DaveHarries Posted February 8, 2023 Share Posted February 8, 2023 I thought this might be of interest. It is the organ of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Lepāja, Latvia (IVP / 131) and was once the largest organ in the world up until 1912. Original organ by Heinrich Contius (1779, from which the original action and windchests survive) with further work in 1885 by Barnim Grüneburg. The organ was under restoration when this was recorded so it doesn't sound entirely right but some interesting stuff here as shown by Jonathan Scott. It remains "the largest fully mechanical pipe organ in the operation of all aspects of the instrument including all actions and the operation of all stops." (YouTube description). I like the harmonium bit....! HTIOI, Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhodges Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 I know that 32' manual stops are found from time to time, but how many organs are there with two 32' manuals (in this case HW and BW)? Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Choir Man Posted February 15, 2023 Share Posted February 15, 2023 An interesting video by the Organ Media Foundation about mutations, what they are and why they work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveHarries Posted February 22, 2023 Share Posted February 22, 2023 Two from St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna. Choir Organ: Rieger Orgelbau (1991) - 4 manuals, 55 stops Main organ: Rieger Orgelbau (2017-2020) - 5 manuals, 130 stops Both playable from one console (Rieger, 2017-2020) - 5 manuals, 185 stops Olivier Latry (09th October 2020): Ernst Wally (organist at the time if I understand the clip's description correctly) with Widor's Toccata after the dedication mass of 04th October 2020: Sounds really good! Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterdoughty Posted May 15, 2023 Share Posted May 15, 2023 A bit of clicking and creaking console and bench noise, but that vanishes after a while and I thought (over headphones) this is a very clean, immediate and magnificent performance of the Elgar Sonata. I mention cleanness because it's not the first thing you think of when hearing recordings from Liverpool. Very nicely done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
handsoff Posted May 17, 2023 Share Posted May 17, 2023 Thank you posting that video from Liverpool. It's a wonderful performance of a piece that's not recognised as it should be. The sound of the Willis reeds at the end.... wow! I played it through the fairly decent system in my study causing a complaint from downstairs where my wife was trying to practise relaxation yoga...ooops! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swalmsley Posted May 17, 2023 Share Posted May 17, 2023 Beautifully performed with just the right tempi for the building. The restored Magna has a cameo role at the end - and what an impact it makes! But even more remarkable than the sheer decibels is the brilliance of tone. It's hard to believe that it's the same stop! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidh Posted August 28, 2023 Share Posted August 28, 2023 Recently many videos have appeared by Paul Fey. He is a 25 year old German organist who speaks excellent English. He travels widely, has access to many important instruments and fills some gaps using Hauptwerk. Most of the videos are demos of stops and registrations. He seems to have a good understanding of the possibilities of each instrument and knows exactly what he wants next and how to find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Allison Posted August 29, 2023 Share Posted August 29, 2023 15 hours ago, davidh said: Recently many videos have appeared by Paul Fey. He is a 25 year old German organist who speaks excellent English. He travels widely, has access to many important instruments and fills some gaps using Hauptwerk. Most of the videos are demos of stops and registrations. He seems to have a good understanding of the possibilities of each instrument and knows exactly what he wants next and how to find it. Been following him for a while, he is very talented, both as a player (on real organs as well as Hauptwerk) and as a composer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Cooke Posted August 29, 2023 Share Posted August 29, 2023 Back to Liverpool and the Elgar... a delightfully spacious, elegant and masterful performance in every way... and I've only focused on the first movement for now. Beautiful use of the organ, showing just how a large organ can be used to great effect. I couldn't help feeling what an extra dimension those swell box dials are for the performer. I'm not 'there' with my iPad yet!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Pykett Posted August 31, 2023 Share Posted August 31, 2023 On 28/08/2023 at 15:55, davidh said: Recently many videos have appeared by Paul Fey. He is a 25 year old German organist who speaks excellent English. He travels widely, has access to many important instruments and fills some gaps using Hauptwerk. Most of the videos are demos of stops and registrations. He seems to have a good understanding of the possibilities of each instrument and knows exactly what he wants next and how to find it. I agree, and (presumably) so do 26k other subscribers. His video of the 'Bach organ' at Arnstadt was particularly interesting in view of its rather singular disposition compared to contemporary organs further north with their complete vertical chorus work and relatively few unison stops. The opposite was true at Arnstadt - incomplete (gappy) chorus work but far more choice of 'horizontal' colour at unison pitch, showing the emergence of a distinctly Thuringian type of instrument. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpNaouE6KZo I don't know whether he has also demonstrated a VPO version, though a sample set exists. However bear in mind that the current pipe organ, from which the samples were taken, is a modern (c. 2000) reconstruction in which 75% of the pipework is completely new. So it's impossible to say how close the organ sounds in comparison with the original which was largely lost c. 1860 if not before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhodges Posted August 31, 2023 Share Posted August 31, 2023 7 hours ago, Colin Pykett said: a modern (c. 2000) reconstruction in which 75% of the pipework is completely new. Ten of the 21 stops have "over 50% of original material" according to Wolff & Zepf "The Organs of J.S.Bach" (2012). No reeds and no pedal stops, though. With four of the missing stops being pedal, that says that something over 50% of the pipes are original, not a mere 25%. Five other stops are modelled on a single surviving pipe, which means that at least the general style and scale should be in the ballpark. The pedal stops and manual reed are modelled on examples from the same builder or his contemporaries. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Pykett Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 15 hours ago, pwhodges said: Ten of the 21 stops have "over 50% of original material" according to Wolff & Zepf "The Organs of J.S.Bach" (2012). No reeds and no pedal stops, though. With four of the missing stops being pedal, that says that something over 50% of the pipes are original, not a mere 25%. Five other stops are modelled on a single surviving pipe, which means that at least the general style and scale should be in the ballpark. The pedal stops and manual reed are modelled on examples from the same builder or his contemporaries. Paul That's at odds with what the builders of the new instrument (then known as Orgelbau Otto Hoffmann) themselves said in publications which they issued at the time, authored in collaboration with the then Director of Music at Arnstadt, the late Gottfried Preller. According to this 'from-the horse's-mouth' material, the original pipes which they managed to recover had previously been incorporated in a romantic tubular pneumatic instrument as a few so-called 'Bach Registers'. My versions of these publications are in hard copy form, supplied to me personally from the organ builders who were extremely helpful, but originally in German which I translated myself. Being more specific, the total number of pipes in the instrument ('pfeifen insgesamt' in my sources) was quoted as 1252 of which 320 were said to be original ('originalpfeifen'). Presumably Orgelbau Hoffmann knew exactly how many new pipes they had had to procure for the contract, so it's difficult to see that the figures can be disputed. What sources did Wollf & Zepf quote? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhodges Posted September 1, 2023 Share Posted September 1, 2023 The ones that postdate the restoration are: Hoffmann, Horst. 1999. Zwei Bach-Orgeln. Orgel International 3: 478-483. Preller, Gottfried. 2002. Die Orgeln der Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Kirche zu Arnstadt. In Perspectives on Organ Playing and Musical Interpretation: Pedagogical, Historical, and Instrumental Studies: A Festschrift for Heinrich Fleischer at 90, ed Ames Anderson et al., 138-46. New Ulm, Minn.: Graphic Arts, Martin Luther College. In other words, the same people as your sources... A possible interpretation of the difference (with no further information) is that over 50% of pipes existed for those stops, but half of them were not restorable, and this was lost in the translation of my book. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carrick Posted September 6, 2023 Share Posted September 6, 2023 A recording from 1927, I believe, from my own collection, digitally copied and cleaned ... Harry Goss-Custard performing Lemmens's "The Storm". One that's new to my ears! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OwenTurner Posted September 21, 2023 Share Posted September 21, 2023 Have you all spotted this channel? It looks very interesting. It looks like an organ equivalent of the excellent "archive of recorded Church music" one. Does anyone know who is behind it? https://youtube.com/@ArchiveofRecordedOrganMu-by7li?si=oYoSPWiFYwW2a0Ej Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john carter Posted September 21, 2023 Share Posted September 21, 2023 Thank you Owen! That site includes the recording of Franck Choral 1 by Fernando Germani that first introduced me to Franck - and Germani - as a young teenager. I never thought I would hear it again. The channel could become an excellent source of historic recordings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
contraviolone Posted October 22, 2023 Share Posted October 22, 2023 An interesting 'behind the scenes' video of Anna Lapwood and the organ curator delving into the interior of the Royal Albert Hall organ. Impressive to see the two Great divisions, and the unenclosed reeds of both the Great and Bombard tubas. The organ does appear to be very dusty though. Obviously not cleaned since the rebuild of 2002-04. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq0s17bzdLI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterdoughty Posted November 13, 2023 Share Posted November 13, 2023 On 22/10/2023 at 21:49, contraviolone said: An interesting 'behind the scenes' video of Anna Lapwood and the organ curator delving into the interior of the Royal Albert Hall organ. Impressive to see the two Great divisions, and the unenclosed reeds of both the Great and Bombard tubas. The organ does appear to be very dusty though. Obviously not cleaned since the rebuild of 2002-04. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq0s17bzdLI This was really interesting, contraviolone, thank you. I was thrown by the exit at the end - from organ chamber to bar! Here's the fruit of my evening's listening: an intimate and lovely collection of some Byrd on piano, harpsichord and organ from the Chapel and antechapel of New College Oxford, courtesy of Dónal McCann and Robert Quinney. They also sing, briefly. I will likely never have the privilege of spending time in such circles, but I'm very glad indeed YouTube is here to help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contrabombarde Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 Apologies that this video is of a Hauptwerk simulation, though I was playing it on a rather lovely pipe organ before our Nine Lessons and Carols last week. Hoping to complete the other movements in time for the work's centenary in four year's time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innate Posted January 25 Share Posted January 25 This is new on YouTube (I think) and it’s astonishing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
handsoff Posted January 26 Share Posted January 26 Absolutely astounding. I'm going to hand in my organ keys... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innate Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 Another astonishing performance of a transcription. This time Guillou, aged 84, playing Pictures At An Exhibition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveHarries Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 Here's an organ I would very much like to spend some time playing if the chance ever arose. St. Elizabeth, Wroclaw (Poland), built by Klais (Bonn, DE) / Thomas (Stavelot, BE) / Zych (Wolomin, PL) 2019-2022 as a replica, in all ways except the blowing mechanism, of the Michael Engler organ (1752-1760) which was worked on and somewhat altered before being entirely destroyed by fire on 09-Jul-1976 leaving absolutely nothing. This photo, taken after the fire of 1976, shows just how complete the destruction of the previous organ was: https://polska-org.pl/9069037,foto.html?idEntity=546812 This video is an improvisation (of what piece I don't know) played by Hubert Trojanek. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Choir Man Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 How do you prepare to play a recital on an instrument you've never played before? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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