Barry Jordan

Just for the record, I've now experimented sitting on the bench in front of "my" new console, and I can reach everything, even the tuba, and I'm about the smallest organist I know, being just 5'7" on a good day. One of the reasons for wide spacings is of course the size of the switching units. Here in Germany, builders have basically the choice of Laukhuff or Heuß; Heuß have the reputation of being slightly more reliable and quick. But they don't let themsleves be packed any closer than mine are without being impossible to maintain or even to get out again in the case of failure. Incidentally - at least the stop knobs themselves in the Sydney pictures certainly didn't come from Hradetzky - I've never seen anything as English as those on te continent! The console has obviously been tarted up in the last few years, so that the Ahlborn-type rocker switches over the top manual look even more horrible than they must have done originally...... Straight pedalboards are simply continental standard. They are not uncomfortable, actually, you just have to get used to them! As long as the lengths of the "black" keys are arced, there are no problems, especially if the board is not flat. The standard is in fact known as the "doubly arched" board, whereas the English / American version is "triple" so..........historical pedals are another matter, of course. These can be problematic! Cheers B

Period? You want to build a gothic case? You could just get a digital, in that case. The principle is the same, isn't it? Have a good day Barry

Yes. And quite a small one, too, as organs in his neck of the woods tended to be, on the whole, at that period. If I remember correctly, pretty much reed-free. Got the spec. somewhere. German swell boxes never had much in them anyway. Adequate for a crescendo from about pp to mp, at the most - see Ladegast, Wernigerode, for example. Cheers Barry

Tempi in North German Praeludia need to be related to one another, but they needn't be the same! Twice as fast is good! B

"Yak may safely graze", to get this minimally back on topic......... Barry

Definitely a rogue - where in the world can it have been? It is indeed normal for crescendo to be towards the player, but most German swells until fairly recently worked this way as well (they regarded the swell as a brake not an accelerator, i.e the "normal" position was open). Normally on would just take short stabs at the Walze with the foot that is currently not being used, it only takes a quaver or so....... but I#ve never encountered a RS that returns to 0 when left alone. Incidentally, the "Walzen" a normally about a foot wide, so yours seems to have been a bit peculiar in that respect too. Cheers Barry

yes indeed he has. I know him. He is a strange person. B

I think Pierre is absolutely right: the USA has some of the finest organs in the world - but certainly also some of the worst. Not only are there lots of very gifted builders active in the USA - for example Taylor and Boody, Richards Fowkes, Paul Fritts, and also Manuel Rosales, a man with a very strong tonal vision all his own - and not forgetting the older generation, including the incomparable John Brombaugh , but the Americans also import organs in style and thus end up with some of the best products of European manufacture as well. It is always difficult to include new or newish organs in such lists, just as new compositions are likely to be felt to have not yet met the "test of time". But I am convinced that the organ of St Ignatius Loyola New York will also make this list some day. Cheers B

Yes, heaven. But really more a mezzo piece! B

Don't know about Dallas, but Calgary is no more. Anyone know of Dublin still exists? That was always my favourite to be knocked out of in the first round. B

Barry Jordan, 48 years old, married (quite often), two sons and a daughter all younger than they should be at my age. Born and grew up in Port Elizabeth on the south-east coast (bottom right hand corner) of South Africa, where my first lovers were two Bevingtons, a Walker and, best of all, a Norman and Beard originally built for the Great Exhibition in Kimberley in 1890-something, and which sadly no longer exists. Went to University in Cape Town, where I was assistant organist at the cathedral (Hill, once in St Margaret's Westminster, thrown out of there by Edwin Lemare and moved to the colonies in 1909 after a spell as somebody's house organ in Sheffield or somewhere) and privileged to witness the installation of Rudolf von Beckerath's last organ before his death in the University's concert hall - and to have lessons on it with Gillian Weir for a while. After that I played the clarinet in a military band for 4 years. This was called National Service. 4 years of playing the first violin parts of (for example) the overture to "Tannhäuser" on the clarinet in a smallish room also containig 7 trombones and 6 tubas makes one want to stop doing it very badly indeed. Then back to Cape Town for a 2 year spell as DOM at a girls high school and and M.Mus in Composition at UCT. Then a year in Vienna studying organ with Martin Haselböck and composition with Francis Burt; after that, several years in Lübeck at the Hochschule (still Haselböck), combined with a job in Kiel. Having finished soloists diploma and all the general church musical hoop jumping required in Germany, I was appointed cathedral organist in Magdeburg. And that was that.

No, sometimes he sings whole operas too, although not all by himself. More seriously, singers have their instruments along too, so the comparison is not really fair. You're taking the performer and the instrument into account at the same time. I could elaborate, but I'm quite sure everybody knows what I mean. Cheers B

That's why I chose Hill, actually, meaning that he wouldn't have approved at all! B

Yes, perhaps "is full of" is a little too cheerful. Let's say, rather, there are quite a lot of decent organs around. Cheers B

My 5 (not ranked), but only including organs I've actually played: 1. Naumburg 2. Tangermünde (Scherer, 1624) 3. Norden 4. Pacific Lutheran University (Fritts) 5. St Johannis, Lüneburg How about that? Now 5 runners-up: 6. Cape Town Cathedral 7. Freiberg cathedral 8. Merseburg 9. St. Ouen 10. Zeerijp When one comes to think of it, the world is full of gorgeous instruments.... Cheers Barry

It does seem to me that a lot of the discussion above - that which is not purely xenophobic - rests on the presumption that "foreign" builders still build instruments with lots of fractional length reeds and breaking glass mixtures. This is simply not so. Kuhn's organs have in the last years become so romantic that they'd have had William Hill running for cover; I find most of them too loud, but that is a personal opinion. Their engineering is impossible to beat, and they have a team of superb restorers - even though I once again find that they tend to leave organs better than they ever were. Whether that is a good thing or not is an open question. It does seem a little odd to have a Swiss builder building an instrument with a stop list in the English language - and some of his stops may not sound very much like what an English organist might expect - a Dolce will certainly sound quite different from a Salicional, for example. On the other hand, the organ is to stand in England. Quite a lot of players might like to have the stop names in their own language. Cheers Barry PS the idea of Kuhn ever undercutting anybody at all is quite funny.

Looking at the Waltershausen page referred to in the "Porsche organ" thread reassures me that I was not wrong after all........ there they are, all those "Portuns"! B

The backbone of the organ is fairly classical - the Fagott in the RP is a copy of Naumburg, and a magical stop! - so the mixtures have no tierces and are really principal choruses. But the instrument is obviously voiced to be registered additively. The HW Gamba is very German, so not to be used with FH et al in the CC manner; but in general the sound of all divisions is warm and romantic. The Pos mixture is perhaps a little higher and louder than absolutely necessary, although it gives a convincing account of itself in a Petit plein Jeu....... it is a remarkably versatile instrument, which doesn't give up all of its secrets at once. The Pos. Principal 8' I find simply heartbreakingly beautiful. I wish it were mine. Best Barry

Eule is flavour of the month in some circles. But their new instruments did not quite attain the quality of their restorations until recently - I have always rather disliked the organ in the concert hall of the Hochschule in Leipzig, but they scored a spectacular success with their new instrument in the catholic cathedral across the road from us here in 2005. http://kirchenmusik-bistum-magdeburg.de/3910.html Their head voicer Gregor Hiecke is becoming a name to conjure with. Cheers Barry

It is indeed, but I'm afraid not all the other info is correct! The last major work on the organ took place between 1986 and 1988. It was done, not by Eule, but by Sauer. The console was indeed hideous, but it was (by eastern standards) not cheap ! Did it really have illuminated stops? I don't remember that, but they were popular in the DDR. The VEB's (Volkseigene Betrieb, or, popularly, "Vatis ehemaliger Betrieb") ceased to exist in 1989. Cheers Barry

I've encountered these at Himmerod. Klais gave them up as well - i wonder if the reason was, that they are comfortable for the Organists, and uncomfortable for registrants? They take a while to get used to. Cheers Barry

Well, tablets are a different matter of course. But I refused to have those. I think it is very unergonomic to make the same movement to cancel a stop as to engage it. And they simply look horrible. Cheers B

They are. The norms here are different, and that affects the distances between the stops - but it also means that the manuals are closer together than they would be on an English organ (not saying that I necessarily like it, that's a different matter.....). So judge not the distance from the highest manual, but from the lowest. The group on the left hand side, at the top, hardest to reach, are the solo stops. Hardest of all, the tuba. There is some strategic thinking behind this. German console norms do assume that other people are going to pull your stops, that's not pleasant but it's the way it is. However, this organ does have divisional combinations, an absolute rarity here (very hard to push through) and lots of generals with stepper, so I don't think it'll be problematic. The Germans think the stops are terribly close together, and awfully small. Cheers Barry

There are some more "insider-type" pictures on our "other" web-site at http://www.domorgel-magdeburg.de/html/bilder_neubau.html I will put some more up on Friday; after that the organ builders will take two weeks holiday. Cheers and don't melt in the heat, Barry

The information re. Trost in my previous post was incorrect and leaves me wondering where on earth my memory got it from. Please excuse this. I have discovered that some South German /Austrian builders used the time for the main, rather fluty principal of the "Q´Werk". Meanwhile, Rühlmanns catalogue says it is a conical (one would probably rather want to say "tapered") Gedackt, 8 half-tones wider than a normal principal. The cone is 1:2, mouth 1/5, cut-up straight and 1/3 of the mouth width. The caps are "Normal". He also built an "Offene Portnalflöte", the pipes Cylindrical, with a taper in the upper portion, but the cylindrical portion is longer than the cone. The cut-up here is 1/4. Sorry about the misinformation. Cheers B