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Which is the most beautiful old Bourdon you have played?


Nigel Allcoat

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There have been a few, but last week when I was on holiday in the UK, I encountered a beautiful Stop'd Diapason on the new Peter Bumstead organ (based on an instrument of about 1840 from a Methodist church in Draycott, Somerset) at Brundish Church, Suffolk. Apart from the aforesaid SD, it's a very nice little job altogether, with a simple but effective case based on the Sutton one at Great Bardfield. It's just appeared on NPOR:

 

http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=K00988

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Guest Salamine
The Great Bourdon 16' at Selby - put it up an octave and it "outflutes" any of the others!

Indeed - I almost invariably find that H and H Great Organ Bourdons are much better played out of normal range, much more useful (especially on their smaller 2 - 3 manual instruments) - often less hooty than their Great organ flutes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

There is a little village just north of Salisbury called West Lavington, wherein resides a 2m Bishop and Starr of c. 1860, which has a Great Clarabella of simply remarkable quality. Rather like a pear drop, it's uniformly smooth and sweet but there is just a mere hint of the best sort of acidity. Incidentally, the same instrument also has the most charming 4' Flute I have ever encountered.

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