SomeChap

Many thanks to [I'm assuming Andrew] Caskie for those clarifications and to Rowland Wateridge for the link to the vdH site, which answers our questions:

I'd missed these posts somehow @Choir Man - they're excellent thank you! I'd completely forgotten I'd played once at Doesburg a long time ago. You can also see the little Flentrop up in the choir, which is also an excellent organ of its time. The last judgement behind the organ at St-Maximin is just sensational!

I'm no expert and haven't heard the instrument in person (one day...) but there is definitely something idiosyncratic about the action at St Eustache: just watch the first thirty seconds or so of this video and you'll see that the detached console is just a relay, pulling down the actual mechanical keys of the tribune console! If you watch the end of the video you'll see that this even extends to the mechanical octave couplers; as one wag puts it in the comments "Man, that ghost sure has a lot of fingers!". So to Keitha's point, it's not the same solution as the dual actions used at Symphony Hall / Bridgewater Hall / Manchester Cathedral et al. According to one comment I read, there's a computer in there somewhere at St Eustache, and if it's a 90s computer it will definitely be at the end of its life! Replacing it with a more conventional EP action could well be a sensible route to take. We were very wedded to mechanical action in the 90s weren't we! Side query - why do so few French cathedral organs have detached consoles? Putting one in Notre Dame would be an absolute sensation! SC

That is possibly the answer for some people! It's not just about audio though: Dr Pykett's point often stands for any software on any OS. The 'Advanced' tab always contains settings which someone on the software development team would rather you didn't play with (presumably either because they think you're not clever enough, or it's a feature dear to their heart and they can't bear the thought of you disabling it) but someone else has told them they have to expose the option to you, so they've tried to hide it somewhere obscure. Never neglect the 'Advanced' tab! Macs are definitely right for some, particularly in the sphere of media editing, though you're buying a conspicuous consumption brand and the accompanying price tag is correspondingly eye-watering. Personally I've had a bad experience with the analogue audio output on a mac I once owned (and I've no intention of buying another), but I do concede that our friends over at the Hauptwerk forum do generally seem to have a better experience with Macs than with PCs for their use case, which is not dissimilar to Dr Pykett's. If sticking to Windoze, then the suggestion to use an external sound card (usually connected via USB, though SPDIF will work in certain use cases) is an excellent one (and one that the Hauptwerkians will be able to tell you all about; my knowledge of the best models is very out-of-date, but good brands include Behringer, M-Audio, PreSonus and Focusrite among others). They will come with good drivers which bypass the nonsense that W10 (and its consumer audio device chums) applies to audio. And if you want decent audio performance with PC price tags but without the Microsoft OS then there's always Ubuntu Studio, but that's not a rabbit hole that I've personally yet screwed up the courage to go down (even though I use Linux a lot), so that's a suggestion rather than a recommendation!

Absolutely of interest, don't worry! It's a shame the Mander forum doesn't have 'thumbs up' type responses; I find them really useful on other fora as feedback so that you know whether what you're saying is of value to people. I hope and trust that our late friend would have approved of, or at least tolerated, us wondering off at a tangent on his thread ...

Absolutely of interest thank you! Though I think I'd have struggled with the Hope-Jones organ, Thank you that's a good pointer! I seem to be struggling to find a good one of the Chancel case, which is also nice, if less demonstrative than the transept case (which i assume is now empty since it was built to house the Hope-Jones Solo Organ).

Among his extraordinarily diverse achievements, was Fr/Dr Monkhouse involved in the 2009-ish transplant of the big 2-man Conacher into St Paul's Burton-on-Trent? I'm not familiar (just had a look on NPOR) but it looks prima facie like a really sensible transplant? (And not one, but two Bodley cases for the Beautiful English Organs thread, if I can find good enough photos!)

A sad addition to this thread: Banks of York has now closed down. The linked article (Yorskhire Post) says the business started trading in 1756 - the year of Mozart's birth - making it the oldest music shop in Britain. What extraordinary times we live in.

Eg compare with Groves's / Renatus's new console at Lower Broughton - much more compact for a similarly-sized instrument (actually more stops at Lower Broughton I think) [nb. this link skips to 9:10 in the video because earlier parts of it deal with Ripon and Chester cathedrals]:

Why are Ruffati's consoles so deep? The one in the video I posted above looks like it takes up half the nave! And the consoles at Buckfast are absolute monsters.

And drone footage here; I'm assuming the audio in this video is not of the new instrument, given that this was posted on 11 March and voicing was done starting 29 March according to the church website, not to mention that it sounds like an electronic to me! I must say I like the casework.

A little video demo here: The tuning of our new pipe organ is reaching its final stages! 😀👍 Fabrizio gives us a little taster of how amazing it sounds! 😀👏 | By Pershore Abbey Community | Facebook

I am lucky enough to have played this organ back in the 90s. I can confirm she has superstar qualities, Actually I wonder (idly) if she's the sort of organ who could do with a name - like the Collins in Orford, which I understand has been christened Anna Magdalena? Marie-Claire perhaps? Or Dame Gillian? Every little helps, as they say!

Thank you for spotting this update. Slightly strange that there's no information on the main Mander web-site about this fairly major rebuild, that (AFAIK) this is the first time the new stop list has been made public., and that the NPOR listing doesn't even mention the gorgeous new casework! Indeed it actually contains pictures of the old ugly pipe screens without mentioning their thankful demise, while carefully photographing the (handsome but visually minor) changes to the console. I'm sure the work at Wimborne is good and the vision for the project is superb and to be warmly congratulated, but the public comms seem a bit ... patchy.

Thanks Choir Man for posting this. I had no idea that the BBC music magazine had such an extensive website!

G&G's website has pictures and recordings: Wingfield Organ New Organ in Tudor Style - Goetze & Gwynn (goetzegwynn.co.uk) Wetheringsett Organ New Organ in Tudor Style - Goetze & Gwynn (goetzegwynn.co.uk) Hope these links are of use / interest. I played them about 15 years ago when they were in Fotheringhay. Great fun was had. SC

Dr Pykett is informed, sensible and thorough as ever! Whether you want a 61-keyer may depend on your desk space. I had a 49-key one for a while and it was fine for what I needed - ie not performance! You could switch octaves between high and low depending what you were trying to play at the time*. It depends what you want to do. This one has 49 keys and is very affordable at £77. Agreed on the recommendation of M-Audio - good quality stuff. * Hmm didn't most organs in Bach's day stop 2 octaves above middle C?

St Mary's Stafford has come up a few times before on these fora; another one I should have thought of before! The 1790 John Geib case was seemingly of little interest to Harrisons when they built their 1909 4-man and it only survived by being tacked onto some pedal basses around the back in the north choir aisle. In 1972 the Geib case was put back in pride of place at the west end of the nave (surrounded by new choir stalls) and filled with an unmistakably 1970s 3-manual by HNB. Not perhaps what would be built these days, but it rightly showcased the 1790 facade:

I played the London Bridge the other week and was extremely impressed with the quality of the restoration work which has been carried out - the action is impeccable. It is a gentle and unassuming organ. My young children loved having a go, and this inspired other peoples' children to have a go too! I don't think most people would have realised they were at liberty to try it until we switched it on! The homeless people on the station loved hearing the music. The inclusion of some sight-readable sheet music on the music desk was also much appreciated! It's a super project, and I hope it thrives!

St Oswald's in Lythe in the North Riding of Yorkshire contains a 1911 N&B octopod, noteworthy mainly for its Hollins-designed stop controls above the keyboards. The case however is very distinguished (if a little rigid - why wasn't the central tower made slightly taller I wonder?), west-facing on the rood-screen. The facade was designed by Walter Tapper, who heavily restored the rest of the church too (I'd guess including the rood-screen): ETA: if that pic link doesn't work, then maybe this one will (from NPOR, less good photo):

Again from Simon Knott's flickr feed is an 1850s Mark Noble case in St Andrew's, Colton in Norfolk which looks rather fine to my eye! NPOR

BTW I was also a fan of the Diapason Celeste that used to be on the York Minster Swell. I think it's been renamed Open Diapason II in the recent Harrison work, so presumably no longer undulates?

Hmm I'd understood Cavaille-Coll put them on his (usually unenclosed) Positif organs quite often - to undulate with the Cor de Nuit? Or did I get that wrong? I've definitely played one in the past in France but can't for the life of me remember where. St Etienne in Caen maybe?

Thanks Peter for all your inside knowledge. Watching with interest (btw I'm not particularly an unashamed romantic, but I am also a fan of an unenclosed, flute-toned Unda Maris!)

Thanks for posting, some interesting changes there. My understanding - Great Primary is renamed Grand Organ (is this already in the Triforium or is it to be moved? Which bit of the triforium?) 32 Manual Flue thankfully expunged. 5 1/3 Quint also expunged - comments anyone? Harmonic Flute 8 transferred from Solo by the looks. Great Secondary essentially replaced with a beefier Screen Great, mostly new. Does the fact that both Gt Open Diapasons are new mean that we get lovely new tin case pipes? Is the new Screen Gt West or East-facing? New Gt and Sw chorus reeds and mixture work. (New Sw celestes too.) New-ish Choir organ combining old positiv and 'Swell Choir' with new chorus reeds and mixture. I daresay few will mourn the old Positif. Pedal new chorus work at 8 / 4 Solo seemingly new French Horn despite the fact that the Solo already had an Orchestral Horn and there's a Horn on the Swell! Blimey is there really room in the case for six independent 16' pedal flues? (plus borrowings!) I can't help but wonder if tonal egress might be better if a couple of them were ditched or moved to triforium? And just the one extended pedal reed rank - this must be the old Ophicleide re-badged? So there's a _lot_ of new manual chorus work; I suspect it could sound like a new organ! Looks like Harrisons are doing the same trick I understand they did at York with separate E/W Swell shutters - seems sensible. The choir is no longer enclosed, so that's one less swell enclosure to block sound egress. It looks like the new scheme is much more versatile from the East side of the screen (esp if the Screen Gt is East-facing)? I think I like the look of it! ------- ETA: Aha NPOR tells me that Primary Gt and Pedal Clobberwork are already in Triforium.