Merton College, Oxford

[innate]

although you mention the Mander Organ in New York, to be honest how many churches, universities, schools etc in the USA would approach the UK for a new organ to be built, because they probably have a sense of loyalty to their own organ builders, which we don't have.

Colin Richell.

OK, after a few minutes I've found organs in the USA as follows:

 

Frobenius: 4 organs between 1972 and 1996, total of 115 stops

Marcussen: 4 organs, total of 142 stops

Klais: 9 organs, including one of 50 stops

Rieger: 2 since 2000, 7 between 1985 and 2000 and a massive 38 instruments imported by the USA between 1970 and 1985.

 

Does that match your impression of their sense of loyalty to their own organ builders?

[MusingMuso]

Is that a hunch, or can you back up your claim with research, Colin? There are several Manders in the US and some other recent British organs, not to mention many German and Austrian (1) instruments over the last 50 years. More recently, I think there have been some French imports. The large new(-ish) organ in the Disney Hall in Los Angeles is a collaboration between a US builder and a German builder.

 

(1) <edited to add: and Danish>

 

=============================

 

Absolutely right, and to that I would add Flentrop and Rieger-Kloss among others.

 

What strikes me about American organists and academia especially, is a willingness to embrace ALL the historic styles, tuning tempraments and national styles; even if that means imprting them from the best builders in Europe.

 

That was happening, of course, in the 1950's,and gathered pace as time went on.

 

Then the best American builders learned from these instruments and started to adopt the techniques,using the still fine materials available in America. The end result has been a spectacular increase in quality, backed by absolutely fantastic, down to the last detail craftsmanship; some builders not just incorporating historical precedents, but actually creating near perfect copies of great European organ-building styles.

 

This is why America now leads the world, because even in hard times, academia and churchgoing still mean something, and there is money available.

 

As a musical country, the Americans have absorbed all that is best in scholarship, and far from being insular or nationilistic, the academically-minded have truly mastered both the art and the craft.

 

MM

 

PS: Knowing how greatly the Americans appreciate the English choral tradition, (sometimes with a hint of snobbery involved), I'm genuinely surprised and perhaps a little disappointed that no Willis organs have been built there to date. Come on David, get the export market moving! They need the Willis sound.

[Henry Willis]

=============================

 

PS: Knowing how greatly the Americans appreciate the English choral tradition, (sometimes with a hint of snobbery involved), I'm genuinely surprised and perhaps a little disappointed that no Willis organs have been built there to date. Come on David, get the export market moving! They need the Willis sound.

 

We're doing what we can

 

We did the American Church in Florence, which I suppose is technically 'American'? And, if you'll note the lateness of the hour, it's 11am here in Auckland in New Zealand, where installation begins today at St. Matthew's.

 

DW

[Colin Richell]

=============================

 

Absolutely right, and to that I would add Flentrop and Rieger-Kloss among others.

 

What strikes me about American organists and academia especially, is a willingness to embrace ALL the historic styles, tuning tempraments and national styles; even if that means imprting them from the best builders in Europe.

 

That was happening, of course, in the 1950's,and gathered pace as time went on.

 

Then the best American builders learned from these instruments and started to adopt the techniques,using the still fine materials available in America. The end result has been a spectacular increase in quality, backed by absolutely fantastic, down to the last detail craftsmanship; some builders not just incorporating historical precedents, but actually creating near perfect copies of great European organ-building styles.

 

This is why America now leads the world, because even in hard times, academia and churchgoing still mean something, and there is money available.

 

As a musical country, the Americans have absorbed all that is best in scholarship, and far from being insular or nationilistic, the academically-minded have truly mastered both the art and the craft.

 

MM

 

PS: Knowing how greatly the Americans appreciate the English choral tradition, (sometimes with a hint of snobbery involved), I'm genuinely surprised and perhaps a little disappointed that no Willis organs have been built there to date. Come on David, get the export market moving! They need the Willis sound.

[Colin Richell]

I bow to your superior knowledge and I am delighted that Manders have been able to supply the USA !

Colin Richell.

[MusingMuso]

I bow to your superior knowledge and I am delighted that Manders have been able to supply the USA !

Colin Richell.

 

=================

 

It's actually quite interesting that the American organists and organ-builders do not trumpet (or is it Trompette?) their achievements abroad, but they don't.

 

We all know the names of Virgil Fox, Aeolian-Skinner, Wurlitzer, Cameron Carpenter and Carlo Curley, but beyond that, we hear little about what is going on there for the most part.

 

I wonder if the American organ-scene isn't self-contained rather than insular, and they feel no great need to export what they have achieved.

 

There's a whole swathe of American organ-composers; mostly unheard of in the UK, who really are very good.

 

I feel tempted to do another virtual coach-journey, except that we would need a year's research, a private jet rather than a bus, twenty episodes rather than three or four, and an almost encyclopedic knowlegde of 20th century and contemporary music history......in a word.....daunting!

 

Perhaps a "virtual organ-crawl" would be a better way of going about it, which would relieve me of the task of trying to understand all the international musical influences involved.

 

I know that when I was over there for a while, my exposure to the organ-scene was but a "taster," but my words, what an eye-opener it was, and it's got a lot more varied and complex since. My emotions ranged from "Ugh!" to "Ah!" and from "Good grief" to "Wow!" Sometimes it was in just one city, and in a quiet moment, I reflected on the number of 4m instruments and bigger. I forget where it was that I counted over forty 4m instruments (and more)in a twenty-mile radius, but it may well have been New York.

 

MM