Colin Harvey
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Posts posted by Colin Harvey
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York Minster organ has been in the care of Harrison & Harrison for several years now.
I understand the Minster are awaiting all the necessary permissions to be in place before they make an announcement, hopefully later this year. A lot of work and careful thought has gone into the best course of action for the organ; as many people will be aware there are many strands and considerations for this organ; musical, historical and how the instrument works in the building. There have been a number of experiments on the organ recently, mainly around returning the pressures back to their 1930s levels, which is likely to be the musical and artistic inspiration for any future work. Those of us who can recall the organ (or have recordings of the organ) from before the 1960s Walker work (including Francis Jackson's early recordings) will understand the desirability of this.
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Thanks for the update Martin. I'm sure all of us would be interested to understand the rationale behind re-voicing this organ by Ruffatti. Would you enlighten us please?
I played the new Tickell at Keble a year or two ago. I was very struck by the unashamedly romantic - if not orchestral - spirit of the organ. It's as though the style had gone full circle from Compton through GDB to Ken Tickell and here was Tickell building an organ that wasn't a million miles away from his grand-organ builders in John Compton! In particular, the orchestral reeds and strings of this organ impressed me with their colour and finish. Keble is a far cry from his early classically inspired organs such as Oakham. The organ feels very assured in its orchestral style, as though the organ builders didn't feel ashamed of making a 4 manual English cathedral style instrument and have gone for it. There's a definite confidence and assurance of hand in it.
In this context, the Choir Organ makes perfect sense. There is no attempt to build a secondary principal chorus on the choir - the mutations are not really what this division is about, rather soft foundation stops and the (excellent) orchestral reeds, all under expression.
The impression of playing this organ, with electric coupling throughout, feels much more like an electric action organ than a mechanical action organ. Indeed, you can't but help feel the feel of an electric action was the objective when building this (only nominally) mechanical action organ In this context, it does not feel inappropriate. How long will it be until mechanical action is eschewed entirely in these styles of organs for EP or direct electric?
It is impressive how much organ Tickell managed to squeeze into a comparatively small space; this could not have been possible without modern design tools and modern approaches to winding and action design.
Indeed, if I were to mention a weak spot on this organ, it would be the choruses. Tickell seemed to follow the quest for a chorus which had exactly the same tonality at every point of the compass with a fairly scientific approach. This has resulted in very neutral choruses which are inert to any sense of musical growth or expression when playing a musical phrase. We all know every other instrument changes across its register - human voice, strings, brass, woodwind - so why should the organ attempt to sound the same? This organ's choruses feel musically numb, especially if you prefer the treble ascendancy of choruses by builders such as Cavaille-Coll or Hill.
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I'm wary of entering a discussion about an organ I do not know, but from what you say I agree it does sound rather monstrous. Is it an Anglican church, and if so, how was a Faculty obtained, and what did the DOA think about it? Incidentally, your description also comprehensively demolishes the perception (put about and encouraged by some of those who promote them) that virtual pipe organs are cheap. But let's not go there ...
CEP
Hi Colin,
Yes, Anglican church. The DAC made the decision in the absence of the DOA because of a perceived conflict of interest by the Archdeacon and Chairman of the DAC. I'm not sure what the conflict of interest was, except that the DOA occasionally deputises at the church.
The funding for the electric was given by the friends of the church organisation, on the proviso it was only for the proposed electronic organ. The faculty also allowed for the removal of the organ, on the proviso it passed to an organ builder or another parish.
I had fairly extensive correspondence with the DOA and organ tuner on the subject, as well as a little bit with the incumbent at the church.
I could write a lot more - I know a lot of the people involved and there is a long history of schemes for the organ at the church, none of which have materialised. The church has a good link with the nearby university for choral music but they had struggled with the organ for a long time. There are very real and practical problems of ensemble and balance between choir and organ as it currently stands but these could have been resolved.
For now, I will refrain from saying any more for now except pondering whether a large whistle needs to be blown at some point.
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Absolutely.
I'd add while the organ is in pieces, it's usually sensible to seize the opportunity to carry out any repairs and maintenance which may be required.
By way of an example, the organ I alluded to above (at Owslebury *) cost £600 to buy.
The costs of transplanting it into the new church was in the 'teens of thousands.
It was in a pretty tired state when we bought it. So the cost included a restoration of releathering the bellows, cleaning and overhaul of all components (including pipe repairs - the front pipes were badly dented) and refinishing the case (it was in quite a state and the best thing was to strip it back and refinish it in its original finish of button polish). Nothing done to the soundboard except an inspection to confirm it was still sound and had many more years in it before it would require work.
Even if we hadn't done this, the costs of moving the organ would have been many multiples of the purchase cost.
Still, it's a lot cheaper and longer-lived than an electronic installation, and a heck of a lot nicer to play and listen to, but that's a topic for discussion for another day.
By way of an example, there's a church quite close to here which is spending £40-50K on a Hauptwerk based installation (complete with 4 manual console for a church which seats 250...). The pipe organ could be brought into a relatively good state of repair for about half that. The pipe organ may be the work of a not-particularly-distinguished local builder, and rebuilt in the 1950s (detached console, EP action and an unfathomably stupid layout, all that sort of thing), but it sounds well in the church and the issues of delay could easily be resolved by re-siting the console where they intend to put the 4 manual Hauptwerk console. It's completely bonkers.
* Owslebury is roughly pronouced "Oz-el-bury" in case you're wondering.
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I followed this organ with growing interest when a friend suggested it for a church in our area.
It's always sad to see yet another organ like this, with some provenance and historic interest, on eBay and it raised a few questions about custodianship of historic organs in private hands:
- Is it possible to ensure good custodianship of such instruments in private hands and protect them from inappropriate alterations and work?
- Is it possible that, if they need to be sold or changed hands, there's a way of tracking and monitoring historic organs? What about the situation when the owner dies or is no longer able/willing to keep the organ? Is there a way the organ's future can be ensured and not left to executors or sales people or buyers who may not understand what they're dealing with?
On these questions, I felt
- In this organ's case it's clear the organ case had recently had an amount of relatively inappropriate, albeit minor, alterations, like screwing bits of brass on it, repainting some of the pipes (why?!) and panels, and re-purposing one of the panels to make a larger music desk. Certainly it was enough to put me off and any sensible purchaser would want to reverse those alterations.
- Is selling an organ like this on eBay really the responsible thing to do? Shouldn't the overriding concern be that the seller goes about ensuring the organ has a safe future? A longer and more thought-through sale may have also gained a better price if it is important to them. Any idiot can end up spending a lot of money bidding for an organ on eBay but it doesn't mean they know what they're letting themselves in for... what about the several thousand £ it'll cost to engage someone suitable to move it?
I know BIOS do a lot of good work in these sorts of cases - I've been involved with them before rescuing an organ from eBay (see below for the results) and I know this sort of situation is unfortunately a very common occurrence for them. Is there more which could be done to help and assist them with this work? The CofE has the faculty process which should stop this sort of thing but we know it is imperfect, while other denominations and organs in private hands have a variety of checks and balances ranging from non-existent to something approaching the faculty process.
I thought the Bates organ was charming. Bates was a good builder as far as I can tell - I occasionally play one, rebuilt by Bryceson and it really is a stunning organ. This organ looks like a Dulciana and 4ft flute (possibly by J.W.Walker, judging by the stop heads?) have supplanted a couple of earlier stops (maybe a Twelfth and Sesquialtera?) but I thought it sounded very good in the YouTube video. I remember seeing score after score of estimates in the Hill archives of the 1840s for organs of similar size to this Bates organ - the specifications end up being very repetitive; such novelties as Dulcianas and 4ft flutes didn't really start to materialise until the late 1840s and even then they were very rare.
Hopefully this organ has found a good home but if it has, it is more by luck than design in this case!
Footnote:
Organ rescued from eBay in 2013: http://www.tomccparishes.org.uk/owslebury-organs/ plus see http://npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=V00095.
CH
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The appearance of nave organs over the past 20-30 years is an interesting development in Cathedral and large church organs.
I wonder how much of it has been driven by evolving liturgical practices and evolving practices with hymns?
I heard a recording of the Old 100th conducted by Edward Elgar and was struck by the tempo of the singing (which was at English Hymnal tempos) and the accent put on (the start of) each note. It was not dissimilar to the iso-rhythmic psalm singing found in the most traditional areas of the Dutch Gereformeerde Gemeente churches. Hymn tempos seemed to have increased dramatically over the decades since and the organist is often encouraged to "push the hymns on" these days. Personally, I found the energy and power of Elgar's group singing in a lusty, controlled and very coordinated, communal manner exciting.
It may be helpful to think about the purpose and requirements for nave organs.
The main purpose of nave organs seems to be for accompanying/ leading congregational singing in the nave. They aren't used much for choral accompaniment or repertoire performance, which tends to remain at the East End, unless certain antiphonal effects are desired.
So what sorts of stops and sounds do we need for a nave organ?
The main foundation of hymn accompaniment is borne by a Diapason chorus. I think most organists reach for the Great Open and Principal as a starting point when registering for a hymn (this is just a generalisation) and go from there.
A sub-unison is very helpful for hymn accompaniment. While still highly unfashionable in some quarters, it's worth noting
1. most men sing naturally at an octave below unison pitch so a sub-unison supports these voices at the pitch they're singing
2. Lower pitches are better at getting the sound around corners - e.g. from a high triforium to the floor of a narrow nave. Higher pitches (e.g. mixtures) will use reflection and scattering to disperse but higher frequencies are attenuated by air far more than lower pitches.
So it would follow a large, fairly strongly voiced Diapason chorus would be a good starting point for a nave organ, ideally on a 16 ft basis or with a strong sub-unison.
It may be worth considering some historical models of organs which were built with a strong emphasis on congregational accompaniment.
One of the first models is the Dutch organ from the 17th century to the 19th century to ... well, really the present day. The 2005 Henk van Eeken organ at Rijssen (see http://www.henkvaneeken.com/completedprojects/Rijssen.html) and 2014 Reil organ at Bodegraven (see http://www.orgelmakerijreil.nl/bodegraven-en/bodegraven-bethelkerk/?lang=en) are built in the Dutch tradition and are both designed to accompany congregations of c.2,000 on about 25 stops. Note the use of 16 ft flues and reeds on the manuals and the powerful choruses - Rijssen was originally going to have a 5 1/3 quint and the mixtures are based on the 16 ft series (with a 5 1/3 rank from fairly low down the compass). There are also lots of solo possibilities - Rijssen has a Ruispijp on the pedal with a double drawer - at the first point it acts as a (very powerful) tenor cornet in the tenor octave of the pedalboard, effectively creating a pedal divide if you want to solo out the tune on your right foot and play the bassline with you left (they do, frequently) and there are many other effects, using Tertiaans and Carillons as solo stops. The solo effects are designed to work as a solo with the full chorus and are powerful, telling stops - think Tuba rather than a 1960s Marcussen Spitz-Nazard.
Another model to consider is the British tradition of the first half of the 20th century in the late Walkers and pre WWII H&Hs - the so called "Imperial Organ" if you like. Here we find the development of The Large Open Diapason. Reading through the contemporary reports of the day, much emphasis is put on The Large Organ Diapason and how its "floods of Diapason Tone fill the building" and lead congregational singing. Although there are examples some people find coarse to their modern tastes, and some examples which *are* genuinely coarse
, I think there is some mileage considering the qualities of the LOD and what it provides: by providing a lot of unison tone, the lower frequencies help to transmit the sound "around the corner" most British organs found themselves speaking into, while the prodigious amounts of unison tone helps to reassure singers they're singing along to a large group. That said, most people find having at least 1x 4ft drawn is essential to leading congregational singing as it helps the organ be "heard above" the singing and lead the congregation. Another part of the design of the British organ is the use of the swell organ and how the organ is registered/used in hymns. I think most British organists gravitate towards the Great Diapasons 8 & 4, with Swell coupled in and everything coupled down to a pedal of perhaps 16.16.8 when drawing stops for a hymn. The organist will typically colour paint the words and thoughts of the hymn by changing registrations - a verse or line about glory, crowns and triumph will herald the arrival of the Swell (or Great) Trumpets, spirit, angels and being On High will see the appearance of the mixtures, grandeur and foundation will see more 16 foots and gravity. If the organ has one, the Tuba will make an occasional appearance soloing out the tune, usually (but not always) in the last verse, while the merest whiff of thunder will encourage all sorts of 32 ft reeds and 32 ft effects.
Obviously the Nave Organ would be best placed in the UK to fit in with this tradition but I would suggest it should provide the foundations first, leaving the "colour effects" of the paragraph above to the main organ if necessary. So, if designing a Nave organ, my starting point would be a large Diapason chorus - something along the lines of 16.8.(5 1/3).4.2 2/3.2.Mixture with a bit of pedal. If I was to suggest an improvement at the current crop of nave organs, it would be to have a 16ft flue on the manuals and to encourage more emphasis on the 16.8.4 pitches than the higher pitches. Perhaps after those items have been provided and space and money allows, the next item to add is some reeds, maybe enclosed, to lend some colour with the word painting, followed by a large solo reed (available on another manual). You could probably do everything in 15 stops.
Each church/cathedral is different in design and acoustics so provides its own challenges. Some cathedrals have a tight or non-existent triforium; balance and coordination with the main organ need to be thought about carefully (would we want to consider putting in a delay into the nave organ action, as PA systems have with their speakers, so the sound is coordinated as it travels down the nave?).
It would make sense to me if the style of pipework in the nave organ mirrors that of the main organ - so the design, manufacture and scaling of the pipework in the nave is homogeneous with the main organ to give the best blend and help give the impression only one organ is speaking.
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Some comments against some of the comments I've seen on this thread:
Other examples of Nave organs not yet mentioned are
Romsey Abbey (JWWalker, 1998, includes a separate console)
Christchurch Priory - here more organ has be introduced in the south triforium since the 1990s Nicholson organ was built
Sherbourne - the Tickell Nave division at the West end
Southwell - transplant of a J.J.Binns
Winchester - this is possibly the only Nave organ which is in the liturgical Quire. Seriously, it has to travel 2-3 bays of the nave before it reaches the congregation, which is only one less than the main body of the organ. It has a very hard job to do and it is questionable how effective it really is, although it certainly helps. Winchester is a very difficult example due to the extreme length of the nave and the lack of an open triforium in the nave. The whole organ is pushed hard to do its job in the nave and can be uncomfortably direct for Quire services, especially if it is played loudly.
York - who on earth in their right mind would use the Tuba Mirabilis for a nave organ, accompanying every verse of every hymn on it? Come on guys, get real. However, it's an impressive stop (although it sounds far better in the pre-1950s rebuild recordings) and goes to show sound can travel down the nave from the organ where it is ... and I don't think it all needs to be from a solo reed on 30" w.p!
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Here's the best video I've yet seen of Saint-Sulpice, showing off this organ's many incredible features, like the quadruple rise reservoirs, the barker lever stop actions.
Also remarkable for its stunning aural recording and performance, this time of non French music, Mendelssohn's piano prelude and fugue in E minor, another stunning performance by Daniel Roth.
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Hi All,
I have been wondering about something I read recently about drawing diapasons and flutes together, and hope that someone may be able to provide an explanation. Going through some ancient things in The Musical Times, I came across a letter to the editor in vol. 77 no. 1120 (June 1936), written by Henry Willis III in which he stated as follows at p. 543:
"It can be laid down in the most definite manner that Harmonic Flutes do not blend with Diapasons, that any open flutes are undesirable, but that correctly voiced Stopped Flutes are capable of successful combination. Why? The reason is simple. Open flutes have various upper partials present in varied order of prominence: many, when developed in a flute, are inimical to those of a Diapason, With a Stopped Flute the odd numbered partials only are present, and the blending power is correct." (Emphasis original.)
Now, the only Willis instrument of any size that I've ever had any opportunity to play had both a Claribel Flute 8' and Harmonic Flute 4' on the Great Organ, and I recall that the lack of blend was particularly noticeable if the Harmonic Flute were drawn. So HWIII certainly seems to have been spot-on in relation to his own firm's instruments.
On the other hand, not too long ago I had the opportunity to have a go on an acquaintance's H******** installation - surely I dare not even name the digital beast on a forum devoted to the pipe organ! - but it did at least provide something of a context to HWIII's comments insofar that it included a virtual reproduction of a French romantic instrument which has, on the Grand-Orgue, jeux de fond comprising a Bourdon 16', Montre 8', Flûte Harmonique 8', Bourdon 8', Gambe 8' and Prestant 4'; the Récit Expressif included a Diapason 8 as well as a family of Flûtes Harmoniques at 8', 4' and 2'. To my ears, virtually any combination of these seemed to blend well. Now, I realize that a French Montre is not an English Diapason, but it does cause me to wonder if the blend, or lack thereof, is strictly a matter of upper partials, or if there is in fact more to the question. Any comments?
By the way, in the same letter HWIII went on to state:
"Myself, I regard the presence of flutes on the Great Organ of a three-manual instrument with any pretence to an adequate scheme as out of place: on the Swell, Choir, and Solo, yes; on the Great, no. The Great Chorus should be a pure Diapason structure, capped, if the size of the instrument permits, by the Chorus Reed or reeds."
As I say, I have only limited direct experience of Willis instruments, but I have never come across one in all my recordings or in reading about them which had a Great Organ consisting solely of diapasons and reeds. Hmmm...
Kind regards,
mjfarr3006
Dear MJFarr - I think you make the point very well. A lot of the success of whether Open Flutes and Open Diapasons go together depends on the voicing and treatment of the pipes. I would suggest it is perhaps unhelpful to try to define hard and fast rules as it imposes entirely arbitrary self-imposed strictures, the value of which I don't really see; although I can see HWIII's attempts are probably borne out of his own experience. Perhaps this has something to say and influence how we should approach and register on his organs?
The closest to a 3 manual HWIII instrument with solely Open Diapasons and reeds on the Great organ I can think of is St Marys in Southampton City Centre (see http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N11630). It only really has a Gedeckt on the Great, which had quickly supplanted a Claribel. The 4ft Gemshorn is really a small Principal, somewhere between the ODII and ODIII if I recall correctly. As such the division only really provides a variety of Diapason tonalities at various levels of power and pitch (none of which quite go together) and a battery of chorus reeds. If one wants to engage with flutes, strings and orchestral reeds, one has to use the Choir and Swell divisions, except for the lone Gedeckt on the Great Organ, which is a curious outlier with mere solo possibilities in combination with the other Great stops. The Gedeckt could just as easily be on the Choir Organ.
I do question the value of such a sharp delineation of tonalities across the divisions. I would have thought a more varied distribution could make for a more usable instrument (for example if you want to play an imitative reed off a flute and a string on different divisions as some kind of 3 way dialogue) and perhaps make a more intriguing and flexible instrument to discover. A nice example is the Richards Fowkes at St Geroge's Hannover Square, which has imitative solo possibilities on all three manuals - the classical distribution of its fabulous imitative reeds; Great Fagott, Choir Dulciaan and Swell Oboe being one example of many on this organ. Another example would be Harrison & Harrison's incomparable early masterpiece at All Saints' Tooting. Although it is 2/3 the size of St Marys Southampton and a similar style of organ, it has far more variety of nuanced colours and possibilities through careful planning and design.
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Friedrich, many thanks for a very thoughtful and perceptive response. The Stephen Bicknell article is extremely interesting and relevant to this discussion. My hunch is that fitting a new organ into an old case and building has probably been done more often and more successfully in Germany and other Northern European countries than here but of course the musical requirements will differ from most Anglican churches.
Just as Stephen Bicknell's brilliant article relates "Your architectural sense of the space you are given should affect the kind of organ that you think would work", surely it would be most effective if the organ case also influences the kind of organ in it too? Not just in size and layout but also stylistically?
If the main and chaire case are to be retained from an earlier instrument, would it show the right sensitivities and artistic/musical imagination to raise the idea that "the chair case may be ditched" (sic) so early on in the discussions?
I had the pleasure of working with Stephen Bicknell on just such a project (building an organ, not ditching a chaire case), resulting in what amounted to a new instrument in an old case, although for a slightly smaller church than the one considered here.
Stephen was also involved in the early stages of St Giles in the Fields, which I would consider to be an excellent example of the sort of thing you're considering here: http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=P00119
Although he found working at JWW difficult and he never quite managed to do what he wanted, I think he was quite proud of Oriel College Oxford: http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N09161
Emmanuel College Cambridge came up, an organ which I encountered (as have many others) at Oundle Summer Schools. It's OK but I think one of the best examples of a college chapel organ I've played has to be this: http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=H00727
This organ is one of the most musically engaging and beautifully made organs anywhere, capable of a far wider scope of literature than one might imagine and entirely at home accompanying choral evensong.
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Very sorry to hear this - my condolences to his family, friends and colleagues at Peter Collins Ltd.
I met Peter Collins while at Southampton University (the Turner Sims Concert Hall organ was the obvious link) and ended up working for him for part of a summer holiday while at University. He was very good to me.
Obviously a great loss to the British Organ Building community; he played a leading role in the organ reform movement in Britain and built some key organs of the movement. I felt he had a great sense of conviction and energy in what he wanted to achieve and his fiery energy comes through in the character of many of the organs he built. An organ builder leaves behind a legacy of organs after him and I hope the best examples of his work will continue to be preserved as a testament to his zeal and revolution.
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One of the reasons the Tuba Mirabilis sounds so huge in the nave is because the rest of the organ has been so nullified by the drastically reduced wind pressures. The H&H primary great flues were originally voiced on a pressure of around 7-8 inches, at the time of your visit they would have been barely half that. The silly mixtures don't really get out of the case. From what I understand the high pressure flues weren't revoiced when the pressures were reduced, merely tuned! The enclosed solo tubas were down from 20 inches to about 6. I agree, the Tuba Mirabilis was so ridiculously out of proportion to the rest of the organ in the nave the effect bordered on the comical.
Maybe "brightness" is not quite the word to use. What is clear from my old recordings is the refinement and polish with which the harmonics are handled. The harmonics are there and beautifully handled from note to note. It was clearly a beautifully voiced stop. Playing the organ a few years ago it was apparent that refinement and polish was now wholly absent. Harry Bramma and I had a long conversation about the H&H Tuba Mirabilis at York (which he remembers) and we felt the way it sounds was not a patch on how it originally sounded - he speaks of a "golden tone" and there's a part of me which gets what he's talking about. Now it sounds like it's just trying to be loud rather than beautiful - a bit like a singer that shouts rather than produces a beautiful tone. I think I would rather have Fischer-Dieskau than someone who brays!
Harrisons have been experimenting with restoring parts of the organ back to their original design pressures and the organ is sounding much better. Some of the later stops weren't working when I last visited and there are possibly still problems of projection in the organ (the Great Organ is hemmed in to both the east and the west with thick walls of basses inside the case) but the whole organ sounds much more cohesive with a far better ensemble. The Primary Great chorus has much more focus and Tuba Mirabilis is now sounding more in proportion with the rest of the organ but there is still some way to go: parts are missing and the Great Reeds cannot yet be returned to their original disposition. These experiments are certainly validating the potential direction for future work on the organ, which will be to return the organ to something closer to the 1930s H&H vision.
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The present Tuba Mirabilis is horizontal within the case, a position which has led to some notes being brighter than others, due I think to the tuning scrolls being disturbed, as can be heard on Francis Jackson's famous recording of the Cocker Tuba Tune.
The Tuba Mirabilis is not in perfect condition at York Minster. Just to clarify, it isn't exactly horizontal; the boots and shallots are vertical, on top of the soundboard in conventional fashion. The treble pipes are heavily hooded to project over the parapet of the screen and the basses are mitred at 90 degrees at no great distance from the boot. The extreme bass pipes double back into the organ before being mitred 180 degrees to speak west over the screen parapet.
A little more than the tuning scrolls have been disturbed on this stop! The stop was re-tongued, either in the 1950s Walker rebuild or the 1990s Principal Pipe Organ work. I don't remember if the pressures were altered but I'm sure somebody on here will know. Listening to it now, it has none of the brilliance, tone or regulation which is apparent in the recordings I have of it before the 1950s rebuild.
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Many thanks Richard - look forward to seeing EHR!
The new Ancient & Modern, published in March 2013, ought to be mentioned as an addendum to this topic. Our church adopted it and I found it to be an excellent hymn book for a middle-of-the-road Anglican church. It is an evolution from Common Praise. So called "Worship Songs" have a reasonable representation, with a generally sensible selection and there are many new words and texts set to more familiar traditional tunes which stimulated our thoughtful congregation. At the other end of the spectrum to the worship songs, feast days and the church calendar are far better supported than in AMNS. We found the harmonies in the new A&M generally follow EH harmonies, more so than they followed AMNS.
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Bringing the topic back to its original subject, the Wanamaker organ has brass strips below the keyboards for operating the swell shutters.
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Yes, I agree - I thought the BBCSO and Stephen Farr played brilliantly. The Leifs Organ Concerto is a brutal and terrifying piece. I found the opening arresting (even if a health warning is advised) and the similarly tough passacaglia developed effectively towards a fitting climax. After that, I felt the coda continued for about 6 minutes after the music had finished. It lost all momentum for me, where the thrashing around on the timpani followed by the orchestra and organ playing in glacial alternatum developed the musical picture no further. The final cadence was effected more by sheer brute sonic force than musical argument.
That said, I'm glad to have heard it and take my hat off to those who scheduled it and performed it.
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Generally agree with David Drinkell.
What's possible will very much depend on the available space on the soundboards. The return of an Hautboy/Oboe would be very sensible on the Swell (if there's space). Reed stops tend to be expensive but definitely worth it. You might be able to source a vintage Hill rank which might sit better if it's still pretty much a Hill Swell organ.
Agree about the Great mixture - if there's space. Again, if the Great is Hill, it would make sense to add a Hill style stop - a replica or a very close copy. I hope the days of sticking a modern IV rank mixture to standard scale on top of an 1859 Hill chorus are long gone!!
It would be nice to re-instate the Great Clarionet too...
When you say "It is now being proposed that the following amendments will benefit..." who is proposing it?
The pedal Dulcet 4 probably takes up little space in the organ - just 12 pipes little pipes starting at about 1 1/2 feet if it's an extension. 32fts take a lot more space... A Polyphone is a Compton invention - if it arrived, it would have arrived with the Compton work. Hill never used them. To be honest a 32ft is of questionable value on a 2 manual parish organ (as is a Pedal Dulcet 4ft on any organ) - they're frequently more a vanity stop. Especially in this case where there's no sizeable 16 ft Open rank.
I would work on ensuring the 16 and 8 foot foundations have enough space to speak properly and are sensibly sited than trying to squeeze in a 32ft. Polyphones are extremely difficult things to work with and aren't always that reliable getting good notes. There are good examples about - but don't count on being able to recreate it today.
I went from a pedal organ of 32.16.16.8.8.4.4.16 derived from a right hotchpotch to a carefully designed and well sited 16.8.16 for 10 years and I never missed the extra stops... If you're clever you can do lots of 32 effects with a good manual double (flue) and a 16ft pedal.
Just wanted to check - are the Great Trumpet, Pedal Trombone and Swell reed rank one and the same? is it enclosed?
In terms of approach, yes, go to your standing committee and get their approval. The next stage would either be to get a consultant in to look at the organ (there's quite a few about - William McVicker is liked by many), then to select up to 3 organ builders to inspect and give an estimate for the work. Once you've selected your preferred bid (based on suitability of the scheme to the church, organ, liturgy, etc - and only finally cost), then you set your fundraising project - you'll have a clear target you need to achieve and a clear vision of what it is you're getting. Fundraising is so much easier if there's a clear vision and target to achieve, otherwise it feels like a never-ending struggle.
You'll need a faculty from the DAC. I would warm up your Diocesan organ advisor now about the idea and get his support. The formal faculty will need the quote from the organ builder as part of the submission. I've known work start on a 4 manual H&H without a faculty and it was only later when the oversight became apparent...
The key thing with any work is to ensure that the main mechanics of the organ - winding, frame, soundboards, actions, pipework, etc - are all kept maintained and remain with a viable long-term future.
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To reply to Dave the Pipe: the words "glass houses" and "casting stones" spring to mind! I too have been involved in keeping a Swell double reed on a Pedal Organ and also introducing a Pedal Bourdon as a manual double... as I think you're trying to make out, there are no hard and fast rules and every instance needs careful thought on its own considerations and merits.
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Some interesting points raised.
I agreed very much with a lot of David Drinkell's observations in #39. A critical part of the effectiveness of pedal upper work depends on the design and layout of the organ. If the upperwork is buried somewhere under the swell box and behind a couple of reservoirs, it's not going to be of much use, no matter what you or the organbuilder does with it. Therefore, the available site and design of the organ is going to influence the tonal design of the pedal organ so it's understandable pedal upperwork is not going to be desirable or achievable on some organs. The sooner some organists accept this, the better!
Those 4ft solo pedal reeds on genuine baroque organs are usually big powerful stops, capable of making themselves heard above quite large accompanimental registrations if needed. Those tinny little Rohr Schameis of the 20th Century are missing a trick or two...
The duplexing of manual stops onto the pedals needs to be treated with care. The voicing/regulation of manual doubles is different to pedal stops. Manual doubles will typically be shaded off in the bottom octave, or the effect becomes too heavy, whereas the power of pedal stops may well grow as one descends the bass octave. This is typically why many manual stops are of questionable value on the pedal organ - personally, I'm no fan as they're a compromise at best and if one really needs to use one, why not just couple it down from the manual with no pedal stops? To duplex it will involve some kind of clamp or unit chest in any case.
There is an alternative to a full pedal flue chorus to mixture, which is to have 16.8.4 reeds which balance uncoupled against the manual chorus, only coupling them when the big manual reeds are added.
Moving on to manual 16ft reeds, one of my pet hates is when the original Swell Oboe has been transplanted into a 16 stop, usually with a cheap and nasty bottom octave. Why do people do this? It makes the Oboe useless for solos, French fonds d'orgue and the "small swell" effects so typical of the make-up of the British romantic organ sound - so the stop no longer really has any of its intended functions any longer. It's quite possible to get the 16ft swell effect very easily with a sub-octave coupler (best with electric or pneumatic action) and transplanting the Oboe to 16ft limits its usefulness to a stop you only ever add after you've added the main 8ft swell reed. It always feels more like vanity than practical purpose.
Personally, I'm not a great fan of manual Clarions/Clairons. Reeds loose power in the treble and are harder to keep in tune, so what's the point most of the time? To keep the power up, they need to be pushed and I find many of them can make the organ sound hard and unpleasant to listen to, especially in the treble. I prefer 16.8 chorus reeds to 8.4 reeds, which is a much grander and richer effect - interestingly 16.8 reeds require less wind than 8.4!
On the mixture composition question, it's worth noting most mixtures on British romantic organs will break back to 12.15 as the highest pitches somewhere in the middle octave - you might get a Tierce in there too. What gives them their brightness is their voicing and treatment, which is more assertive than the twelfth and fifteenth stops. Except in large churches, the effect of carrying the pitches too high makes uncomfortable listening in most British churches.
I've always liked the idea of a separate Seventeenth as a stop on the Great Organ. On a relatively recent visit to the British Organ Archive, I happily noted quite a few examples of this stop in the Hill estimates in the 1840s and early 1850s on his smaller schemes... It's a shame the idea never really caught on and I wonder if it's a stop to be re-introduced...
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I'm pretty sure I read somewhere the organ in Carisbrooke Castle is by Nicolaaus Manderscheidt. Paul Hoffhaimer was an organist and composer who lived between 1459-1537.
The 4ft Pedal Dulcetina (sorry, not 2ft) is at St Laurence, Alton. The original Henry Speechly organ must have been pretty good (Speechly was the foreman of Henry Willis and his works shows a lot of Willis influence) but it was got at by Woods in the 1960s, who (under the instruction of the organist at the time, Cyril Diplock) added a lot of extra stops. If one sticks to the original Speechly stops, it's a pretty OK organ but the extra stops only serve to swell the number and, if anything, only really obfuscate what the organ is really about. The spec is here: www.npor.org.uk/nporview.html?RI=N11310
Despite this, the organ has a long running and celebrated recital series (with some really very big names who've played) and a dedicated society who run it (who will undoubtedly be up in arms that I've dared nominate a stop on their organ for this list). Details at http://home.clara.net/willman/index/welcome.html
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I typically only find pointless stops on poorly thought-out organs or poor-quality rebuilds/additions... I've just come back from playing an organ where the mixtures (both later additions) are completely useless and pointless. (but also I very naughtily used the swell sub octave coupler to create a particular effect... I can be quite degenerate sometimes...)
But I think a 2ft Dulcetina on the Pedal Organ takes some beating... and yes, I know an example...
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I notice on this thread and another (New Organ in New RC Cathedral in the USA) there's some misapprehension of the point of a 5 1/3 Quint - especially amongst our British correspondents.
Part of the source of misunderstanding may be that virtually all organs in the UK are based on 8ft choruses. Despite a few foreign organs (the excellent 1980s Flentrop in Dunblane Cathedral springs to mind) and some British experiments (typically in the 1840s and 1960-70s) the British standard on chorus building has always been on 8ft lines. There may be a 16ft sub-unison tacked on the bottom but predominantly the chorus and the composition of the mixtures only goes to the 8ft series - so the sub unison is optional.
If you go to a big church elsewhere in Europe with a big organ, the main chorus may well be built on the 16ft series, with a 5 1/3 rank in the mixture, a separate 5 1/3ft Quint and an open 16ft rank. This isn't a sub-unison rank, this the stop on which you build the pleno and you don't use the mixture without it!
This concept goes back to the ideas of the mediaeval Blokwerk and the writings of Praetorius and Arnold Schlinck, where they describe organs of 3ft, 4ft, 6ft (from F), 8ft, 12ft (contra F), 16ft, 24ft (think Larkenskerk Alkmaar and Pieterskerk Leiden), etc. Composers like Sweelinck and Bryd habitually wrote for 6ft and 8ft organs (and bigger) and you find examples of these organs all over Europe, from the Antegniatis of Brescia to the Van Hagerbeers in the Netherlands. Even in 1680 Nicolaas Langlenz was building a 12ft organ in the Waalse Kerk.
The UK settled on a standard of a 12ft-10 2/3ft organ starting at GG in the 17th century and this became the de facto standard until the middle of the 19th century when the British adopted the German system. Early experiments were mainly 16ft organs (for example the Hills of the 1840s) but, with the confluence of styles and the Blokwerk ideas a long-faded memory, the Brits quickly convened on an 8ft organ with optional 16ft sub unison ranks, which most organists are most familiar with. Part of it may have been misunderstanding, or lack of knowledge of the old principles but part of it could have been the 16ft chorus sound might not have worked so well in the relatively small rooms in the UK.
Of course, the organ reform movement reinvented the ideas of organs of differing pitch and a new term - Werkprinzip - was invented, where the idea was divisions would have different pitches. But the ideas of earlier were slightly different, with your 2ft, 3ft and 4ft organs mainly being for domestic or small chapel use, your 6ft, 8ft and 12ft organs for church use, with 16ft, 24ft and larger organs being installed in major churches and cathedrals.
Hope this helps.
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What is a "Cor de Chamois"?
Is it The Voice of the Mountain Goat? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/chamois
Or is it The Voice of a Porous Piece of Leather? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/chamois_leather
And there will be a celeste of it as well! Of Course... An ethereal, heavenly mountain goat, or an ethereal, heavenly, shimmering piece of leather?
The whole specification is such a mad confluence of nomenclature it's difficult to detect what's going on, or what the objective of it all is. But I'm sure the resulting organ will be Very Loud.
Answers on a postcard please...
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At the risk of re-opening this hoary old can of worms, I'm reading "The Life and Works of Ernest M Skinner" by Dorothy J Holden - a good read. Skinner is a very interesting figure.
Ernest Skinner visited the UK in 1898, where he met Hope-Jones, hoping to visit the new organ Hope Jones had put in Worcester Cathedral, which people had been raving about in the USA - in fact, this was one of the main purposes behind his visit. This is what he wrote about Hope Jones:
"Hope Jones walked in on me one day while I was having lunch, after which we went up to my room and I showed him some of my patented compound wound magnets in which the coupling was done by winding on the magnets instead of by extra contacts. That evening he took me up to St Georges Church, Hanover Square. The first thing he showed me was the combination action which worked from the street current with such force that it could be heard all over the church. It was simply impossibly noisy, after which he played the organ to me. The tone was so brutal and harsh that I was much impelled to rush out of the church to get away from it. Afterwards in Liverpool he took me to see a very small organ of four manuals in which there were not more than four stops in the Swell organ: a Phonon and a powerful reed, and I don't remember what the others were, but the whole thing was simply brutal and destitute of musical value. I was so disgusted and disappointed with the whole business that I never went near the Worcester Cathedral"
Ouch! H-J worked for Skinner for a while after he emigrated to the States but it didn't last long. The book paints a picture and side of H-J which perhaps we don't care to look at in the UK.
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I recently saw a very small (c.1840s?) Hill with a 27 note straight flat pedalboard which hinged up underneath the keyboard. Quite ingenious. It also had a collapsible bench.
It looked like a small home/practice instrument, which could be folded up into something about the same size as a cottage upright piano when not in use.
It made me wonder about Victorian house organs in general and if there were other examples of Victorian "home practice instruments" around or whether they are a fairly modern phenomenon.
If they are about, they may be worthy of further investigation, especially if there are clever features and lessons we can learn from. The little Hill I saw was a really interesting little instrument - I'm keen to see what it's like when it's been restored.
, I think there is some mileage considering the qualities of the LOD and what it provides: by providing a lot of unison tone, the lower frequencies help to transmit the sound "around the corner" most British organs found themselves speaking into, while the prodigious amounts of unison tone helps to reassure singers they're singing along to a large group. That said, most people find having at least 1x 4ft drawn is essential to leading congregational singing as it helps the organ be "heard above" the singing and lead the congregation. 
Home organ required
in The Organ
Posted
86cm from the top of the keyboard to the floor;
76cm from the top of the keyboard to the pedals (naturals);
65cm bench height
on my organ (1840 Hill)