Colin Harvey

You're not the only one who likes solid, thick tone. The great JSB liked organs with "Gravitat" - and if you've heard some of the comtempory mid german organs, you'll be astonished by the depth and grandeur of the sound. Further north, Alkmaar flat out is an immensely grand experience - the 16's are really big and beefy, the 8 principals are very fully voiced and usually doubled for extra depth and warmth and are mead of heavy, hammered lead and the mixtures don't shriek. Silbermanns are similar - very loud 8' principals - almost excruiciatingly so in small churches, not many ranks of mixture, thunderous pedal reeds - about as far a way as you can get from anything neo-baroque. Many new american organs are very loud - almost unbridled in power output, with lots of gravity and huge 32s. Even an organ like the Brombaugh organ in Eugene, Oregon (1976) has very full, rich principals, 16' chorus work on the manuals, very powerful, confident sound and no chiff. So I really don't know why we built these anorexic little things with no guts but loads of chiff from the 1950s to the 1980s - I suspect it was more of a bachlash against what was perceived at the time as thick and turgid sounding organs. I think you need a balence of brilliance against grandeur and richness to get the full effect - like you need mustard with your beef steak - it would very dull with out alloy. However, I do find the organs from some modern organbuilders rather anodyne and colourless - they sound a bit "white", sometimes rather too self-aware and frightened of making too much of a statement - either with volume or beauty of sound. I'd rather have an organ which sounds simply beautiful and make music work on that organ rather than an organ with stops at every pitch under the sun. I won't get started on the subject of pistons and pedals. Yes, I can see where you're coming from but I'm always glad and refreshed when I find an organ that has escaped the reforming habits of organists who claim that an organ without the latest advances in stop control is a compromised musical instrument... it depends on the organ in question and whether it's appropriate - so I treat it on a case by case basis.

Absolutely agree - I got that recording after recommendations on this board. It's the way he builds up the energy with those repeated bass notes and when you think you take any more, it just explodes into the recapitulation which has such controlled rhythmic energy. It's not that he plays it massively fast - it's that sense of rhythm and control behind it. I think he could make it sound it amazing on a harmonium but combine it with that organ and - it really is something to go "phwoar"!!

Doesn't this leave them looking a bit like... well, beige Ford Orions? I like properly gilded pipes, especially if the case is mahogany and made to the exceptional standards common in Georgian England. I find cheap imitation gilded pipes (easily told because they don't have that burnish and patina) are rather synomous of 2nd rate organs or bad rebuilds. But anything is better than zinc fronts - I can understand why organs were so often hidden behind pipeless screens after some builders started using zinc display pipes... One style of pipe decoration which might be making a bit of a come-back (and is very traditional romantic English, so I'm sure Pierre will love it) is painting the pipes with stencilled patterns. H&H have had painted pipes on recent organs such as Copenhagen and Twyford and their work at All Saint, Maragaret Street involved pipe painting. In the right place (like a high Victorian gothic church), the effect is very good. And I have to admit, I LIKE tin fronts, especially with gilded mouths.

That's right - St Mary's Andover. The organ is now sadly rather baked from over-zealous heating and I understand the church is going rather happi-clappi and the last organist retired, finding it impossible to work there any longer in the environment. I don't believe he's been replaced by another competent organist. The organ is rather fine, but for the rather useless additions added by later builders to the choir organ and pedal organ, which seem to combine being anemic with not blending at all with anything. The tubas on the choir/great are not especially lovely, either. But a fine organ, none the less. http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=D05969 and in its original state: http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N08177

Worth bearing in mind when answering this question that a Cavaille-Coll flute harmonic is massive scale - take a montre and bore a hole in the middle of it - while English harmonic flutes tend to be half the scale. Also C-Cs have much more treble ascendency than we're used to in England. So the two are not the same but I've grown rather fond of both varieties. On a 3m scheme, I'd have the harmonic flutes on the Great. Came across a lovely (english) 4' example on a Hele in Andover a few years ago - I think harmonic flutes are due for a bit of a revival, along with dulcianas. Now, let's try combining the two...

And nine pedal 5 1/3s!!! What's the point? Yes, give me the Taylor & Boody any day...

They'll go very nicely with toaster consoles, then.... Turner Sims is just a rather unfashionable organ right now.

No, you're not playing a pipe organ because the item has no pipes. It just has electronically recorded samples of pipes, reproduced through an amplifier and speakers. You say as much in your note. Therefore "electronic" is closer to the truth than "pipes". It is a simulation or electronic reproduction of a pipe organ. However, it's all clever stuff and I think the efforts and aims of Professor Maier & Co. laudable. I would certainly enjoy having an electronic organ that can simulate certain specific organs in my home through headphones.

I prefer my cornets unenclosed.... I heard a recording of the Skinner at St Thomas 5th avenue - a very fine organ

I must be honest, I'll happily play an organ with an enclosed great organ. I thought the compton at Wakefield Cathedral was rather a fine beast and I found having the great enclosed on one of the organs I played at University (a 4 rank extension organ) very handy. Like all organs, the success of the organs depends on how well it's done and whether it's an appropriate organ for its space and use. I'd rather have a beautifully finished Schoestein with everything enclosed than a ropey and poorly finished unenclosed neo-baroque job.

Absolutely - but I will f*** it up at some stage... I like the sound of a reed chorus coming from nowhere, too - that's what swell organs are for.

indeed. All that Italian renannaisance organ music is due for a bit of a revival ... will it beat the teutonic qualities of the Germans on their home ground of counterpoint ... find out this evening.

Oh no - a full lenth, 32' reed, on 15'' of wind (well, certainly so in the treble). Metal, I think. Quite mad, really. I know why Adrian likes it. You can get them quite small if you mitre them heroically.

Yes, Adrian.

I find it easier if the Great organ is not enclosed. I tend to use the stops of the Great organ as a reference point for dynamic levels. If I want it louder, I pull out more stops and if I want it quieter, I push some back in. Against the relatively predictable and fixed output of the Great Organ, I can use the enclosed departments swell boxes to get balences and crescendos and diminuendos as needed. I find I can cover addition and removal of stops on the Great organ quite seamlessly by covering them with the swell box and adding them at suitable breaths in the music. I actually don't think a smooth crescendo from pp to fff is really needed on the organ - surely, part of its nature is that you add and subtract stops and this is part of the way it realises music. We must all secretly smile a bit when we hear our favourite pedal reeds or Great trumpets are finally added - having them just slide in from nowhere would rather dampen their arrival. I find being able to adjust the output of the great organ with a swell box and stops is really too complex for my rather basic organ management skills and I rapidly end up coming hopelessly unstuck. So the left swell pedal of my Viscount toaster is left permanently open and leaves me feeling having an enclosed Great is a complexity that gets in the way of making music - well, at least for this organist!

One name I would add to the list of outstanding British improvisers is Mark Wardell, assistant organist at Chichester. I heard him improvise a suite during a recital at Winchester Cathedral a couple of months ago and was amazed at his skill and sheer talent. Re. Alsa's point - yes - I've found foreigners know very little about English organ music and enjoy discovering more about it - whether it's baroque stuff like John Stanely (who no one on the continent seems to have heard of) or Stanford. And it's surprising how well it can sound on continental organs, too! (even if purists sniff that it's not authentic). So if you're going over the channel, be sure to take some british organ music as well - your hosts will love it and they'll get something out of it!

The better - and even more expensive and time-consuming method - is to individually lengthen every pipe, rather than bung all the pipes up a note or two. Not an easy task, but I believe they did this at Southwark. I guess it probably still affects scaling a little but not as much as moving the pipes up a note.

Indeed - and good ways to damage a relationship with an organbuilder include: * Late payment or arguing about payment * Organising opening recitals before the organ has settled down. I know I have a date in mind for ours but am quite prepared to pull the plug if necessary... (thanks Frank) I think with the recent scare of EU directives that organbuilders needed the support of their existing clients in what was a difficult time. Our attitude was that we had a shared risk with the organbuilder in the project - that we had comitted a lot of our resources to the project, that the proposed EU legislation posed a major risk to the project - and hence to the resources we had expended. We were partners and shared the risk together. And we were quite prepared to become a test case in court if the worst case scenario occured. I have since heard a few stories about other clients not being so understanding with the recent EU issues, to the extent that work has had to be halted, which I feel can only serve to damage the relationship between the organbuilder and client. I cannot help wonder whether those clients had really assessed the probability and impact of the risks sensibly, whether they had assessed whether they shared the risk with the organbuilder and what the impact of their action might have on the relationship with their builder if they decided not to act cooperatively.

Dover edition of Bach Chorales (Schubler, 18, Orgelbuchlien) also has C clefs for the middle stave at lot of the time.

In reponse to Westgate Morris - all professional organbuilders will have insurance. One thing we considered was if the organ builder was going to go bust, what would happen. One of our legal eagles got his talons quite into the subject... Nothing eventually ended up being added to the contract in the end - we decided it wasn't worth it... One of the biggest problems with organ contracts is defining quality. An organ builder could build an organ to the letter of the contract but it could still be a poor organ. Yes, you can define everything down to the nth degree but still have a poor organ at the end of the day. The only way I can see around it is to be very clear how the organ is going to signed off and the acceptance criteria for the finished product. However, this needs to be clear and subjectivity can't be held to become too much of a burden or it becomes unfair on the organbuilder. In gerenal, organbuilders will do the very best job they can, under the circumstances. It doesn't benefit them at all to build a poor or unsucessful organ so you can count on their nature to provide you with the best work they can possibly provide. What the client needs to do is to foster and encourage a good relationship with the organbuilder, which stems from both parties having a shared vision of what they're aiming at and mutual respect and trust on both sides. There is, of course, the possibility that things will go wrong, and certain rules (mainly financial and business) are needed, for which the contract is about. But both parties need to balance the risk of havign an extremely tight contract at the risk of damaging the relationship between client and organ builder by over-burdensome discussions of the contract that get in the way of building the best possible organ. And I believe that it is always the aim to build the best possible organ, given the constraints of the situation (which can be financial, technical, architectural, temporal, political, etc...)

One thing I would be sure of is how inflation is going to be calculated - what rate is it going to be linked to. It can add quite a lot of money over a number of years...

Your friend doesn't happen to be a fusician called "arty"? I prefer it to be at a tempo which is completely under control. THere's a difference between rushing a piece and playing it fast while being totally under control and poised. Unfortunately, while I may sometimes start off fast, under control and poised, it rapidly degenerates into a rush as I run out of steam....

I understand that the main content of the Old testament was agreed at the academy of Jamnia in AD78. I think we should start another forum for Theology on this discussion board - it's clearly a subject of some interest to members here... Perhaps JPM would oblige...

Didn't Jeff Williams do one- I think it had Stanford and Mendelssohn on it - it was on sale in the Abbey shop. Thought about buying it but at the time, I was a rather inpecunious student.

well, we can have a gentlemanly disagreement about that reed... I think it's bound to polarise opinions. For solo reeds, I think the Solo Tromba at Winchester Cathedral takes some beating - it's like a big trumpet - round, warm and bright. A nice, musical stop.