handsoff

Nor I but I do remember with a sort of fascinated horror watching ladies of a certain age on whom the camera was trained singing with a beatific smile on their lips, eyes half-closed and with a gentle side-to-side motion of the head...

Thanks JGM. I've just found the original proposal for the specification from 2008 (I think...) and that's from where my thought of a Chimney Flute came. Apologies to Paul for doubting his memory! Very much looking forward to the recitals next year - Mrs H. and I will be there (although she doesn't know it yet... )

Thank you Paul. The Swell flute may be a Chimney Flute if memory serves. I too suffered the the old organ for 4 years whilst at KES but "my" old organ was the unextended one on which most stops were just "prepared for" and which, for my final 12 months had only the Swell Organ with its 2 very quiet 8' strings and a claribel flute also at 8'. The tower roof had leaked one night and all the Great Organ woodwork swelled and became unusable. I hope that my suffering counts even after that long time! [For a private play and not a recital, heaven forfend]. PS I caught a glimpse of Howard Bould but didn't get the chance to speak to him. Was he there in your time Paul? He didn't teach me but I knew him from various local boozers!

I too was there for the first of the two recitals on Saturday evening; the demand for tickets was such that the first was heavily oversubscribed so Stephen played again an hour later. I fully agree with JGM's assessment of the completely new organ and IMHO it is easily the best-sounding instrument in the area, I haven't yet had a chance to play it but hope to remedy this shortly at which time I will post the full specification and some photographs. I still hope to be able to arrange a Saturday session at some point in the not too distant future subject to agreement from the Chapel authorities, Stephen Dodsworth being able and willing to demonstrate the organ and sufficient members of this forum being interested in making the journey to Stratford.

I'm sure that my problem is linked to the non-adjustable bench which is a bit too high, even after removal of the copies of "Mission Praise" which were under the ends. I too have a normal chair on which to sit for the sermon after my stretch. The other organ I play on occasions has the bench screwed to the choir stalls and it is too cramped for me. I have to sit in a slightly hunched position too close to the keyboards. Again, there is a seat nearby to get some relief during the sermon. I can't recommend Pilates highly enough. It's excellent for all round strength and flexibiity and is, most importantly, safe for anyone with back problems when taught by a qualified teacher.

I suffer from an aching back after playing and on my wife's advice joined a local Pilates class. I find that the basic exercises both before going to the church, during the service when I have a stretch at the start of the sermon**, and when I get home have a hugely beneficial effect. My classes, at which I'm the only male, , have only 6 or 7 attendees so individual attention can be given. I also find that regular swimming, especially front crawl, stretches all the appropriate muscles and helps a lot. **My organ is at the west end of the church and I pre-warned the priest so that she wouldn't have too much of a shock when I started pushing my arms above my head. Not evangelism; just ache relief!

The clip on the same YouTube page of Sarah Soularue playing Vierne at St Ouen is also worth a view. I do like her nod of approval when the registrant draws (presumably) the Chamade for the final chord.

Simon Johnson's DVD gives a tour of the organ demonstrating all the big reeds, including the West Gallery firing squad, and in response to your request, a narrated playing of Cocker's Tuba Tune telling what stops are used, and when. I couldn't recommend it highly enough - quite brilliant entertainment from start to finish.

Please don't don't get me wrong: the organ in ND de P is a thrilling instrument to hear whether live or recorded and I have many recordings dating from PC's day to the most recent. My comment was solely about the number and complication of the new playing aids and the difficulties when the software shows its glitches. For an organ of this size with its multiplicity of tonal possiblitlies a range of aids are clearly needed but the new console's facilities do seem to be a bit OTT.

I gather that one of my predecessors was one - or probably would have been had he ever had tried to use anything more than the Open Diapason... On a more serious note, is there a point where all this technology rather takes over? I seems to me almost similar to the hi-fi addict who spends tens of thousands on equipment and listens more to the sound quality than the music it is designed to reproduce.

Oh good Lord! I think that my 7 stop one manual is preferable; by the time I'd decided what to do with all those accessories the congregation would be eating their ros bif.

From the appropriate websites, it seems that Choral Evensong is at 17.30 and that the recital starts at 18.45 admission for which is £14.00 .

I agree about the LP. This is where I first met the Cocker and also Vierne's Carillon de Westminster which spawned my love of French organ music from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I have showed Simon Johnston's DVD and in particular the narrated version of the Cocker to several musically-minded friends and family who had previously not appreciated the complexities of driving a large instrument. Without exception their views on what an organist has to do have changed radically. Some of them had thought that an organist was very much the poor relation of a pianist but U-turns have been made.

Apologies JPM; our posts were virtually simultaneous

I am in full agreement. I'm sure that some will remember Spotted Metal from several years ago and the discord he created. A similar situation here.

I have just been talking to Michael Latham, a former colleague of Kenneth Tickell and now with Trevor Tipple, while he was tuning my organ and he tells me that there is to be a memorial evensong for Kenneth at Worcester Cathedral on 4 October 2014, followed by a previously scheduled organ recital by Olivier Latry. I'm sure that this will be a fitting tribute.

This is so true. When I was first learning the organ, from the age of 11, my teacher arranged for me to play virtually every instrument in the immediate area. This had several benefits ranging from the sheer fun of playing instruments with many different sound pallettes, the ability to play more music requiring different sound pallettes, through to the occasional request (when I was considered good enough) to play for a service when another organist was away. The highlight was a couple of hours on a cathedral organ with the then organist who was kind enough to take me through the whole instrument culminating in his suggestion that I should play my prepared piece, Karg-Elert's "Nun Danket", about which he magically knew and for which he said, "You play the notes and I'll do the rest", meaning the registration, ending in a wonderful wall of sound tutti complete with 32' reed. I have never forgotten that experience. I doubt that I would have done even what little I have had I had to stick exclusively with the rather dull village octopod upon which my regular lessons and practice took place. It's a pity that my innate lack of talent prevented much progression but the opportunities that I was given nurtured my life-long love of the organ.

During a period in 1970s when I was singing rather than playing the organ my choir used to spend a summer week at Chichester Cathedral and I spent quite a bit of time on the organ loft. I well remember the drawer of cards for the digital organ - a bit like the old-fashioned Hollerith system for data input on early electro-mechanical computational systems. Another feature was, if I remember correctly, a stepless transposer knob which proved useful one hot afternoon when the anthem (the name and composer of which I forget) had a long unaccompanied section before the organ returned at full belt towards the end. The organist, with the aid of an earphone which apparently cut off the speakers so he could accurately compare our pitch and his, retuned the organ to the slightly lower pitch to which the choir had sunk before the grand entrance.

I didn't have a lot of time to sort out registrations so just had to follow the score markings for volume. The nicest stop on the organ is a 4' flute on the pedal and I used this to solo the top line at the end of the Agnus Dei, adding the pedal bourdon 2 beats into the last chord. That seemed to work nicely. When next I play at this church I'll give myself some time to work out the sounds properly.

It just shows how long I've been out of the game! It's a lot better than the generally used settings from my previous life in church music - Merbecke et al and is pleasant for the organist, even on first sight. Thank you for the replies.

Thanks AJJ. I brought a copy home ready for next time and I can see what you mean about there being some scope for enjoying oneself in the organ part! I'll do a choir practice with them when I'm next asked to play just to make sure that I don't throw them off the scent too much.

Not organ music but of interest to me. I did a spot of deputising this morning and in addition to the 5 hymns that I was expecting to play there was also the Mass of St Thomas by David Thorne. One of the choir said at 09.05, with an 09.15 start, "Oh and here's the mass setting, we do the Gloria, Sanctus and Benedictus and the Agnus Dei." OK, no problem sight reading it, the choir obviously knew it inside out and backwards and I found it was quite enjoyable to play on the unusually bright 9 stop 2m +p Hewins organ. The questions; is it a well-known setting and is it performed much? I've never met it before... Thank you.

Davidh, With respect, I don't think that this is the point at issue. The RAH has a magnificent organ which is barely used; in itself a disgrace after the sterling work our hosts put in. If the money for the work came from public resources then we, the public, have been cheated by the organ's silence. We all know that organs must be used regularly to keep them in good condition. With lack of use how long before another rebuild is necessary and would money for this be available given its lack of use? The Proms should be an opportunity to showcase the organ, increase interest in it and its music and therefore ensure its future. I'm aware that the hall is used for all manner of events but surely regular organ concerts aren't outside the bounds of possibility? The Proms' musical offerings have traditionally included several solo organ concerts but in recent years these have diminished in quantity and quality to, this year, zero. The replacements appear to be the Pet Shop Boys and something based on the Match of the Day theme; whatever that is. The Last Night has become a poor shadow of itself, so much so that last year was the first for 30+ years I did not listen to or watch it. IMHO the BBC has lost its way with R3 and has followed the Classic FM model to the detriment of the area of "serious music" broadcasting.

It's no surprise to me I'm afraid. The Proms, along with the whole of R3, has been dumb(p)ed down (on) by Roger Wright to the extent that I fully expect each Prom concert to have radio audience participation** by means of tweets, emails and texts. The organ concerts have become increasingly marginalised in recent years culminating in 2013's fiasco. The only good news is that Wright is leaving the station. ** Mind you...... "We're halting this performance of Vierne's Carillon De Westminster at this point to ask, "Should M.Latry draw the 32' reed where marked in the score or just for the final bars?" Tweet on #R3iskillingtheproms or text on 666"

You weren't, by any chance, in St Mary's, Warwick for that service in about 1977 were you?