In a post in 2020, about the York Minster rebuild, I wondered if Gloucester Cathedral might have it's Ralph Downes reimagining reversed. And indeed it is! I loved the 1970's instrument for all the reasons I guess that its fans liked it - that it sounded unique and unlike pretty much any UK cathedral instrument. Perhaps Blackburn comes close and I remember preparing for a visiting choir service on the organ at Gloucester in a darkish building and trying out for myself such combinations such as "tutti fluty" and the mutations - and coaxing the noises I had heard when played by David Briggs. I will treasure his and Rob Houssart's recordings made on it, especially when David improvised a stunning uber romantic improvisation on the hymn tune "Hereford" at a Gloucestershire Organists Association event - happily also recorded. But as James Atherton says, for the every day choral evensong, Ralph Downes was clearly not that enthused about the need to accompany Anglican chant, Stanford, Bairstow, Stainer, Walmisley and those sort, and probably in 1970, wasn't the opinion of some in the musical world that those people would soon be off the music lists of cathedrals with worthy repertoire being seen by some as Renaissance composers and then up to Purcell, and then jump to the post romantic composers? Britten, Berkeley, Jackson, Walton and today's composers music probably worked better on the 1970's model. But now, cathedrals are becoming the only show in town for great liturgy and music, with great congregations coming in who want to sing and be led by a good healthy organ weight behind them. And this the 1970's organ really didn't enjoy doing. I was lucky for my service that the mass setting was a Viennese one so all the little sparkles worked fine. But if you looked at the 1970's spec, and you were faced with music from 1850-1930 on the music desk, as James says, you really didn't have a lot to choose from. I am sure though that Nicholson's will build something that has colour, perkiness but also grandeur and gravitas.
A final anecdote was that I attended an evensong once at Gloucester in the 2000's and the organ sounded like a traditional cathedral organ somehow - at the end who should descend the stairs but Roy Massey.....
