Colin Harvey
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Posts posted by Colin Harvey
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Whilst I would not pretend to be a virtuoso organist, I am intrigued to read of 'the shortcomings of [my] organ technique'. I was not aware that you have ever heard me play any instrument, Bazuin - unless, of course, you intended a general reference; in this case, your wording was somewhat unclear.
I really don't think Bazuin has ever heard you play the organ. As you probably know, playing a Clavichord is a very revealing experience for anyone, however proficient they may be as an organist - I know, I've tried playing a clavichord and I found it very hard to cultivate a proficient touch. His point is clearly meant in the context of understanding key touch and old organs' actions than casting aspersions on your (undoubtedly very fine) organ abilities.
It's clear from his postings that Bazuin is very focused on discussing the points under consideration and refrains from ad hominem attacks. I find his writings some of the best researched and incisive on this forum - indeed, I think he brings a breadth of outlook and experience to this forum that saves this discussion board from looking rather insular sometimes. It's clear from his recent messages he feels the points you've made are based on a number of fallacies so is testing them out - it's not personal. I wouldn't bother getting too sensitive about it.
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I really don't mind clergy that are "talkers" - they provide support and diplomacy for the "doers" to get on with things.
I guess it's OK as long as the "talkers" don't work against the "doers"...
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Well, I certainly don't, and am now going to become even more tedious than anyone ever imagined possible....
In many thousands of cases up and down the UK, this is all that stands between an instrument being considered a 'clapped out village organ' and just as precise, revealing and delightful as the highest-regarded teaching organs in the world. It's so easy, and yet so few people seem to think it matters.
You seem to end up rather contradicting yourself here, but I agree with your later comments entirely. I've played lots of clapped out small Victorian organs, thinking that if someone were prepared to spend a bit of time regulating the action the organ and getting it set up right, it would play totally brilliantly.
Modern mechanical actions, as built by many modern mainstream builders, have a few interesting factors to consider:
I think the first is that a lot of modern actions have been designed to try and win over organists used to Electric (or EP) actions as the organ reform movement tried to win over organists from their comfortable (but rather anodyne) electric consoles, so anything over 4oz drop weight across the compass of the keyboard is considered unacceptable in many quarters. Also worth bearing in mind that a mechanical action keybaord will be heavier in the bass than the treble, as the size of the pallets (and hence the pluck) increases - but an electric action organ is constant weight across its compass.
Similarly, it is also still viewed as unacceptable if different keyboards have different key drops and different weights on the same organ, irrespective of the character of the division it plays: whether it is a full 16' Great division with multiple 8 foot stops and masses of gravity, or a tiny little brustwerk with a single Vox humana. Some organists would expect them to feel exactly the same. But what sensitive musician in their right mind would expect such sharply different divisions and sounds to feel the same under their fingers? Unless they are used to electric action organs where they would expect every keyboard to feel the same...
Carrying on with this argument, this is one reason why many mainstream builders try to disguse the pluck point of the action so it feels like an electric action. This is achieved through introducing false touch before hitting the pluck point, masses of bushing (facilitating a spongey touch as well) and devices such as balanciers. I've played quite a number of modern mechanical action organs where the overriding sensation is that the builder has tried to hide the pluck in the action as much as possible.
The next expectation is that the action should be silent. I don't know that many historic actions that are completely silent (Bazuin is much better qualified to write about this than me), but it seems to be an expectation today that modern actions should be completely silent. Builders respond by achieving this through copious amounts of bushing through the action but the downside of this is spongeness and free play in the action. There is a balence to be struck between silence and free play - and most builders err on the side of caution to make the action as silent as possible. However, I have played a modern organ which was over-bushed and still not silent...
The next feature of modern actions seems to be to reduce the weight and momentum in the action by making wildly thin and fragile trackers - I remember one builder proudly boasting about their 0.8mm by 1.2mm tracker cross section. Ultra-thin trackers seems to be a modern development - no other period of organ building has trackers this thin. The downside of ultra-thin trackers is a loss of rigidity in the key action: the trackers whip around and flex dramatically under use and require much more support and I suspect this loss of rigidity in the key action can make an organ more skittish to play. Quite often, this work to reduce the weight of the action is mitigated by use of heavy modern components elsewhere, such as large plastic buttons and other large, heavy modern components just behind the console, heavy bushings and heavy tracker ends to hold the ultra-delicate trackers - it ends up being rather self-defeating. Even a fairly long tracker trace is going to have a negligiable mass compared to the mass of the key so why bother? Besides, wouldn't an action with virtually no mass at all be extremely unpleasent to play - rather like an over-light action? I remember reading an article by a clavichord builder, extolling the virtues of using a denser wood (I think he used chestnut) for the core of the keys, which gave a much improved touch over his usual material (lime?). True to being a Clavichord, where the interrelations are many and subtle, he also noticed a change in the quality of the sound. I think there is much to learn about accepting some mass in the key action - I think we many need to reconsider the aim to reduce key action component weight to the bare minimum.
The combination of these factors can add up to making modern mechanical actions spongey, sloppy, unreliable and having repitition problems in the wrong hands. However, not everything is bad with modern mechanical action: gearing is widely accepted (the standard seems to be about a 3 to 2 gearing - 3mm of travel at the key equates to 2mm of travel at the pallet); the use of floating beams means that the key depth is not troubled by seasonal movement (a big issue in actions with particularly long runs) and it is now possible to model the weight of the key touch so the weight of the keys can be predicted and designed.
There are further considerations to take into account with mechanical action: under mechanical action the pallets open much more slowly than they do under electric, pneumatic or e-p action. The speed at which the pallet opens will affect the speech of the pipes (especially if they're voiced quick, dull and flutey as they will be in a vintage Hill or Walker) - so pipe speech can be compromised if these pipes go onto electric action, or there is a dual action (e.g. electric coupling) in the organ.
Oh dear, I think I've been even more tedious...
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Here you go: Nigel Allcoat demonstrating this organ:
Enjoy!
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I wonder if trecker means 1/4 mechanical, 3/4 electric? I wouldn't be surprised at all if the coupling employed here in this organ is electric.
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A true teacher...I meant to write "uninformed"...
I never met the organbuilder in question so never managed to assess his attire...
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The general rule of convention is that Swell pedal should be above middle E and F on the pedalboard. The convention normally follows that the choir pedal is to the left of the swell pedal, the solo to the right. General Crescendo to the far right, as Stephen says (usually slightly separated from the other swell pedals by being at a slightly higher level or a metal plate). This will explain most the situations described above and if you remember these rules you should never have a problem finding a swell pedal again (unless it's some 500 stop American monster with 9 swell pedals).
The golden rule is that the swell pedal should remain in the same place relative to the pedalboard. One advantage of this position is that the organist's heel is less likely to catch a black note on the pedalboard when closing the swell box - if the swell pedal were situated centrally in the console, it would actually be somewhere above middle D and E - and it makes catching D# with a heel more possible. Another advantage is that the organist can find the swell pedal easily because of its relative position to the pedalboard - you can just feel where it is from the pedalboard. How many of us have spent time thrashing around madly on a unfamiliar organ trying to find the oddly positioned swell pedal somewhere above middle A & B? I find the worst offenders in this case tend to be organs built by continental builders between around 1960 and 1990.
I once lived with an organ built by a rather uniformed (British) builder who had placed the swell pedal centrally. Not only did it make closing the box more perilous, it was also surprisingly awkward to use. It didn't fall under the right foot comfortably - one had to swivel a bit to the left to find it and I was constantly bashing my foot against the toeboard to the right of the swell pedal and having to look down to find the swell pedal. That was not the only problem with this organ's swell pedal: due to a rather bodged design, the swell shutters couldn't close properly and only had about 20 degrees of movement. It was easily the worst swell box I've ever come across.
However, I love the swell box at New College, especially the way the glass shutters catch the light from the stained glass and throws it around the chapel. I wonder if Frobenius tried to copy this at Robinson College Cambridge but I don't remember the swell shutters being particularly effective there.
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"I'm glad this has been resurrected. My enthusiasm for the piece (along with much Vierne) came from Jeremy Filsell, who I believe is the only one to have recorded it all. I may be wrong?"
I agree. I think it's a fantastic piece. I think Jeremy Filsell is the only one to have recorded it.
"Is it as insanely difficult as the forty minute, nine-voice Sorajbi fugue in one of his organ symphonies?"
Yes. Maybe even harder. But there are quite a lot of stretches of Christus that are "sightreadable" (to quote David Goode...)
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How impressive! I just have a Russell Hobbs 10 2/3 these days. Unfortunately I got rid of my electrical appliance for a piano about a year ago. However, the fan on my computer has a range of speeds (it's currently slightly flat of an e, but it has a range of notes with sub-semitones) and it likes to sing along when I play the piano. Sometimes it sings very loudly nowadays - I think it's voice is maturing as it gets older into quite a shouter. I also think it's going deaf in its old age.
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You should be very careful what you say about Manders!
The 1982 work was hugely sympathetic, as it happens, and way ahead of its time in restoration terms - re-instating the orginal scales and compositions of mixtures which had been altered. Other quotes at the same time (including one from a firm you like a lot) were proposing to electrify, fit a detached console and add Larigots and strings. (At least the Tuba is designed to be removable in a few minutes leaving no trace.) So, for sympathy, the 1982 work gets my vote every time. Far more irreversible work has been done subsequently.
The Twelfth pipes are marked Twelfth and are the original ones from 1858. The change to 'Harmonic Flute' was later, probably by Walkers in 1888. The top five pipes were re-made in total sympathy.
You're right to put the record straight re. pipework. How interesting the Twelfth is wooden! A Gore-Ousley specialty?
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Oh dear, I'm sorry to have been a fool by airing my own opinion!
Thanks for the Stephen Bicknell link, though it rather confirms my suspicions. I'm not saying there is no place for a twelth, but rather, why put one in an organ that has no mixtures and goes no higher than a fifteenth? And how often do you use the combination 8 4 2-2/3 2 and no mixture or higher harmonics on instruents where they are available? I think the point is that on classical organs you would usually use the twelth in conjunction with higher upperwork, and on romantic octopods there's little call for mutations in general.
Put another way, if I was designing a very house or small church organ I wouldn't choose a twelth, I'd prefer a second fifteeenth for the Swell or larigot or perhaps even a light reed. Thoughts?
Contrabombarde.
I think you're only a fool if you delight in airing your own opinion but don't like learning new things... So if you enjoyed the SB article, it can't be said you're actually a fool...
At my church (were SB was consultant - and, surprise, surprise - there's a twelfth scaled and finished to the fifteenth, to Walker scales, exactly as described in the article... in fact I wonder which came first, the chicken or the egg...), the effect of the twelfth is quite different to what has been described (muddy, ruining clarity, etc - what have you guys been playing?). The chorus has a slight quinty twang in the bass, where the foundations delve into relatively vast scales and the upperwork is much more stringy, but in the treble everything converges into a straight chorus, where the twelfth really clarifies things, reinforcing the foundation and throwing out quite a bit of brilliance - the effect is rather like a very gracious mixture (in fact, the typical Walker mixture in the treble is 4, 2 2/3, 2, all scaled to the fifteenth...).
So generally, the Twelfth is added either just after or at the same time as the fifteenth but before the great mixture. The combination 8.4.2 2/3.2 is used all the time... hymns, as a pleno - it's the backbone of our organ, only augmented further by the double, mixture and trumpet.
And it's utterly wonderful. I wouldn't be without it.
However, it's worth bearing in mind the scaling and treatment of the twelfth need to be carefully considered. We were very, very careful and threw out a twelfth that a lot of people would have kept. But it didn't fit in. If the scaling and pipes of the twelfth are not consonant with the rest of the chorus, the chorus will lack cohesion. I'm come across lots of very poor twelfths, usually added in rebuilds where the nature of the original pipes and chorus is not fully understood or respected and the comments listed above seem quite pertinent.
I was quite interested to read DC's comments about the Twelfth at Romsey. I would have thought it is not impossible that the original twelfth would have been thrown out when the harmonic flute was installed and when the twelfth was restored in 1982 (at the same time the party horn was installed and the pressure to the Barker level raised (and was the wind system in the organ revised at this time too - I don't remember?)), they just used the old harmonic flute, transposed and maybe cut it down? Can anyone confirm? After all, the work in 1982 was not noted for its sympathy to the rest of the organ, however much the organbuilders working on it would have venerated the qualities of the original instrument.
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It's rather difficult to answer this question... these things are affected by so many factors - location, the nature of the organ they're in, how well they're finished and voiced, wind supply, etc - that determine how "good" they are.
Also, are you talking about commissioning a new organ by Walkers or just getting parts from P&S? People are naturally a little reticent to give their opinions on builders published in public to people seriously considering work because of the risk of defamation claims... the best thing to do is visit recent example of all contenders for the work and make up your own opinions.
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I'm very fond of Robert Schumann's organ music for Organ/Pedal piano. Henle do a good urtext edition of the Canonic Studies, Sketches and BACH Fugues in one volume. A good starting place is the first BACH fugue and the 5th canonic study is good fun too. The music, especially the fugues, is beautifully written and very satisfying to play. However, much of it is really quite difficult - the 4th fugue requires stretches of a tenth in both hands and has a host of interpretation difficulties and questions.
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I do find the sound of diapason chorus with 2 2/3 but no mixture to be incorrigibly dull and never quite understood the point of having a Great with nothing above the 2 foot, no mixture, and a 2 2/3 foot to muddy the waters further. I can't ever remember the last time I used a manual Quint 5 1/3 either.
Would Contrabombarde mind if I pointed him at this article:
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I think the advice above is very good, here's my extra 2 pennies worth.
I did CertRCO a few years ago and did very well. I did ARCO about 18 months ago and passed (well, scraped by the skin of my teeth) through 4/5ths of it first time round - I didn't get the aural part first time round and had to resit the aurals.
1. Practise the tests a lot. Every day for months in advance. As I was getting close to the exam date, I was spending about 40 mins to an hour practising tests a day. In addition to insisting on 100% accuracy and all the points above, I'd add practising:
a) Not stopping. Whatever happens, keep going! The examiners will not give you another chance. It's really important to practice keeping going so you're conditioned to keep moving whatever happens.
b. Metronome marks. All the tests (except the improvisation option) have metronome marks. You will get marked down if you are not with 10% of the metronome mark. Learn to know how fast the majority of metronome marks go (I could tell the difference between crotchet = 84 and crotchet = 88 when practising for ARCO) and practise the tests with a metronome. One thing that really helps is to know the speeds at which various pieces of music go. Eg National Anthem: 72, Onward Christian soldiers: 100, etc - I still have them written down somewhere). The most important speeds are between 60-100 beats per minute - the rest you can just count in minums for faster speeds and quavers for slower speeds.
c) Get good at keyboard harmony. This will stand you in good stead for the Harmonisation/Figured bass/Improvisation test. I reckon it also helps with transposition if you have a really good understanding of where the harmony is going and you can analyse it accurately in "real time".
If you want to do improvisation, remember that the examiners will be looking for skills rather than divine inspiration. Even Messiaen had his off days. If it rambles, they won't be interested. It's not an easy option at all unless you're a good improviser and have been properly trained to improvise - a rare event on these shores. Go and listen to someone like Jacques van Oortmerrson or Nigel Allcoat improvise to hear a skilful improviser doing the sort of things the examiners will be looking out for. Harmonisation or Figured Bass are easier options unless you know what you're doing when improvising.
Remember, the examiners will have heard the tests about 30 times before you sit your exam so will know them like the back of their hand by the time you're sitting on the bench.
2. Papers. I found the day of written papers quite draining - 2 3 hour exams in a day with an hour for lunch is hard work. Really understand harmony and counterpoint. It's also really important to understand Bach's style for the Bach Chorale question. Malcolm Boyd's book on Bach Chorale Harmonisation and Instrumental Counterpoint is invaluable:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bach-Chorale-Harmo...t/dp/1871082722
(there's a bundle Amazon are doing which looks really good, including the riemenschneider and Anna Butterworth's book, that I hear good things about)
Get a copy of the Bach Riemenschnieder. Not only is it good for transposition & figured bass practice, it's also very good to play through these chorales and analyse them to get a feel for Bach's style.
I started almost from scratch on the paper work. I don't even have a music GCSE or A-level to my name. I used the William Lovelock books to give me a grounding, which, while being perhaps a little old-fashioned, were very thorough.
Go through a few past papers before the exam and practise doing the questions and be sure you can do them in the time allocated.
Remember, you will be writing on open score (4 staves) for the Bach chorale question. Examiners seem to have superhuman vision for spotting parallels and exposed 5ths in open score, which is far harder than short score, and which will cost you marks. Worth practising this question a few times in open score and being sure you can do it within the suggested time. Remember, it's about getting a consonant style, avoiding mistakes than uncovering Bach's more adventurous harmonisations. Something really quite ordinary with no mistakes will get more marks than a clever answer with lots of modulations and mistakes.
Read about the period of history as much as possible (don't just rely on the Cambridge Companion to the organ - it's useful in places but you need several sources) and play through music of the period. I remember my period was South German Organ Music 1660-1770 which is quite notable for its dryness. A bunch of us were sitting in Nero's at lunchtime after the first exam, crapping ourselves as we realised none of us knew very much about South German Organ music it at all and trying to do some last minute cramming. Until one of us piped up: "well, it could be worse, you know. It could be, like, organ music in China, or somewhere". It certainly relieved the tension.
Aurals: Quite a lot of people I've known have come to grief on the ARCO aurals. They are not easy - you will see lots of ashen faces if you go to an ARCO study day and Simon Williams does a mock exam. The most difficult is the first aural perception question, where the differences are really very easy to miss indeed. It's also really easy as well in the rhythm test to lose your place in the score as you try to pick out the mistakes and correct them.
The RCO library has copies of previous years Aural test CDs. I'd suggest hiring them out (a long time in advance of the exam so they're not hired out to someone else), ripping copies and practising them before the day. It'll help sharpen up your skills and spot the sort of things the RCO will do: for example in the rhythm test, there will always be some triplet quavers and a tied semiquaver held over an upbeat. Knowing what to expect and what to recognise helps invaluably.
Everyone during the exam in the centre is very nice and will understand if you're stressed and will put you at your ease. They will have seen it all before and will want you to do well. St Barnabus is a nice place, especially in the summer. The organ is very good and holds no nasty hidden surprises: it's comfortable and easy to play but do go into the room to hear the balance and effect in the main part of the church - balances aren't quite as you hear them at the console. Take a friend that can play or a recorder.
Find a good teacher that's done the diplomas (preferably quite recently or sits on the examining board or has done so quite recently) - they will help invaluably. I was very lucky indeed that Sarah Baldock was about 5 minutes walk away at Winchester Cathedral, so I could pop over for lessons during my lunch break. She was superb - quite a lot of the advice above comes straight from Sarah - and she put me in touch with Stevie Farr if she wasn't available. Phil White-Jones helped me through the paperwork - I think it helps to have a separate teacher for paperwork, rather than trying to squeeze it in at the end of the lesson - and he knew what was expected and what to do.
Go through the sylabus and the marking scheme in detail to be sure what's expected: http://www.rco.org.uk/pdfs/ExamRegulations08-09.pdf
Good Luck!!
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I spent a morning with David Goode going through this piece and watching open mouthed as he played parts of it - it is the most insanely difficult thing I've ever seen - it makes Messiaen look easy. DG talked about how it took him months to learn, how he had to practice it - sometimes just 3 or 4 notes at a time getting them right before adding subsequent notes and how, several weeks before practice time, he still had the difficult parts of it only up to half speed... I have tremendous respect for anyone who can play it - it is a monumental feat.
I'd suggest talking to someone who can play it about what would be good to tackle - David Goode, Robert Quinney and I wonder if Kevin Bowyer plays it? The Battle in Heaven movement between Good & Evil is tremedously exciting - maybe that would work? I think it's about 35 minutes so it may be a bit long on Easter Sunday morning.
A good stepping stone might be the Francis Pott Toccata?
If flippancy is allowed on these pages: One thing DG pointed out was the similarities between Christus and the music in the film trilogy "Lord of the Rings" - especially the D maj - B flat major - C maj - Dmaj progression used to signify the coming of the good guys...
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Glad you appreciate the irony!
I have a very faint recollection of once having come across an H&H Vox Humana that was bearable, but it could just as well be wishful thinking. The Cavaillé one at Aix, when used as it should be with the 8' flute, actually sounds acceptable - if its Hauptwerk incarnation is anything to go by. By and large, though, I regard the stop as no more than a necessary evil because the French did so insist on using it; but why any builder felt obliged to perpetuate this awful noise, or even invent it in the first place, beats me.
One of the best Vox Humanas I've come across is at the Waalse Kerk, Amsterdam. This also works best with an 8' flute. One can see the point of them after experiencing this organ.
I agree with the earlier comment about Dulcianas not being objectionable. I know at least organist that does most of their practice at my church on just the Great Dulciana alone. It's a handy stop - when added, it transforms the 8' Clarionet Flute into something more like a claribel flute (I've heard many worse real Claribel flutes) while 8' Dulciana and 4' Harmonic Flute is a very remarkable sound, reminiscient of some consort registrations found on early South German and Austrian organs with experiemental string stops, etc. Just the sort of thing for Froberger and Kerll- one hardly misses meantone temperament!
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Lol! Thanks... I've damaged my right leg but I played the organ for the first time in 3 weeks last night. I found I can get by resting my right foot on the swell pedal, while my left foot does most of the work. I can get by pretty well but I'm glad I haven't put down any music with hairy pedal parts for the next few weeks...
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I posted some photos of Twyford organ last night for a discussion elsewhere. After some reflection, I thought they deserved a topic of their own, so people who would be interested wouldn't miss them:
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How does one pronounce "Skrabl"? Would it be becoming to scrabble around a Skrabl?
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I've added a few photos of the Twyford organ under construction, with photos of the Great and Pedal soundboard tables showing the grooving. There are a few photos of other interesting features, and the finished organ, for those interested:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/pcmh1978/Twy...405127047035650
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This is turning into an interesting discussion...
Are some organbuilders now going back to using the old fashioned grooving of upperboards and tables?Yes. H&H did this at Twyford in 2006 for their organ built in Victorian style. I don't know if any of their subsequent soundboards have copied this experiment.
For some time they had harboured concerns over slider seals and have been using telescopic slider seals for some time. The upperboards & table are made of marine ply (they considered solid wood but discounted it because of issues with stability) and the groves in the underside of the upperboard and table were cut with a router rather than a moulding plane. The grid is made from poplar (I think), the sliders are marine ply and the well is made of marine ply (I think). The edges of any marine ply are veneered so one never sees the tell-tale sign of plywood.
More details are in the Organbuilding Journal 2007.
Re. Blackburn Cathedral, yes I believe the original soundboards' upperboards were made of chipboard and I believe they started to sag shortly after installation, necessitating corrective work...
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Here is the topic about the Skrabl organ at Beaminster, which I think is worth reading, esp. Paul Walton's experience playing it:
http://www.mander-organs.com/discussion/in...?showtopic=1861
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Well, the leg is not much better and the telly's not good this evening... so here's an idea for a 30 rank organ, designed to accompany "The Anglican Liturgy" (more specifically, Choral Evensong in a cathedral - an organ for the Cathedral quire, assuming another organ for use in the nave with congregations of c.2,000)- and little else.
Before I give the spec, there are a few points I should make.
Many of those practitioners in the field of "TAL" feel strongly that 4 manuals is the ideal. From my somewhat more limited background, as an amateur that can only count the number of times he has played for Choral Evensong in a Cathedral over the past year on the fingers of one hand, I tend to concur with this view (although I would never subscribe to the view that every "full sized" organ should follow the ideal of at least 4 manuals). This is how I tend to think of the 4 manuals:
Swell: The backbone of the accompaniment sounds. This is the fallback position in case anything goes wrong and I plan everything from here. The swell pedal is a friend! Full swell is rarely employed with the box open.
Great: adds more body (mainly 8&4 foundation) to the sound of the SW for crescendos and masking additions to the swell under the swell box.
Choir: for those moments when the boys (or sops) are singing alone. For quiet, delicate sounds, usually without pedals. If there is no Choir organ, I use the quiet stops on the GT or stick to the Sw without pedals but this makes the organ less varied and more difficult to manage.
Solo: for solo sounds, e.g. Clarinet, solo flute, etc... best enclosed. If there is no SO, I have to hit a piston and use the GT or CH, which makes the organ harder to manage. If there's no solo organ and the choir organ is home to the solo stops, it helps for the Ch to be enclosed, but choir enclosure is less important if the clarinet and other solo voices are on an (enclosed) solo division.
Pedal: Generally permanently coupled to the Swell and frequently coupled to the Great. It just needs to provide relative volume of sound at 16' pitch most of the time but having some 8' for more definition and (generally subtle) 32' is nice to have too.
Couplers: The Gt to Pd coupler gets the most manipulation - generally I have the choir and solo uncoupled, Sw to Ped and Sw to Gt are on almost permanently...
There is no great need for the accompanimental organ to be loud at all. The requirements of blend, appropriate volume, subtly and variety of sound are much more important, along with the need of easy manipulation and very good swell boxes. 4' is vital to be heard but a screeching mixture is next to useless: the Great organ is far better served having 16,8,4 foundations for solemn moments and more gentle stops to mask the swell organ coming in behind it. The Great foundations lose more if they are too loud and can't be used freely under the choir singing.
I don't think provision of "full swell" is as important as providing good 8 & 4 swell foundations and an oboe. I tend to spend nearly all my time with at least some Swell 8 & 4 and the oboe is used a lot as well. With me, full swell is usually reserved for specific moments and effects only - I actually find a swell 4' flute in addition to a swell principal more useful than a swell 16' reed).
So here goes:
Swell Organ (Enclosed, 13 ranks)
1. Open Diapason 8
2. Stopped Diapason 8
3. Echo Gambe 8
4. Voix Celestes 8
5. Principal 4
6. Flute 4
7. Piccolo 2
8. Mixture III (15.19.22)
9. Faggotto 16 (full length, wood throughout)
10. Cornopean 8
11. Oboe 8
i. Tremulant
Great Organ (7 ranks)
12. Double Diapason 16
13. Open Diapason 8
14. Stopped Diapason 8
15. Principal 4
16. Harmonic Flute 4
17. Twelfth 3
18. Fifteenth 2
Choir Organ (4 ranks)
19. Dulciana 8
20. Lieblich Gedact 8
21. Gemshorn 4
22. Flute 4
ii. tremulant
Solo Organ (Enclosed, 3 ranks)
23. Harmonic Flute 8
24. Clarinet 8
25. Ophliechide 8
iii. Tremulant
Pedal Organ (3 ranks)
26. Double Dulciana 32
27. Open Diapason 16
28. Dulciana 16 (ext)
29. Principal 8 (ext)
30. Trombone 16
Usual Couplers: SW-GT, SW-CH, SO-SW, SO-GT, SO-CH, CH-GT, SO-PD, SW-PD, GT-PD, CH-PD
The superiority of a pedal Dulciana over a Bourdon was noted as long ago as 1858. It can be just as gentle but provides more defined notes. I think a small scale, full length 32' flue is vastly superior to a 32' Bourdon, which has problems with standing waves and - hence - regulation, due to the sound emanating from one point only. A 32' dulciana will have more subtle uses than a large 32 Open wood, while still lending gravity to fuller combinations when required.
So there we go: No Great Mixture or reeds (I'm counting on the Solo Ophliecide being coupled down when something really loud from the organ is needed), no choir upperwork and no pedal mixture. Thoughts?
A true teacher...
St Pauls Cathedral
in General discussion
Posted
Hi Simon
Sadly I won't be able to make the demonstration this evening - I'm far too busy! Hope it goes well
Best wishes
Colin