Organs on Google Street-view

[SomeChap]

Is Beverley Minster the only organ-loft to have been mapped on Google Street View?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Beverley+Minster/@53.8392407,-0.4246845,3a,75y,111.54h,64.33t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAF1QipN-soByCvrxpRh64R6pfi7qmCtxhPvCPA3cOH7-!2e10!3e11!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x4878c7100feffffd:0xf085449cfe09d50a!8m2!3d53.8392946!4d-0.4244797

(Edited to add: unless I'm mistaken that's the Buxtehude Jig Fugue on the music desk!  Anyone know who's playing?  He looks justifiably pleased with himself!)

[S_L]

Thanks for posting those wonderful pictures of one of my all time favourite buildings - I have known Beverley Minster all my life. The late Peter Fletcher, the Minster organist, gave me my first 'cello lesson and I have played 'continuo' in there so many times (usually in the freezing cold!!!)

And the pictures of the 'Crumbs Deli' reminds me of things that I miss about the UK - 'Hand raised Pork Pies with cranberry'!!!!

Sorry to hijack your thread! - but Beverley Minster (and pork pies!!) mean so much to me!!

[SomeChap]

Oh, hijack away by all means: it's not as though I'm trying to answer any serious academic questions! I will make sure I stuff my face with assess the pork pies next time I'm in Beverley.

Still interested in any organ-related Google-Street-view nuggets though if anyone has come across them!

[SomeChap]

OK, not quite in the same league but you can see the back of the organ console of Derby Cathedral here:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Derby+Cathedral/@52.9249033,-1.4772985,3a,75y,118.9h,78.56t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAF1QipMQ7r3BNRd6pvs3AQq36Y3jzREUkPelXVAvn88V!2e10!3e11!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x4879f13e1ad62337:0x4b652586d98716fc!8m2!3d52.924812!4d-1.477404?hl=en

Quite a few of the cathedrals have been street-viewed inside, it turns out - Lincoln, Norwich, Canterbury, Derby, Gloucester, Durham, Southwark, St Edmundsbury, Chelmsford, Wells and possibly others (not Ely, St Paul's (except the crypt, whispering gallery and dome!), York, Carlisle, Exeter, Chester, Worcester, Truro, Rochester, St Alban's, Chichester, Hereford, Southwell or Salisbury if that saves anyone some time!).

[handsoff]

I just wish that I'd been at Beverley when the Google van with its revolving camera was driving around the Minster...

[Contrabombarde]

How utterly mesmerizing. I can't figure out how to get onto the balcony from the nave however, does anyone know where the stairs to the organ loft are at Beverley?

Regarding other cathedrals, I can't figure out how to get down from the dome into the nave at St Paul's Cathedral, though you can walk around the Whispering Gallery, from which you get a fine view of the Dome Organ.

But surely the weirdest Google Street view of organ pipes has to be on the outside wall of the Morrisons superstore in Wednesbury, West Midlands. I think the sculpture was supposed to represent examples of local historic industry, though the only organbuilders I was aware of in the local area, Nicholson and Lord, had their workshop three miles away in central Walsall. It's now a carpet warehouse.

[S_L]

9 hours ago, Contrabombarde said:

How utterly mesmerizing. I can't figure out how to get onto the balcony from the nave however, does anyone know where the stairs to the organ loft are at Beverley?

 

As you stand facing the main organ case there is an aisle going down the left hand outside of the choir stalls - towards where the Chapter House might have been.. As you go through the entrance to the side aisle the spiral staircase is immediately to your right. I can't get it to show!

[ajsphead]

10 hours ago, Contrabombarde said:

How utterly mesmerizing. I can't figure out how to get onto the balcony from the nave however, does anyone know where the stairs to the organ loft are at Beverley?

Regarding other cathedrals, I can't figure out how to get down from the dome into the nave at St Paul's Cathedral, though you can walk around the Whispering Gallery, from which you get a fine view of the Dome Organ.

But surely the weirdest Google Street view of organ pipes has to be on the outside wall of the Morrisons superstore in Wednesbury, West Midlands. I think the sculpture was supposed to represent examples of local historic industry, though the only organbuilders I was aware of in the local area, Nicholson and Lord, had their workshop three miles away in central Walsall. It's now a carpet warehouse.

Seeing this reminds me whether St Paul's is the only organ with an en chamade 32' reed on the pedals.

[Choir Man]

The best surely has to be the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Where you can wonder around inside the instrument!

 

[Philip J Wells]

2 hours ago, ajsphead said:

Seeing this reminds me whether St Paul's is the only organ with an en chamade 32' reed on the pedals.

Christchurch Priory is (or was) also horizontal above the south nave. There is a picture of mine on the NPOR showing this  http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=D06714

 

[S_L]

13 hours ago, Contrabombarde said:

But surely the weirdest Google Street view of organ pipes has to be on the outside wall of the Morrisons superstore in Wednesbury, West Midlands. I think the sculpture was supposed to represent examples of local historic industry, though the only organbuilders I was aware of in the local area, Nicholson and Lord, had their workshop three miles away in central Walsall. It's now a carpet warehouse.

I'm told that the site now occupied by Morrisons superstore in Wednesbury originally had a Methodist church on the site - hence the organ pipes and the large figure of Wesley.

[SomeChap]

Ten out of ten for flagging up the Elbphilharmonie! I think they've done an amazing job of blending the organ in with the building's architecture.  You get to see both consoles as well!

You can get up, close and personal with the Bridgewater Hall Marcussen as well, though sadly the console is shut up.  You can also get fairly close to the Hill in Sydney Town Hall, and the Elton John organ at the RAM

Otherwise I can only find organs which are easily accessible from the floor of the building they stand in, like the RC shrine in Walsingham

If we're allowed to include 3rd-party panoramas from other street-view users (as opposed to real street-view captures then I can give you a nice view of the two organs at Douai Abbey, and the Woodstock at Fotheringhay,. the Letourneau at Pembroke college Oxford  and the Kenneth Jones at Great St Mary's in Cambridge.

Across the north see you can get a good look at the Koororgel in the Bovenkerk in Kampen

[DaveHarries]

On 3/21/2018 at 13:30, SomeChap said:

I will make sure I stuff my face with assess the pork pies next time I'm in Beverley.

Same thing as far as you are concerned, I am guessing? 

Dave

[SomeChap]

On 3/24/2018 at 20:00, DaveHarries said:

Same thing as far as you are concerned, I am guessing? 

Dave

If something's worth doing, it's worth doing properly!

Mea culpa, I forgot St Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham

[SomeChap]

... aha, and St Wulfram's Grantham, complete with organist.

[SomeChap]

Given that the OP specified Organ Lofts, I'm not sure nave consoles count, but the one at St Eustache in Paris seems to get a fair bit of tourist attention so I thought I'd include it - there are a few amateur panos on street-view, most of them of poor quality but this is probably the best of the bunch.

[SomeChap]

... c1700 Gerard Smith at Wollaton Hall ...

[SomeChap]

Ooh, here's a good one:  Organist's-eye view from Weingarten.

Make sure you ook up to see the grape-bells above your head.

Bonus: conductor's-eye view from the other side of the console.

[SomeChap]

Or what about the Compenius at Frederiksborg?

Edited March 26, 2018 by SomeChap
fixed wrong link

[David Drinkell]

Weingarten again - wonderful instrument! Nothing else quite like it, in my experience.

Frederiksborg is one on my bucket list.......

[Choir Man]

Weingarten has always fascinated me as one of those mechanical marvels with many different bits in different places. The photo from the conductor's position shows many of the access panels that are required. However I never realised that there was a space in front of the console for conductor and choir. On the conductor's stand there is a piece of organ music, I can make out the word 'Overture' in the title, can anyone recognise the piece from the music?

On a seperate note the position of the console feels very much 'inside' the organ. There are no pipes behind the organist but many around and in front. Do members know of any other consoles so disposed?

[S_L]

1 hour ago, Choir Man said:

 I can make out the word 'Overture' in the title, can anyone recognise the piece from the music?

 

Mozart - KV399

 

There is a recording of it here: 

 

[David Drinkell]

9 hours ago, Choir Man said:

Weingarten has always fascinated me as one of those mechanical marvels with many different bits in different places. The photo from the conductor's position shows many of the access panels that are required. However I never realised that there was a space in front of the console for conductor and choir. On the conductor's stand there is a piece of organ music, I can make out the word 'Overture' in the title, can anyone recognise the piece from the music?

On a seperate note the position of the console feels very much 'inside' the organ. There are no pipes behind the organist but many around and in front. Do members know of any other consoles so disposed?

The Gabler organ at Ochsenhausen has a similarly disposed console.  I have an idea that it wasn't originally so, but when the people saw the Weingarten console they wanted one too, and Gabler built a new console to replace his original one.  

One hears the Weingarten organ reasonably well from the console, although the large bells - arranged to look like bunches of grapes above the console - can shock the unwary.  Ochsenhausen has a carillon too, but not arranged as at Weingarten.  The equivalent pun at Ochsenhausen is that when you draw the zimbelstern a little ox comes out of his house on top of the positiv case and takes a walk.

The Riepp organs at Ottobeuren are played from consoles in a sort of tunnel - not detached but certainly feeling more remote from the pipes than Weingarten.

Rather more mundane locations with buried consoles include Monkland, Herefordshire (http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N18283), where you have to walk round the organ to get to a cubby hole containing the console.  Possibly built like this to avoid the overt presence of women in the chancel, should the organist at the time have been such.  The incumbent was the Revd. Sir Herbert Baker, one of the original editors of Hymns Ancient & Modern and a High Churchman.  The organ was designed by Ouseley.  The console of the Wordsworth at Sledmere Church, Yorkshire,(http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N08151), is boxed in, too, residing in quite a deep alcove beneath the Temple Moore case.

[Damian Beasley-Suffolk]

Re: sitting (almost) inside an organ, the Wood organ in the chapel of St Edmund's Hall, Oxford is odd. The facade is placed on the wall just to the left of the chapel entrance, with no visible console. I read very recently, but of course cannot now retrieve, that the console is at the back of this organ, in an adjoining room,. The organist apparently peers through the organ to see what's going on. Odd, but not unknown here in the Netherlands where some organs have consoles at the back of the instrument, the organist either looking through the instrument, or relying on a couple of very large mirrors.

Newcastle Cathedral has its console (both the old one and the temorary electronic) in a kind of wooden cubicle next to the choir division, I think the organist peers through a gap in the panelling because I didn't see a video screen when I looked. It must feel very remote.

My booklet on the history of Durham Cathedral's Willis organ says that it wasn't finished for the dedication, so the cathedral organist sat at the console playing the manuals, while HW himself actually sat inside the organ at a makeshift bench and pedals playing them when needed.

If only people really knew what organists get up to when we think nobody's watching ...

[John Robinson]

On 27/03/2018 at 08:51, Choir Man said:

Weingarten has always fascinated me as one of those mechanical marvels with many different bits in different places. The photo from the conductor's position shows many of the access panels that are required.

Yes, I too find Weingarten a fascinating organ.  A couple of other interesting things about it are that whereas most of the instrument is played by tracker action (which must be quite complicated in layout), the Kronwerk section is connected to the Oberwerk by (presumably lead) conduits.  The other thing that comes to mind is that there is one rank of pipes, I think a Vox Humana in the Rückpositiv, that is made of ivory.  Not too many of them around these days, I'm sure!

Edited March 28, 2018 by John Robinson
Spelling mistake