Colin Harvey

I've pretty much already got a harmonic dulciana - a harmonic flute of tiny scale. It's very characterful and charming, if a bit temperamental. It's most definitely a flute though.

Gosh! It changes every day for me. I don't think I could ever choose my Ideal Evensong music. What is more important to me is how well the music choices fit together, how well the music is performed, the atmosphere and spirituality of the service and the venue. To me, a really well performed Gibbons short service and If ye love me is vastly preferable for evensong to an over-ambitious attempt at Stanford in A and Faire is the Heaven. For me (today): Introit: Lord, how amiable are thy dwellings - Prendergast Rose Responses Psalms for the day Magnificat - Arvo Part Nunc Dimittus - Holst Anthem Geistlichslied - Brahms Voluntary: Meditation, Dupre No hymns - I am not aware of any offices we need to observe today.

it's already been done. Here is a demostration of one of these devices (as a 128 foot stop) in action, on an organ:

Good point. It's worth bearing in mind the organ at Southwark Cathedral. This organ has the Great Organ in an arch facing west into the south transept (and from there, down the nave) with the solo box behind the Great soundboard, speaking west. The Swell Organ is in the arch facing north into the choir, with the Choir Organ in front of the Swell box (until its unfortunate relocation to the north side of the choir, which I feel does nothing but confuse the sound of the organ). It's very interesting to note the Solo is home to a Trombone 16' and a Harmonic Trumpet 8', both enclosed in the Solo box. I believe the most likely explanation for these stops here is that T.C.Lewis put them here to make the Solo act as a secondary Swell Organ behind the Great organ, both speaking west into the Nave. The Swell Organ isn't really ideal to act behind the Great Organ on this organ: in the Quire, one hears the Swell Organ very directly while the Great Organ is rather remote, while in the nave, the balence is more in favour of the Great Organ. The balence is never quite right (except for one spot in the crossing) and I feel the combination of Great and Swell (without Choir and Solo organs) lacks focus on this organ. When one looks at the Swell Organ and the fairly large chorus on the Choir Organ (which runs from 16' flue to mixture), one can't but help think the Choir Organ was designed to act as a secondary Great Organ speaking north for the choir, with the Swell Organ behind it for the full-swell effect, while the main Great Organ was designed to speak West, with the Solo organ acting as a secondary Swell organ. So it's really 2 Gt & Sw organs in one, each facing in different directions, one for the choir and one for the congregation. I think it's a brilliant piece of organ design: for services in the Quire, one uses *Choir Organ* and Swell Organ, occasionally augmented with a bit of Great and Solo for echos and remote solos, while for Nave based services, one uses the Great Organ and *Solo Organ* (in its Swell organ function), using the Choir and Swell organs as a foil to this combination, or to lead the participants in the Quire. When one combines this design with the superb tonal qualities of this wonderful organ, it really becomes something very special. And so we put T.C. on the names of some stops of other organs to pay hommage to that master organ builder, T.C.Lewis...

Thanks for this... very interesting and impressive. After I got over the shock of those unusual mixtures (is that a 3 1/5 in the treble?!) the next thing that struck me was the wind supply... it clearly needs careful management. It just about hangs together to give what is an undeniable sense of grandeur, reached by fairly original means of mixtures and a resonant pedal reed. Clearly, Trost was a very individual builder.

In my humble opinion, the Schumann Fugues on BACH are extremely fine pieces of music - all 6 of them. When Schumann completed them, he commented that he felt they should long outlive all his other works the longest. Of course, he had yet to write Dicterliebe and a few other masterpieces but I find these pieces seem to appeal to non-organists more than organists themselves. I too have the Breitkopf/Dallmann edition and find the editorial intervention in this edition distracting. I would strongly recommend getting another edition and making your own decisions about the performance of these pieces. Henle Verlag do a very good edition - it is well laid-out, beautifully printed and well bound with sensible page turns. It is a scholarly urtext which presents Schumann's original intentions faithfully, without the extraneous suggestions of a second editor. The edition also includes the Canons and Sketches in a handy-sized and reasonably priced edition. When you compare the two editions, you'll find the Dallmann edition lays out some of the manual parts for the pedals and assumes the pedal stops to be silenced where the pedals help out the hands, only to be brought back on for the real pedal entries Schumann wrote. This is the function of the rather unusual "-Pd kb" and "+pd kb" markings in the Dallmann edition. This, and Dallmann's other numerous suggestions, quickly erodes the authority of this edition and makes it harder to play these pieces - especially if one cannot silence the pedal stops easily on one's organ. However, my biggest gripe with the Dallmann edition is his abandonment and removal of Schumann's (arguably curious) slurring - and, even worse - the alteration and removal of some of the notes. There are a couple of interesting books on Schumann and his study of Bach - see the following: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LngJVVs...ues&f=false http://www.henle.de/index.cfm?open=01 I seem to play these pieces just fine on a 2 manual mechanical action organ with mechanical stop action. I like this performance of the first fugue by Peter Sykes (recording of a live concert) on a Richards, Fowkes and Co. organ on PipeDreams - go to 11:30 on part II. This performance sparked my interest in these pieces. I wish Peter Sykes would hurry up and record the rest of them - I'm still waiting for a recording of these fugues that really does them justice. http://pipedreams.publicradio.org/listings/2008/0801/ (btw, listen to the acoustic this organ is in - it's incredible this organ sounds as as good as it does - it's absolutely unbelievable). Best wishes

Yikes! I've had that a few times - I don't think it's a particularly good piece to come in to. What I do is the first 2 or 3 "variations" on the ground bass (when it's all nice and gentle) on 8' principals, then do a heroic cut to the final 2 variations (when it's quite a bit livelier) on Gt to 15th. This seems to get by.

Errm, 4oz is the standard drop weight of a Modern Concert grand ... I'm looking after a newish (c.2004) Yamaha C5, which we keep to concert standards. I've also got a Bluthner Grand from 1896, with the Bluthner patent action. This is quite a bit lighter than the Yamaha. Sorry, I don't know what its drop weight it, but it's a lovely, silky action. I've played quite a number of 19th century pianos, by the likes of Broadwood (several from different periods from the 1820s onwards), Erard and Pleyel. I would say that pianos actions have generally got heavier over time - from the fragile touches from the 18th and early 19th century, piano touch seems to have become heavier as piano construction grew heavier (and the likes of Liszt gave them more and more of a pounding). 2oz drop weight would be almost unbearably skittish and light. It's the sort of weight you'll find in an unweighted, bottom of the range casio keyboard. I had a electronic simulation organ for a short period with a 2.5oz drop weight... a piano as light as that would be uncontrollable. It might be that your school's piano is in need of an action overhaul? If it dated from the 1890s, I wonder if it had an earlier action than the standard Renner/roller action common today? But I think Steinways have an action of all their own... I don't know, I'm not much of an expert on piano actions.

Yes, quite. It seems a shame the client organists couldn't use their newly-added Spanish Trompette en Chamade (or whatever excitingly-named meaningless gloss the consultant demanded was on the stop knob) for things like a Cantus Firmus in de Grigny... which repertoire these sorts of additions were usually touted to make possible - at least, that was usually the artistic rationale....

Yes, quite. Sometimes I think a solo reed (tuba or tuba-alternative) without the bottom octave of pipes is missing a big trick as you can't couple it to the pedals (unless you want a kind of pedal divide thing going on). This type of solo stop without the biggest and most expensive pipes seems to have become more prevalent in the 50s and 60s when budgets became smaller yet people wanted more and more organ stuffed into a smaller space... I can't think of many vintage Willis and H&Hs with a missing bottom octave of their tubas.

Nice programme Justason is giving. Christ unser Herr zum Jordan Kam is a very cool piece indeed and should be played more often.

During the notices before the service at church yesterday, the vicar announced that a directive from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York decreed that, because of the swine 'flu epidemic, no CofE church was longer allowed to distribute communion wine from a chalice. Therefore, all communion wafers would have to be dipped in wine before the distribution. We were also told it was no longer expected to shake hands at the peace if we didn't wish too - news I think some of the older members of the congregation warmed to. Immediately after the service at my church, I had to visit another CofE church nearby. Clearly, there had been no news of of the Archbishops' directive here. They were heartily swigging away from the chalice and the peace seemed to go on for days - some people shaking hands several times with each other. Ah well, c'est la vie.

It is indeed! I'm going to be interested to see how far Ken Tickell goes to "recognise the spirit of the late nineteenth century" in this organ. One also wonders how much of the old Hill material survives at Keble and how much of this will be incorporated in the new Tickell instrument. If there's enough in a reasonably unmolested condition and they're going to include it, I wonder to what degree they will go to match the new material to the old material? It could be tremedously exciting, especially as the old Hill organ seems to have enjoyed a celebrated reputation. Anyway, this is good news indeed and wish Ken and his team very best of luck with it. P.S. 25/07: Does anyone have a spec of the original 1870s Hill organ? NPOR draws a blank and I'd be interested to know what changed when Willis got his hands on it in the 1890s...

It's a mighty impressive stop on a mighty impressive organ! I almost had to hang on to the pillars when I first heard it - somebody tried to talk to me over the top of the organ - she had to shout! What's Jeremy Blandford doing these days?

Yes, I think this is the very same. Was it a certain Dr. Williams, FRCO, who was organist there in those days? He's a bit before my time though. I don't know very much about him - happy to learn more though! Would I be right that this 32' road drill is also housed in the Choir Swell box, on 15'' WP? It's still there, with its infinite graduation swell pedals. I remember this organ was reviewed by Cecil/Sam Clutton in The Organ, circa 1950s.

I certainly see what you're getting at, and quite agree about the beauty of single stops, but actually music's about lots of things - beauty is only one of them. (Any kind of film music/opera which tried to convey only beauty would be very tedious...) Yes! Absolutely! I find considering beauty in single stops is a bit superficial in organs. One needs to look at the whole picture to see how the sounds fit in and that helps to sort a musical instrument from a box of whistles that make some pretty sounds. It's all very well talking about the beauty of the charmingly named Double Gedacht 32' on the Norwich Cathedral organ but if it doesn't fit in with the chorus, is it really that relevant? And we need to think in terms of the choruses of the organ and the swell effects as much as a pretty little lieblich gedacht (!) or harmonic flute. A beautiful organ depends on so many things... Well, this is interesting! I know a few places where I'd like my left hand to go on to the tuba in the Stanford postlude and I've heard it done with great aplomb. I also agree with the idea of coupling the tuba to the pedals to give them further definition - especially if they're carrying a big tune against something else in the manuals, like a French Toccata. And need we forget a lot of early music where the pedal carries the cantus firmus on a large Trompet at unison pitch... I can remember the old Novello edition of the Bach Toccata in F major called for the tuba to be coupled to the pedals in the part where the pedals play notes in octaves against the manual chords. I never (particularly wanted to) do this but I can see the point in it. Again, this is an Edwardian edition and I think it gives an insight into how the tuba might have been used by contemporary Edwardian organists. I wonder, is it no coincidence that a friend of mine, who plays a large 1950s Willis III on the South Coast, remarked to me that he thought the tuba was more of a pedal reed extended upwards than a true solo stop and he tended to use the Gt reeds to choir transfer to augment the tuba when he used it in a solo?

Dear board I read with interest the comments about 32' manual stops. I wonder how many of us have experienced a manual 32' stop? And I wonder how many of us have experienced a really effective manual 32' stop? My own experience of manual 32' stops is based on just one, historically significant, organ - that of the Dom Bedos organ of Sainte Croix in Bordeaux. This is an organ built on the grandest possible French Classical scale - a five manual organ (in order: Positif de dos, Grande Orgue, Bombarde, Recit, Echo) with a Pedal division with a ravellement in the pedal reeds to an earth-shattering 24' F. One gets an idea of the size and scale of the organ as one walks through to the console: the visitor passes though a corridor of 8 wedge bellows, all at ground level, through another room behind the console (with stop action rollers running from floor to ceiling), through a green door onto the balcony. The idea of a spacious organ is reinforced at impost level. Behind the organ case, there is a room the width of the organ (approximately 25 feet wide) by about 15 feet deep. The front of this room is taken up with the rear of the organ case, with doors that open to every part for maintenance and tuning. There is a sense of scale and spaciousness about this organ a visitor from the UK would find extraordinary. I cannot but help think Dom Bedos built this as an exemplar organ – a demonstration, if you like. One literally walks through the pictures from his book in this organ, as a lesson for organ builders and students to learn about the construction and operation of the organ. One cannot help but feel this organ has been laid out so the visitor can see every part of the organ’s action and operation with relative ease – instead of walking around the organ case to the console, on this organ, one walks through the organ case. Its very completeness, complete with such extraordinary stops like the 32 Bourdon, explore the furthest tonal possibilities and potentials the French had considered at this time and it is the most complete archetypal French Classical organ of the period. Its experiments acts as a lesson for other builders considering their own designs and creations. Tonally, this organ is extraordinary. The Plein Jeu on the Grande orgue runs from 32' Bourdon, 16' Montre and Bourdon, through the Montre 8', Prestant and Doublette to no less than 21 ranks of mixture in the Grand Plein Jeu. This mixture certainly reaches the 16' series and quite possible the 32' series as well. This stunning mixture chorus is foiled to a similarly extensive reed and cornet battery. The Trompettes are doubled on the Grande Orgue, there is a Positif Trompette and Clairon and a Grande Cornet of seven ranks. Not forgetting the huge Bombarde which couples through to the Grande orgue and the shattering Pedal Bombardes that reach into the 32 Octave. The Grand Jeu of this organ, complete with Bombardes and Pedal, is strangely reminiscent of Notre Dame de Paris at full tilt. The church is not that huge - this is an organ of truly colossal scale in a church that seats maybe 850. The acoustic is gracious and generous but not excessively so for the size of building and the stone vaulted ceiling. One cannot help but feel a less ambitious 4 manual 16’ organ would have been more than adequate for this church, reinforcing the idea that this organ is Dom Bedos’s showpiece. So what of the 32 Bourdon on the Grande orgue? What of its effect? To start off with, we have documentary evidence that the builder intended it to be used as standard in the Plein Jeu and the Grand Cornet Decomposse (which is 32.16.8.5 1/3.4.3 1/5.2 2/3.2.1 3/5). The Grand Cornet is a sound of immense richness, boldness and grandeur - but is really at its best in the treble region, above middle C. The Plein Jeu with the 32' is like nothing else I've heard. There is gravity and depth in spades – almost psychedelically so - but also enormous brilliancy. The basses in the bottom half of the keyboard are really quite mild, and, in comparison to the foundations, the upperwork is relatively larger scaled and more determined than most English organists would be used to on their Victorian Hills and Walkers - although nothing like the wild and relatively uncontrolled utterances from neo-classical instruments. The mixtures break frequently - at least twice an octave - and the listener is left with the impression of harmony magnified more by the brilliance and gravity of the sound than the impression of clarity of following any melody and counterpoint. One very quickly loses the idea of pitch in this chorus – there is so much grandeur and brilliance in every region of the compass of this Plein Jeu. Taking into account the nature of this mixturework and chorus, one is left with the impression that the 32' is an integral part of this chorus and the nature of the chorus is inclined towards harmony and scale of effect than polyphonic clarity. It is a truly monumental chorus which is almost beyond the comprehension of most mortals’ hearing – this is a chorus for Gods and Giants. I do wonder, with organs that have to work very hard in very large spaces, whether there might be more scope to build real 32' manual choruses? By this, I mean a chorus based on the 32 foot series, with mixtures and upperwork designed to work with the 32 – not an 8 foot chorus with a 16 and 32 grafted on the bottom like an afterthought. Cavaillé-Coll proposed a 32’ organ for St. Peter’s, Rome. I wonder if there is similar scope for a proper 32’ chorus at the biggest venues, like the Royal Albert Hall and the main spaces of St Paul’s Cathedral?

Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Tickell and their daugter, Tess. Sorry!

Rather strangely, I was in the Hooglandse Kerk, Leiden yesterday, assisting a lunchtime recital on the stunning West End organ. The church is very beautiful and blessed with astonishingly fine acoustics. During the course of my flying visit, I learnt about the project and talked to the church organist and some people involved with the project. The church is keen on British choral music and do regular Choral Evensongs. The Cathedral Organ project website is at www.cathedralorgan.nl The church are currently deciding on a builder from a list of a number of well-regarded (English) Builders to carry out the work. They seem to want a scheme approaching an historical reconstruction of a Henry Willis organ, permitting variation for good practical reasons only. I suspect they would look in askance at modern technical details and would see straight through an attempt at an "Englischer Tuba" by a foreign builder with little understanding or technical knowledge of English Cathedral organs. Conversely, there is no need for this organ to pander to any whims to introduce any baroque elements to the organ as their magnificent baroque organ will show up their shortcomings very quickly! The specification of the organ has evolved from the (early) specification on the website. The solo mutations are out, a Solo Orchestral Oboe is in, as are a few less eye-catching (but more practical) stops, like a Flute 4' on the Swell - which will be invaluable for accompaniment. The church has a fund-raising target of 1,000,000 Euros but have only raised about 200,000 so far. Of course, with the recent financial shocks, fund-raising for any project is very difficult. However, I came away feeling very positive about this project: the idea of a sizable British organ in a foreign country is very exciting and demonstrates the continent's growing interest in the British organ school. I would strongly encourage people to support the scheme if they can. Details of the West End organ are here: http://www.orgelsite.nl/leiden5.htm

Thanks Paul! This is the pedalling I'm erring to as well. It's a superb piece - it's up there in my top favourites. Unfortunately, my church acoustic is pin-point accurate and there's nowhere to hide! But the piece so well written it holds up very well. Anyway, I think all the notes need to be heard for best effect. There are not too many or too few notes here - just the right number and they're all very well chosen! It's just a shame they're a b***** to play!

Hi chaps Slightly pretentious question here but I'd be interested to hear what other people do: Dupre B Major Prelude and Fugue: what pedalling do people use for the fugue subject in the feet? The most difficult bit is the F# in the opening - is it best to use the left toe or the right toe? Do people try to do it legato and start on the left heel on bottom b, stretch the left toe to F# or is better to leave the left foot to the opening b, play the f# with the right toe - but then do people stretch their right heel to the top b or just slide across to toe the top b? The next bit after the rest (d#-f#-top d#) is hardly any easier - do folk let the left foot take care of the first 2 notes while the right foot has plenty of time to find top d#? What compromises do people make over the legato touch for this piece? It's a good piece and I was thinking about polishing it up later this year but wondered what other people did.

Thanks for that Alastair. It led me on to this utterly magnificent find: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUrKul2sNbU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzc32nozRY Make sure to watch them in high quality. I don't think I've ever heard Reger this well played on such a stunning organ. Excellent recording too - well, as far as it'll go on Youtube... In case you're wondering what it is, it's Heinz Wunderlich playing the Reger Fantasie and Fugue on BACH on the Berlin Dom organ.

Have never heard of them but came across this http://www.orgelbau-koegler.at/englisch/koegler.htm I see Bernard Edskes is closely involved with the company, they see large cuneiform bellows as important and they cast their own pipe metal.

Quick question: What is the Wesley System? I notice that the Fellow of the Society of Crematorium Organists hood is lined in flame red... That smiley thing when you follow a letter "b" with a ")" is really annoying when you want to list your points...

As if Stevie's super performance of Mendelssohn 6 wasn't enough last night, I came across this on radio 3 this morning. I had to double check the radio wasn't malfunctioning as I thought it unthinkable the BBC would allow more organ music on its airwaves within 24 hours of a live broadcast: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00knsyb Simon Lole doing an excellent job introducing Bach's Clavierubung III on the unsuspecting Radio 3 audience. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00knsyb I think Simon does an excellent job pitching this successfully to newcomers to Clavierubung III and those that know it well alike. Good to hear Piet Kee's recording of the E flat Prelude and Fugue at the Martinikerk, Gronigen - one of the best currently available IMNSHO. And really good to see the Beeb giving this much air time to the organ!!