Pierre Lauwers

Well, To summarize Belgium with "Chocolate, Boucles de Spa, Antwerps Cath. Organ and an Anneessens", could be compared with summarizing England with Mint sauce, St Paul's Cath Organ plus a H&H I don't remember where... No, we need to realize how little "europeans" we (all) still are. Best wishes, Pierre

Sorry for the fault, MM! Maybe insularity is not just an English disease after all. (quote) Aaaaaaaaaaaah, fine! And of course it is not. Mind you, I am a native of a lilliputian country with four languages, crammed between Germany, Holland, England and France, often dealing as a battlefield between these. (I forgot Luxembourg, which is not fair so good is the organ life there). So here we know what international is about. I read one day The Times, the next the Frankfurter allgemeine Zeitung,the next Le Monde....etc. Quite normal for "old belgians" like me. I mean this: European countries were no more islands in 1910. Thereafter, the WW and WW once more were the disasters we know, plus another one we still need to understand: all european countries are still islands now, with every one ignoring largely what happens in the others. -Cite me three preserved baroque flemish organs. Could you? -Ask any belgian organist for three fairly preserved Willis organs. Any hope? (etc) Best wishes, Pierre.

Go to Worcester - it sounds bloody awful all the time! (Quote) Well, I should make my autocritic, maybe (Liked both!) Best wishes, Pierre

Dear Brian, A simple question. I live in a country next to England. Since 30 years, the situation is the same: if I want to buy any recording of english music recorded with english organs, I must: -Pay a travel to London -Search myself in the boxes, and I have to know precisely what I want. (If it were the 10,000th Bach recording on any neo-baroque screaming machine, suffice a bicycle and two kilomètres). Now a fact: On the french Plenum forum you have some hundreds of members, a majority of whom are organists. Before I joined non one had ever heard of the name "Herbert Howells" but perhaps two, who travel in England regularly. An explanation may be here: there is not a great corpus of internationally respected UK music which can be exported (Quote) Where is the culprit? Certainly not the music itself! Some times ago, dealing with a subject that seems to be just another taboh, I placed a link to some extracts of S-S Wesley choral music. In france and Belgium these had a tremendous effect, I got tents and tents of information demands. If you have music that should be exported, then this one is a fine example. But the very people who recorded it told me "We shall never make it again because it did not sell" (In England, of course. The thing never was to be find elsewhere). So a bit of marketing would help. Need a sales representative? I'm free (but expansive) Best wishes, Pierre Lauwers.

Ask yourselves a question. Do you want to hear Vierne performed on a "Bogbush & Scraper" or on the Cavaille-Coll at Tolouse? Do you want to hear Reger from Norwich Cathedral, or performed on a great Walcker or Sauer of the era? Above all, do you want to hear Bach played on the organ of St.George's Hall, Liverpool, or on the organs at Zwolle, Naumberg, Haarlem or Groningen (Quote) That is precisely the reason you'd better keep genuine, original organs, that allow you to present top-recordings nobody could do on a German organ... Just a tought! Best wishes, Pierre

On this CD it's a gem, a true promotion material for the british organ... (I liked the thing live too, anyway. But it was some times ago.) Best wishes, Pierre

The organ is due for major restoration work as is St.Georges Hall. biggrin.gif (Quote) Aïe aïe aïe..... I hope there are no "enhancements" projects! Best wishes, Pierre

I don't remember of the Liverpool Cathedral's organ as that powerfull. (120 db -did they replace even more soft stops with more biting items, this times an horizontal Airbus engine?-). Indeed, a french baroque organ like St-Maximin du Var seems to be louder. Best wishes, Pierre Lauwers

Well, it's like with the Plum-Pudding; a bit sometimes is good, too much would mean... A good Tuba that can be pitted against the Tutti is interesting. On the continent this is unknown, and when I make friends listen to this Tuba at Westminster in Reubke and Liszt (S.Preston 1985) they would sign the contract! (Of course this Tuba is the H&H type, there are others). Best wishes, Pierre

Well, I'll preciously keep mine! Pierre

Yes, Mr Child, This makes sense, and there are some of my ancestors in these graves near Ieper as well. What I mean is this: a man today who would stick to cold reason would sit on a chair watching the trains like the cows do. No risk, no investment in recession times. But is such a life worth the name? Best wishes, Pierre.

Maybe it's different in Britain, but in Belgium at least one could say the same for whatever activity, be it the car business, pharmaceutical insurance, etc, etc, etc. Today any businessman would earn his living far better firing everyone, closing the thing and investing the money on the stock exchange. Indeed, that's what 50% actually did.So what? Do we need to sit down and watch the trains? Pierre

This would be quite a surrealist-belgian scenery: A mourning Voix céleste (or Vox angelica) quietly filling the church with its meditative voice, and then CRACK! 214 people, that's only the emerged part of the iceberg. Add the non-logged visitors, the ones that don't surf. Of course we don't know how big a Titanic we could sink like a simple russian submarine. Let's summarize the matter as this: any Ltd that would have as much activity on its Website as this one would be rather happy indeed. (Speaking from experience). Pierre

May I ask some quite silly questions? -How old is Ronald's accountant? -Why are we 214 here? -How is it that there are more than 2000 postings since 2004, August? (Had we had such results on our Website at S...Ltd !) Maybe this dead was a false one, trying to break down that coffin while we are still singing the In Paradisio (sorry, belgian humor!). Best wishes, Pierre Lauwers.

I am approaching 44 years of age next month and I am looking at other job options. (Quote) Well, I'm 46 and I do have to look at others jobs! Mind you, as a marketing guy, I've been disposed of with many collegues because the Internet is the death of the marketing! I actually believe you can do a lot with the web for not that much money, especially in so specialized "markets" as the organ one. If you promote a recording you like on say three forums, one english, one german and one french, you will hit a fair number of opinion leaders, maybe not the "official" ones, but the ones that discuss with everyone else! Best wishes, Pierre Lauwers.

Well, I just put this one forward again, as it seems Paul know of some Herbert Howell's opinions and ideas. They would be welcomed here! Let's add some hints at what has already been said, a discussion which lent us as far as a tour of english cathedrals. Some tests made here in Belgium with the instruments we have could make us think the soft stops of a Walcker organ (or of course many another romantic german organ) could well fill the bill. But when the volume rises, the tutti does not fit, it's a kind of big, reedy Plenum, but it's still something like a Diapason chorus and it lacks the bite and the clash of more powerfull reed choruses, while a Tuba would be sometimes helpful! Belgian romantic organs are completely out of place in this music, let alone maybe the Anneessens in Ieper, where an english influence is obvious. But this organ lacks refinment, tough. The problem lies with the reeds, two times too fat and "free-toned", the music turns to a confuse mass of tone. There lacks variety with the soft stops too. The Voix céleste is often too big, too loud, ditto the stopped pipes. This had conveyed me to believe a good plan could be a kind of german romantic organ with some english reeds. Plus that Diapason chorus of course....But on which kind of windchest? (English organ= slider chests. German organ=Registerkanzelle, where the grooves feed stops, not notes...) Now as far as acoustics are concerned, we have 5-6 seconds in many places, even simple Parish churches. Best wishes, Pierre Lauwers

Mind the flemish language for that matter. During a family meeting a cousin of mine that didn't speak flemish that well asked for more soup. He halas butchered the word "soep" in order the lady understood something else -a piece of anatomy only the dutch actually do eat, but from bulls-. Pierre

There are interesting organs in Bordeaux, and of course at Poitiers -but the Loire area is a vast one!- Here is a very interesting one in Bordeaux (far more than the Cathedral's): http://www.france-orgue.fr/bordeaux/ As for Poitiers: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/organ-au-logis/Pag...oitiersCath.htm Pierre

Aren't the Tubas better "outside" the tutti, I mean rather pitted against it from a Solo manual? Noise isn't an aim in itself; was any Tuba intended for use in chords? Pierre

A little point about "balance". This is a hazardous notion, in that its meaning is completely different in a romantic organ than with baroque or "Orgelbewegt" ones. The first true romantic organs had their Claviers differentiated no more by location or pitch, as with the Werkprinzip, but by different levels of power, for instance: Manual I FFF Manual II MF Manual III P Fernwerk ppp This you will find, to a more or less extended degree, in english, belgian and french organs, but with a difference: the Swell , which in France and England can sometimes be as powerfull as the great (16-8-4 reeds in France, ditto+mixture as Full Swell in England). But the principle remains. As to the reeds dominating: -With ACC, whose "customers" did not accept chorus Tierce ranks, the tutti is actually a "Grand jeu", that only the reeds and the Cornets are audible, upseting the rest. -With Willis, the reeds and the Chorus Mixtures (in place of the Cornets, but then with Tierce ranks) dominate the same way. So the aim was the tutti, not a kind of "balance" we seek today. Best wishes, Pierre Lauwers.

Thanks!!! Pierre

Thanks Brian, My concern lies with the fact I sometimes use this LP(Salisbury) in order to give a hint to what a Willis organ is to belgian friends. For instance, the 17-19-22 mixtures used in Bach! and the reed choruses in Franck. Pierre

Do you have a picture? Pierre