
I need to write a bit about the last days, something about the stop-combination action,as well as the awful waste of the organ at Wolverhampton, then it should be somewhere near complete, other than checking for accuracy etc.
I'm quietly dreading all the layout and tidying up the formatting (etc), but it has to be done, boring though it may be.
So many people have helped with information and specific points, and it would take another decade to acknowledge them all, but I am extremely grateful to everyone who has followed the Compton thread and kept me honest.
MM -
I have vinyl recordings made by the late and very great Peter Hurford at St Alban's, and I think "exciting" is exactly the right description for the instrument. So too for Coventry, which is probably the least altered of the trio. I haven't heard the Windsor organ in the flesh since the days of Sidney Campbell, but I always regarded that as one o the most fascinating tonal schemes and one of the top instruments in the country. How it compares with the original these days, I do not know.
Add Blackburn to the list (I was at the opening recital by Francis Jackson) and it's easy to see why the 1960's were such an exciting time.
All four instruments have stood the test of time, and I think that in terms of excitement, the organ of St Paul's Cathedral is a match for any of them.
It wasn't all broken glass, bubble and squeak!
MM
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6 hours ago, pwhodges said:
The requirements also include coherent casework - which is why Mander's 1966 organ for Cecil Clutton is not included.
The oldest British organ listed is a 1964 four stop (8842) organ by Arnold, Williamson and Hyatt for the RC Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in Romford.
The next few included are by R H Walker (1965, St Martin's College, Lancaster), Harrison and Harrison (1966, RCM, London), T Robbins (1967, Kingsnorth, Kent), Grant Degens and Bradbeer (1967, St Ann's, Nottingham, 1968, West Brompton), Mander (1968, St Michael Paternoster Royal, London), P D Collins (1968, Shellingford), R Yates (1969, Dartington).
Paul
I think this concurs with my own findings. The neo-classical style (especially with mechanical action) did not really get going until the mid-1960's, except for the H,N & B/Eule organ for Lady Susi Jeans, which was long before. However, it's not the encased, mechanical action jobs I'm really bothered about. Rather, I'm curious to know the thread which led to that once the Festival Hall organ rudely burst onto the organ scene. Most would have been re-builds of older instruments with EP action, and when I first got interested in the organ, around 1960, everything was starting to happen.....it was quite a decade. The lovely Frobenius at Oxford came a llittle later, but it certainly showed a number of "experts" the error of their ways.
It intrigues me that Compton's only briefly went down that intial path, and then died a death. I'll have to check the dates, but I suspect that they lost their most talented people, and Compton's was being run by the cinema and electronic organist, Arthur Lord, who probably didn't have a lot of interest or knowledge about the latest trends in classical pipe-organ building. I think he covered the final critical period, from 1960 to 1965 or so, during which time the pipe organ side of the business was being deliberately run down.
MM -
Completely off-topic, but did you know that there was a directional navigation light, which showed an arrow pointing left or right when seen from the bridge of a ship? It was designed to keep vessels away from something or other, and used a light and the Moire effect to create the directional arrows.
Ever day is a school day!
MM
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5 hours ago, Damian Beasley-Suffolk said:
As the song goes:
"When a grid's misaligned
with another behind
that's a Moiré ..."
That's pure genius!!! Ha Ha Ha.
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21 minutes ago, Colin Pykett said:
Another recent, excellent and similarly eminently readable PhD dissertation is that by Richard Dunster-Sigtermans:
https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/7217/1/Dunster-Sigtermans17PhD_Redacted.pdf
You (MM) will find lots of Compton references in this one.
CEP
Fascinating stuff, and I learned something also immediately, which I hadn't heard previously.
The date 1960 is wrong, because the organ was completed in 1957, but apart from that, it is a revealing passage:-
Even a committee of establishment figures(Ernest Bullock, Osborne Peasegood, both of Westminster Abbey, and George Thalben-Ball, of the Temple Church), who might be expected to have held very traditional views about tonal designs,was recommending in 1960 a Positive division for the new organ at St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, London80that was as far removed as possible from Dixon’s ‘tootling flutes’; here,the Positive division was conceived decisively in the manner of a Baroque organ.
===========================
How many people at the time, realised that Osborne Peasegood played a cinema organ in Acton on Saturday evenings? I don't think he used his real name.
MM -
I have included St Mary Boltons in my "tome", because it is a rare example of Compton/neo-something or other. By that time, both JC and "Jimmy" Taylor had died, but I'm not sure if Johnnie Degens wasn't still with Compton's.
Of course, the Hill organ that this replaced ended up in Great Yarmouth Minster, where it was rebuilt by Compton's and given "a coat of many colours" by Stephen Dykes-Bower.
I would be interested to know how you found the St Mary Boltons Compton, and whether it was radically different in some way?
It was one of their last jobs, and I think the last, all new organ that Compton's built, went into St Andrew's, Holborn. I think that Compton Sales Manager, Michael Laithem (Sp?) was organist there at some point, and if so, I met him once in Worcester, at the Three Choirs Festival.MM
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26 minutes ago, Colin Pykett said:
One aspect of the neo-classical revival is the development of well-designed and responsive mechanical key actions. Although based on relatively straightforward physical and engineering principles in common use in other fields since the 19th century, their introduction into British organ building .....etc
I shall have to read through this a few times to appreciate it, but something very interesting crossed my mind. John Compton was well aware of older methods, and wrote about it at some length.....forever the theorist, experimenter and master organ-builder.
There's a certain irony here, because JC was able to follow every whim and experiment constantly, with all sorts of things, which as anyone knows, costs a lot of money.
Well.......the hugely over-expensive cinema organs paid for it!
MM -
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2 hours ago, AJJ said:
As an undergraduate I used to practice here before the Peter Collns organ arrived in the Turner Sims hall at Southampton University. A somewhat strange instrument with the console at the east end and the pipework far away in the west. I always wondered who was responsible for acquiring it from a small and somewhat obscure Hull firm for a downtown church. It always seemed to be freezing cold there! *
http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N11626
Somewhat later with mechanical action this time.
http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N08854
Roger Yates was an interesting character who was in many ways ahead of his time. A few years back I did a considerable ammount of research into Yates resulting in an extended article for Organists’ Review. If anyone would like a copy please PM me here.
A
* It is interesting, however to look at what Hall & Broadfield did here. Their work here and above seems nothing like the ‘jobbing’ work they were mostly doing elsewhere.
How interesting that you mention Roger Yates. He crossed my mind also, because he rebuilt an old Brindley organ at Oakham PC (since destroyed) in Rutland. With good German-style voicing from Brindley, and a bit of neo-classicism, I always wanted to see and hear that instrument. (I think Sumner made mention of it in "The Organ".
Hall & Broadfield did some odd work, and some dubious neo-classical jobs, but at least they seemed to have some success at St Mary's, Beverley, which staggers on many moons later.
Going back to the mid--1950's, (post Festival Hall), one of the first to tread the neo-classical path was Noel Mander. Around this time, quite a few rebuilds saw the inclusion of unenclosed Positive organs playing "Organ Wars" with the rest of the pipework. There's one very close to me from the 1960's, at Bingley PC.....Hill organ, all mechanical with a Ruckpositive behind the console. The consultant was Francis Jackson at the time.Incredibly, Compton also indulged in this at St Bride's, Fleet Street, with an unenclosed Positive surrounded by Swell boxes containing the rest of the organ pipework. It's been re-cast with many new pipes since, but when I played it 30 years ago, I thought it actually blended rather nicely....but then....it was a Compton.
I haven't exhausted the research yet, but it's fascinating to recall how a major organ-builder (which Compton were at the time) should so suddenly fall of a cliff and find themselves utterly unfashionable and even despised by some.
I stumbled across an amazing Doctoral Dissertation which covers this particular period, which is superbly written, but which totally neglects the Compton influence on "Organ reform". It's as if no-one actually understood John Compton's breadth of knowledge, and the experiments he carried out on remote harmonics and the importance of upperwork.
I'll post the link to the dissertation, which is worth reading, if only for the quality of the English prose and eloquence of the whole.
MM
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In writing about the Compton firm, I suddenly realised that I didn't know quite as much as I had hoped. We all know about the Royal Festival Hall instrum,ent and the work of Ralph Downes there, as well as the Brompton Oratory, but who were the pioneers of mechanical-action, neo-classical instruments?
To save unnecessary replies, I am aware of the organ built by Hill, Norman & Beard for Cleveland Lodge and Lady Susi Jeans, which had pipework by Eule.
It's what happened after 1954 that I can';t place in any sort of order, though I do know about (Grant,) Degens & Rippen and their early work at Letchworth and elsewhere. All that led directly to New College, Oxford, but what about Mander, Walker's, H N & B etc.. I'm just trying to establish whether Johnnie Degens and Ted Rippen (ex-Compton men) were one of the first or even THE first to wander down the neo-classical, mechanical-action route. -
HELP!
I am just tidying up a section of writing about St Bride's, Fl;eet Street, and to my horror, came across several conflicting reports.
The BIOS entries are inaccurate, and so too is the St Bride's web-site specification. Then there is a Phoenix Organs site, which claims that the organ was virtually destroyed by lightning. (I suspect that the damage wouldn't have extended to the entire instrument.....perhaps just the computerised transmission) (Hope spring eternal if you make electronic organs, I expect).
It's quite a while since I gathered all the information, which now seems to be a bit problematical.
The latest NPOR entry seems to show that a Tuba Clarion has mysteriously appeared once again, and the spicy Fanfare Trumpet removed!!!Can anyone who knows, put me on the correct path? Malcolm R perhaps?
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Try this. Few people ever mention it.
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I was only wondering last week how old Peter Hurford was, and where he may be. Now I know the sad but inevitable truth, which I knew could not have been far away. I have many treasured recordings of him, and they will always be an inspiration in terms of scholarship combined with musicianship. A great loss to the organ world and the wider world of music. His recordings with John Willams (Guitar) can be heard on You Tube, and they are just delightful.
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On 04/03/2019 at 09:47, pwhodges said:
Are you sure that's not in fact a light console? The pale patches on the keyboards are spaced like the picture higher up in this thread, rather than musical octaves (though I suppose it could be some kind of moire effect distorting it).
Paul
You may be right PW!
I'd have expected to see another console somewhere, but at least we KNOW there was one.
Exercising brain re: Moire Effect. I may be on the wrong track, but I'm thinking two combs sliding across each other. That physics I believe.
Edit: Nope! Got that wrong. I was thinking of Murray fringes
I shall look up the Moire effect.
Second edit: Now if we'd included the accent......... moiré fringes. 😎 -
3 hours ago, handsoff said:
I have vague memories of seeing, when very young (8 or 9?), a "light-organ" show at the long-gone Bingley Hall in Birmingham during a visit with my parents. I recall that dancing columns of water illuminated by coloured lights were accompanied and controlled by an organ although whether pipe or electronic I don't know. The performance was during some sort of home economics event where housewives were able to buy various new new kitchen implements. I can still in my mind's eye the yellow plastic butter dish my mother bought which had a hollow lid into which warm water could be poured to soften the butter on cold days! I remember that better than the light-organ show...
The following links show the centrepiece attraction at the Ideal Homes Exhibition held at Earl's Court, and a fascinating review of Strand's first 100 years, which refers to that exhibition.
Mouse over the RIBA photograph and move towards bottom left, where can seen a Compton organ-console in situ. No trace of a light console, but there must have been one somewhere.
http://www.strandlighting.co.uk/
MM
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11 hours ago, Contrabombarde said:
There's a description of the still-functioning console at the Aula Magna ("Grand Hall") of the Central University of Venezuela is located within the University City of Caracas, here:
http://www.magmouse.co.uk/research/light-console/aula-magna-caracas/
Well, well, well....what a wonderful surprise!
Just going back to the logistics of making the light consoles, anyone who has worked on a Compton stop-tab console, will know that there is an abundance of bakelite. The stop rails (in which the stop-tabs are mounted, complete with combination action magnets) were all made in-house at the Compton factory. I very much doubt that Strand would therefore make any of that, simply because they wouldn't have needed to do.. I've also seen reference to the Strand consoles using standard Compton relays as well as the stop combination system. The woodwork is unmistakably Compton and to what looks like a very high standard.
So the weight of evidence and the simple logistics, point towards most of the work being done by Compton but there is also the possibility that some Strand people worked at the Compton premises on an ad hoc basis.
MM,
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2 hours ago, Barry Oakley said:
When reading this topic I wish had been so minded to ask all the questions raised with the late Frank Mitchell, John Compton's console designer who I knew when he lived in Worksop.
Indeed Barry, because the huge problem with the Compton topic has been a lack of primary sources and living accounts. Add to that the loss of company records, and it has all been a difficult but rewarding quest to tease out the facts and details. There are little things I would like to know, but I fear will remain buried for all time.One thing I do find interesting, is that the taped interview with the late Roy Skinner (one of Compton's best electricians) does not include any reference to the light consoles. However, if anyone speaks Venezuelan (Spanish?), there may be a clue over there, because it was a tradition at the Compton firm that those who wired things, signed their names on the work they did.
The fantastic thing is, that the hard work has paid off, and with two or three reliable sources to back up every piece of relevant inforrmation, it all carries enough weight to be taken as factual.
MM -
Apparenlty, Fred Bentham got the idea when he saw a cinema organist controlling a vast array of stop-tabs etc. (He would probably have liked to be an organist).
However, there's a bit more to it than this.
The critical invention was the Magnetic Clutch, which enabled the faders to be driven in a controlled way from a remote position, whereas previously, all the light controls were manipulated by hand. (I think the inventor was someone called Moss Mansell).
Apparently, being a light technician was quite a risky job. Total blackouts were achieved by throwing big switches, and there is one story where a technician asked that a particular area in the wings be kept clear ".....because that's where I land when I throw the switches." Sure enough, he was found in a crumpled heap, exactly where he suggested!
There's another interesting first about the Strand/Compton light-console. The lighting could be programmed with pre-sets (hence the thumb and toes pistons) They utilised the patent Stop Combination action invented by Jimmy Taylor.
How much work was done by Strand and Compton is a matter for some speculation, but I would hazard the guess that Compton did most of it, because they could. The console, with all the stop-tab mouldings and standard organ bits and pieces would most easily have been built in the Compton factory, then transported complete> I very much doubt that all the parts would shipped to Strand Lighting, and a whole console is a big thing to haul around. I suspect that Strand designed the lighting circuits, and Compton did what was required to the console. Once on site, it would simply be a case of plugging things into the various inputs/outputs.
Speculation apart, there is an interesting fact which is not generally appreciated. Long before the French claimed "So et Lumier" shows as their own invention, Strand lighting and a certain Mr Quentin Maclean , put on a show at one of the big exhibitions (Olympia?), using a Strand Light Console and a Compton Electrone electronic-organ, which was the central feature of the exhibition. It pre-dated the first "Son et Lumiere" show by many years, and even before that, Strand were presenting music and light shows at their own theatre in the West End.
Not that many light consoles were made....possibly around 15 to 20, but incredibly, one is still functioning at a university theatre in Venezuela. (Let's hope it brings light where there is only darkness)
"Oh Lord! A bulb has gone out!" Where have we heard that before, as an Orchestral Trumpet parts the organist's hair in the middle of Vierne's 'Berceuse'.
MM
Addendum: I just recalled something. Apparently, it was the BBC who condemned the Strand/Compton light console, because they wanted things to be computer controlled. Computerising the whole system almost bankrupt Strand, and although they achieved their aim, it resulted in a company take-over. -
21 hours ago, robertsharpe said:
Thanks for clarifying both re pre-1960 and more recently, MM.
The Walker 1960/FJ work resulted in so many wonderful (and iconic) recordings and of course Francis’s legendary playing and accompanying were at the heart of these. What an absolute legend he is and it’s extraordinary to think he is in his 102nd year! We are so fortunate in all respects to have Cocker, Willan, Mulet, Bossi et al. They were, and remain, such an inspiration alongside the other recordings.
The north west door lends its own distance to the (very far away) sound, of course; please come and visit again next year and I will be happy to welcome you to play and listen. One big disadvantage of visiting is the (essential) entrance charge which, I guess, kept you at the back of Nave last time. Although valid for a year, and a really necessary aspect of our budgeting (not including the organ!), to some it’s off-putting. Please email me ahead so we can make guest arrangements . (Other board members would be most welcome too, of course, but we may need to arrange a special visit if there are lots of interested people, which would be great).
How very kind Robert; thank-you.
Actually, I was restricted to the west end by time rather than money, but seeing people emerging from the west door as I made my way to the station, I just managed to squeeze in the A minor Fugue from a distance. It was a superb performance, I have to say. I couldn't agree more with your comments about FJ, but then, I was the 14 year old kid on a bike, who would pedal to York and back (about 90 miles) at least once a week in the school-holidays, just to hear "The Doctor".
It's a funny thing, but having heard hundreds of performances in recital and at the end of services, nothing much sticks in the mind, yet I can still recall the SOUNDS and the PHRASING of Francis playing the St Anne at Leeds PC back in the 1960's. (I'm now getting towards 70). As my late friend Carlo Curley may have said, "That's organ power!"
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6 hours ago, Colin Pykett said:
You mentioned JC's adopted niece above, but did he not also have an adopted grand daughter? She was alluded to by name in another 'Compton' thread here a few years ago:
https://mander-organs-forum.invisionzone.com/topic/651-john-compton/page/13/
(See the post by Philip Wells further down the page).
Is it possible she might be contactable?
As for genealogical issues such as marriages and offspring, surely these are easy to trace nowadays via the internet? As an example, last December I was amazed at how easy and quick it was to trace how a relative had died during the second world war, when I had thought that publicly-available sources would have been widely suppressed and therefore difficult to recover nowadays. It only took an evening and the expenditure of £6 to discover, among other details, that he had been accidentally killed in Scotland and had died in the Gleneagles Hotel which had been commandeered for use as a military hospital. Elsewhere on the web was a photo of his beautifully-maintained current grave, and I was also able to discover who keeps it thus. All this was previously unknown to the family.
In other posts above it was mentioned that BIOS might be a suitable vehicle to publish your researches. I would not recommend this because of the very limited circulation it would receive. BIOS only has a global membership of a few hundred as far as I am aware, and their publications are not well known or all that easy to get hold of outside that circle. Whenever I mention BIOS to the non-Brit organ fraternity, most of them think I am talking about computer motherboards. So although their material is worthy and without doubt scholarly, I do not regard it as well known in the public domain. From what I have seen of your work so far I think it deserves far wider recognition than that.
Elvin's work was also mentioned above. He published most if not all of it privately using assistance from the Marc Fitch Fund. This is still alive and well, thus you might be able to draw on it also.
CEP
Thank you for this Colin. I shall have to dig around a bit for "the marriage", but I think I tried this previously and got nowhere. (I wish I could list all the cul-de-sacs I have wandered into....that would be a thousand pages!)
We do know that he left Birmingham after a fairly short time with Halmshaw's, and turned up in Sheffield working for Brindley & Foster as a voicer and tonal finisher. That must have involved an awful lot of travel, and Elvin mentions how he met many important organists etc.. He was soon on the move again (about 2 years I think) and returned to the Nottingham area working for Lloyds. Age then about 25. In 1902 he was in partnership with Musson on Woodborough Road, Nottingham, and then on his own when Musson went to Conacher and hurled himself out of a third floor hoist door.
Then came the fire which destroyed his premises in 1907....age then about 30. Then he teams up with Harry Mills as Compton & Mills at Measham, by which time he had met and then taken on the young Jimmy Taylor as an apprentice. At this point, both Compton and Taylor were registered as lodgers at a house in Measham.
In 1908, his mother Mary died, and I wonder if, at that time, he didn't inherit a bit of cash, because he was soon back on his own, working out of premises in Castle Boulevard, Lenton, Nottimgham..
In all my searches, I found nothing about a marriage. However, he was very partial to holidays in Capri, which at the time, enjoyed quite a libertine reputation and a very relaxed approach to certain things; usually gentiley linked to the word "aesthetes".
Then there is the curious business of the young lad he got to know in Italy. He wanted to bring him to England and give him the best education, but Mama refused. I'm not sure whether he was intent on borrowing, stealing or trafficking, but said boy turns up in London some years later as a young man, and lives with JC. Then the young man eventually marries and becomes a father. Hence the "adopted niece" scenario, which hadn't the slightest weight in law.
It's all very obscure, but not very relevant to the story of his work.
MM
John Compton
in Nuts and bolts
Posted
I missed this bit.
John Compton wrote a very eloquent article about the extension organ, which dates back to 1927, if I recall the year precisely.
Even before the move to London around 1920, he'd built extension instruments; one of the best known being at Launceston Methdist Church, using pneumatic action.
The first extension organ in London was at the home of Albert Midgley, who put a lot of his money into the Compton firm. I cannot prove it, but it looks as if Midgley was as much the brains behind the EP extension organs as JC himself, and in his papers at the IEE (Inst.Elec.Eng) there is the claim that HE helped JC design and develop the cinema organ. That's not surprising, because apart from his work as a founding partner of CAV automotive, he'd spent some time at GEC working on telephone switchboards etc.
As they say, he was a bit of bright spark!
MM