Pershore Abbey

[undamaris 0]

Looks like Fratelli Ruffati are getting a toe hold in the UK now - I see Pershore Abbey are commissioning them to build a new three manual organ to the tune of £850,000. A meeting on the 27th will be held to decide on how it will be funded, as well as details of the specification etc

[AJJ 0]

Here it is.

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[undamaris 0]

I like the look of it - wonder if they will find somewhere to put a chamade reed?

[SomeChap 0]

How exciting - I love the case; it matches the building beautifully and looks about the right size. 850k seems a lot of gravy for a 3-decker though (or is it these days?).  I presume it's going to be electric action with a detached console?

Very very good that Pershore is emerging from the wilderness of electronic organs.  Somewhere online there are minutes of the woes the PCC had in trying to find somewhere appropriate to put an organ in the face of considerable resistance from the Victorian society and the DAC, and of their struggles with early electronics - at one point I believe they were considering an offer to install the Carlo Curley Allen organ - did it ever get there?

Years ago John Norman wrote an article on the acoustics of Pershore (he'd had some tests done professionally) and I dimly remember that the location of this Rufatti wasn't his preference.   I might be able to dig it out, watch this space ...

Best of luck to the fund-raising team; they are righting a wrong going back many decades.

 

 

[undamaris 0]

I don't think Carlo Curley's touring Allen got installed - I believe a Bradford Computing organ was the instrument of choice after the old Nicholson/Walker was scrapped.

[David Drinkell 0]

I have an idea that the then-current Allen did spend some time at Pershore when Carlo was elsewhere.  I know that one of them was in Harwich Church, Essex for a while (Carlo's friend Michael Woodward, the record producer was connected with the church), where it was much appreciated.  The resident organ, an historic one by Flight which was reputed to have been sunk and salvaged on the way from London,  was in an extreme state of decrepitude when I first played it, c.1969, and had apparently been so for many years.  It was finally restored (by Peter Bumstead of Ipswich) in 1992.  A touring organ was also stored in St. Mary, Southtown, Great Yarmouth, for a period, and last time Carlo played at Belfast Cathedral, what was billed as the touring organ was in fact the one from Beaconsfield Parish Church, Bucks, shipped over for the occasion.

[AJJ 0]

I have a feeling that a previous incumbent at Pershore was a good friend of CC and that CC’s memorial service was actually held there. It will be interesting to see what Ruffatti come up with. Certainly, on paper at least their more recent instruments look decidedly tonally ‘eclectic’ and almost even random. Having heard their work only via recordings however, I do not feel qualified to fairly judge this aspect.

Off topic but does anyone know any more about the ‘what and why’ of their work on the Tickell at Keble College Oxford? I heard it not long after its creation and it sounded very fine then. 

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[S_L 0]

20 hours ago, AJJ said:

I have a feeling that a previous incumbent at Pershore was a good friend of CC and that CC’s memorial service was actually held there.

A

Yes, that's correct - Carlo Curley's ashes are buried within the grounds of Pershore Abbey

[DHM 0]

Anybody who knows better please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe Carlo's former organ (or one of them) is now at Sutton Valence School in Kent.

[S_L 0]

1 hour ago, DHM said:

Anybody who knows better please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe Carlo's former organ (or one of them) is now at Sutton Valence School in Kent.

I know that one of his former organs is in the Roman Catholic Forces Cathedral, of St. Michael and St. George, in Aldershot.

[David Drinkell 0]

So, as we can see, there were a number of touring organs and it's likely that several of them are now installed somewhere or other.  Virgil Fox had at least one Allen touring organ (as well as the earlier "Black Beauty" by Rodgers).  At least one of Carlo's was advertised for sale in "Musical Opinion".

I remember playing the ex-Free Trade Hall Compton Electrone  in its subsequent home in a house in St. John's Wood.  An impressive beast for its period (it followed closely on the heels of the temporary Electrone which Compton made for the Festival Hall before the Harrison went in).

 

Sorry, getting off-topic here......

[Andrew Butler 0]

On ‎11‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 08:06, DHM said:

Anybody who knows better please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe Carlo's former organ (or one of them) is now at Sutton Valence School in Kent.

Not sure what was there before (may have been an Allen but I have a feeling it was a Makin...) but Sutton Valence now have a custom Viscount.

[Contrabombarde 0]

Oh dear, a thread appears about an exciting new Italian pipe organ and half the posts seem to be about various types of toasters (in the case of the Comptons, you probably could use them to make toast...)

On the topic of toasters however, i wonder if they have ever been used in a big space when designing a pipe organ to test how the acoustics would vary depending on its siting? Of course an organ designer could do the same experiment just as easily with a few big speakers hauled around the church. Given the (probably rare) situation where there is a genuine choice of locations in which to install a pipe organ in a building, how does one go about determining the most suitable location, bearing in mind the comments attributed to John Norman at Pershore Abbey above?

[Vox Humana 0]

10 hours ago, Contrabombarde said:

On the topic of toasters however, i wonder if they have ever been used in a big space when designing a pipe organ to test how the acoustics would vary depending on its siting?

 

They did try a couple of options at Buckfast.

[AJJ 0]

Regarding the Pershore and Buckfast instruments I wonder whether the tonal designs stem from repertoir, liturgical or a sort of ‘wouldn’t it be nice if we had...’ considerations or maybe a mixture of these. The Persore details seem not to be generally available yet but I would be interested to know the rationale behind some of the Buckfast elements both tonal and in the general concept.

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[Barry Oakley 0]

Must say that I'm more than a touch mystified as to why the new Ruffatti at Buckfast contains a stop listed as "Bagpipes." I can't see or imagine its use in a liturgical sense other than during the feasts of St Andrew or another Scottish saint.

[Vox Humana 0]

14 minutes ago, Barry Oakley said:

Must say that I'm more than a touch mystified as to why the new Ruffatti at Buckfast contains a stop listed as "Bagpipes."

Three stops, actually - see the console photo on the Buckfast thread. I have no idea whether they are full ranks or single pipes. From the stop knobs I'd guess the latter.

[Jonathan Lane 0]

Seems remarkably good value for money!

[David55 0]

On 11/22/2017 at 15:06, Andrew Butler said:

Not sure what was there before (may have been an Allen but I have a feeling it was a Makin...) but Sutton Valence now have a custom Viscount.

Sutton Valence did indeed have an older Carlo touring organ which was replaced 2 years ago by a new Regent Classic digital organ from Viscount.