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Stanley Monkhouse

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Everything posted by Stanley Monkhouse

  1. Well, Colin, your article makes my post look a bit silly! Good stuff. I used to think that perhaps there would be another choral revival in another 200 years, but now I see the western version of Xtianity going down the tube completely - it's almost there now. David P's right - Xtianity has to be rethought without the sky pixie magic stuff if its to get traction again here (though having said that there seems no shortage of people who believe anything). I'm learning to laugh at it. If all this is so, why spend big money restoring/rebuilding/enlarging/rehoming organs that soon won't be used? As an example, take Willis I's last at St Bees - not pure Willis now. Small village, local economy woeful unless Sellafield thrives (it's not really at present). Let's say 1 million needed. Why bother? lots of other examples.
  2. I agree with your last para, and much else. Jesus preached an essentially Buddhist message. He came to abolish religion. The religious jerks hated him. If you want to know more of what I think, read my blog: https://ramblingrector.me I deduce that you think the organ's future in this country is grim. So do I. I enjoyed it when I was able to.
  3. ... and before your blood pressure blows a gasket. Barry, you write "Perhaps the nation’s public schools, most having chapels, are now the only schools where there is still a trickle or flow of potential organ scholars. " People who attend church even just a little don't believe me when I tell them that at funerals, weddings and baptisms that I have done over the last 10 years, nobody under the age of 60, roughly, knows the Lord's prayer or any hymns other than the ones I mentioned. and possibly, if they are rugby supporters, Cwm Rhondda. My last parish was inner urban, partly UPA, increasingly Moslem. The potential Christians, if they have any desire for Church attachment, tended towards the free churches: Pentecostal, Elim, unattached evangelical churches. They would no more dream of setting foot in the CoE (except for carols with the brass band) which they saw as snooty (not so), judgemental (not so there), hypocritical (yes indeed) and pretentious (absolutely). Although the circumstances are different, the phenomenon is like that of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that saw working people forsake the CoE for Methodism and such like. I've gone off topic. Please forgive. But it's relevant.
  4. A bit of background from my viewpoint: a cathedral-trained organist turned urban vicar after a 30 year career as a medical academic, now retired. The choral revival in the Church of England has lasted about 180 years. Together with other developments it’s provoked the evolution of the English organ. It's now waning. Some cathedral choirs are finding life difficult. Many (? most) parish church choirs have folded or are terminally ill. Congregations have been decimated. Hardly anybody under the age of 50, unless they've attended fee-paying schools, knows hymns other than Morning has broken, Sing Hosanna and Lord of all hopefulness (the Lord's Prayer too). The liturgy of the Church of England is changing. The need for organs to ‘paint the psalms’ has all but vanished outside (most) cathedrals. Many clergy are not interested in music that uses organs. Many clergy are not interested in the sort of liturgy that organs can enrich. Cathedral evensongs attract, but they’re now just an arm of the heritage industry for the middle classes who can afford to drive to them (fuel prices might have an effect there). Young people were never particularly keen to take up the organ. I attended state schools in the 1950s and 1960s and there were a few of us, even in Carlisle, but the situation is worse now, young organists coming almost exclusively from fee-paying schools. Any state school boy (I wouldn’t know about girls) interested in the arts is quite likely to have the ordure kicked out of him these days (I speak from personal and pastoral experience). It’s not kool or macho. Churches can hardly afford to keep the buildings going, let alone what’s in them. The average congregation numbers 27 and falling fast. The average age of a churchgoer is about 67 and rising fast—they’ll be dead soon. Churchgoing is just a hobby like hiking or climbing or knitting. The English public are not particularly interested in organs. Musicians tend to look down their noses at organs and organ music. So most organs won’t need to lead hearty congregational singing or paint the psalms. The English organ is, if you like, being freed from its churchy associations. What do you see as its future?
  5. This is all fascinating. Thank you. It's good the way one thing leads to another. Regarding AH and apoustic 32s, I've thought of one now infamous example, namely Gloucester. The 12 note (presumably) 32 ft extension of the large scale 16ft open wood was added 1920. Maybe my original question is rendered pointless, but the fact is that AH was responsible for a large number of 32 Woods acoustic below bottom F or thereabouts. His early ones included St Nicholas Whitehaven, which I' played in 1970, not long before destruction, and the St Bees extension to the Willis 16 ft, played more recently (needs a lot of money now). If anyone would like to read my recollections of Whitehaven, email me wsmonkhouse at gmail etc. Back to Gloucester finally. It's worth remembering when commentators write about Howells having the Gloucester instrument often in mind, that his most famous organ works such as the three rhapsodies and the first three psalm preludes were written before AH came on the scene and the pedal had only four ranks, 16 16 8 16 (no 32). Once again, thank you. I look forward to more comments. There's another topic in my head: it will be posted soon.
  6. I've not started a topic before, so I hope this is in the correct section of the forum. Two questions about 32 ft flues. (1) Why did Willis I use metal at Carlisle and Salisbury, but (assuming only one 32ft flue) wood elsewhere? At Carlisle they're the first thing that greets you when you walk in, and metal looks better. But at Salisbury that is not the reason - they're no more or less obvious than those at, say, Durham, Hereford, Winchester. Metals sound rather different - they can have more 'drive' - but not that much. (2) Arthur Harrison 'inherited' full length 32ft flues from Willis and others, but installed very few himself. Why? I can't think of a single full length Harrison-made 32 flue in a church/cathedral other than Temple Church, London, which (I assume it's full length *) in any case was made for a ballroom. His lowest 5 or 6 notes were usually acoustic. Acoustic 32s can sound good in loud combinations, but they're no use for quiet stuff. Height is an issue at some places (Redcliffe for example), but is there another reason? Did he think that they were just not worth the expense? * It occurs to me that Temple open 32 might be acoustic, for there's a 32 bourdon for the quiet stuff. Maybe others know something that I've missed. Any thoughts?
  7. Thank you Colin. I used to be a member, then left when I was spending too much time here. I'm retired now. Steve Goodwin has the ideal cleric. I would like to think I was too! In another of my churches - the civic church - the very competent organist had my total confidence and I let him at it. I suggested hymns, but that's all - a good sing beginning, middle and end, and offertory long enough to cover the action. Lots of Wesley. At risk of going off topic, musicians need to engage clergy constructively with RSCM and RCO involvement (as, I think, they do). Start early in the theological training institutions. Unfortunately, the term "organist" for many clergy conjures up terrorist, and doubtless vice versa. Another problem that has to be confronted is that many young clerics think musically, if at all, in terms of (to me risible) quasi-erotic love songs to Jesus. Loving Jesus is all very well, but it won't help you deal with the administrative nonsense of the institutional church. Don't get me going. Finally, as the great Margo Leadbetter of The Good Life said, "yuletide felicitations" to you all.
  8. Rowland is right. A sensible priest will delegate, having set some boundaries. Unfortunately many priests, esp young ones, are illiterate musically, illiterate liturgically. and utterly self-opinionated in that they, and only they, know the mid of God. It's useful to deflect a disagreement between organist and priest by asking "what is reasonable for the congregation?" (not so much the choir which can be an agent of Satan). Good luck.
  9. I'm an organist turned PP, now retired - just. One of my last churches (I had three) used Murray mainly, with unaccompanied Merbecke in Advent/Lent. Everything was sung except the creed - we didn't always have it anyway). In the absence of a choir and regain organist, and with fewer than 30 in the regular congregation in a huge Anglocatholic barn in an increasing Muslim area, it was fine - realistic. Merbecke worked because of the musical priest (me!) who set the pitch. I suggest you meet the new PP on neutral ground, say you're interested in developing the music, and start a discussion. Appleford is doubtess what was used when he was young and the C of E thought it mattered. It's dreadful, but it wouldn't be helpful to say so - not yet. Remember in all this that according to the Canons of the C of E the priest has all the power: you have none whatsoever.
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