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Guest Andrew Butler

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Guest Andrew Butler

Talking of unusual stops (see Keraulophon topic) has anyone come across one of these? There used to be one on tye Great at St Mary The Virgin, Rolvenden, Kent, until about 1978. I remember it as a soft, stringy/fluty diapason.......

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Talking of unusual stops (see Keraulophon topic) has anyone come across one of these?  There used to be one on tye Great at St Mary The Virgin, Rolvenden, Kent, until about 1978. I remember it as a soft, stringy/fluty diapason.......

 

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I'm not sure where I would check this out, but I seem to recall that this particular name derived from the Coursel (Sp?) company, who were trade organ-pipe makers.

 

MM

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I know someone who will know about Courcelle as his house organ was built by this company - I could pass on queries if anyone wants. Strangely also the new big Klais/Glatter-Goetz in Moscow has a Courcellina on the Solo. 'Not sure quite where the link between this and a 19th Century London organ builder comes from however - see:

 

http://www.klais.de/m.php?tx=57)

 

A stringy/fluty diapason will be lost amongst that lot though!!

 

AJJ

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Reminds me of Lance Foy's 4ft Wherly Flute on the Swell at King Charles the Martyr, Falmouth, Cornwall. I think the name must have something to do with Liskeard firm of Don Wherly Organ Pipes.

 

I've no idea what it sounds like: I don't know the organ myself - though I might perhaps recognise the chunks of it that used to be my organ in Bristol many years ago!

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I know someone who will know about Courcelle as his house organ was built by this company - I could pass on queries if anyone wants. Strangely also the new big Klais/Glatter-Goetz in Moscow has a Courcellina on the Solo. 'Not sure quite where the link between this and a 19th Century London organ builder comes from however - see:

 

http://www.klais.de/m.php?tx=57)

 

A stringy/fluty diapason will be lost amongst that lot though!!

 

AJJ

 

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

 

Apparently, Courcelle built organs for Australia, though whether they all still exist I do not know.

 

Do I take it that Courcelle the organ-builder also supplied pipes to the trade?

 

It's certainly a name I came across when I was about 15 years of age, and it was to do with pipes rather than whole organs.

 

Does anyone know?

 

MM

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Had I gazed at the NPOR records, I would have largely answered my own question.

 

Courcelle (as a company) were certainly involved in both organ-building and pipe-making, but what interests me is the fact that the Alfred Palmer company (pipe-suppliers) seems to have grown out of the Courcelle one.

 

The plot thickens a little, in that during the period when the company name was Courcelle, it is reputed that they supplied pipes to Forster & Andrews, and they in turn were interested in the Schulze style.

 

I've never been able to establish a link, but I just wonder "if" Courcelle didn't make pipes for Schulze?

 

Perhaps we may never know.

 

MM

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Had I gazed at the NPOR records, I would have largely answered my own question.

 

Courcelle (as a company) were certainly involved in both organ-building and pipe-making, but what interests me is the fact that the Alfred Palmer company (pipe-suppliers) seems to have grown out of the Courcelle one.

 

The plot thickens a little, in that during the period when the company name was Courcelle,  it is reputed that they supplied pipes to Forster & Andrews, and they in turn were interested in the Schulze style.

 

I've never been able to establish a link, but I just wonder "if" Courcelle didn't make pipes for Schulze?

 

Perhaps we may never know.

 

MM

 

Hi

 

I'm currently reading Bryan Hughes book on Schultz (very interesting) - so far the only builders mentioned as supply pipes for Shultz organs are Brindley & Foster & Andrews (but that doesn't mean Courcelle didn't)

 

Every Blessing

 

Tony

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I'm currently reading Bryan Hughes book on Schultz (very interesting) - so far the only builders mentioned as supply pipes for Shultz organs are Brindley & Foster & Andrews (but that doesn't mean Courcelle didn't)

 

 

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You've re-written history Tony!! It's FoRster & Andrews and Brindley & Foster.

Of course, we know what you MEAN.

 

The fascinating thing about Schulze is the fact that there was such a strong local connection, and things are not as entirely German as one may suspect at first reckoning. Charles Brindley was known to be a superb pipe-voicer, and the organ he built for Selby Abbey was certainly respected. His workmen he shared with Schulze, and they in turn, helped Brindley, who at the time of the Doncaster organ, was busily working (if memory serves me correctly....my floppy disc-drive died) in the school, where worship had been held after the disastrous fire which destoyed the old Ward/Hill organ whilst it was being "Germanised" according to the Hill/Gauntlett taste of the day. I presume (I should never presume anything..I know) that Brindley was removing the organ in the school, or somesuch, and like the Schulze men, they would all have "taken rooms" in Doncaster for the duration.

 

What fun it would be to have been a historic fly-on-the-wall to their conversations and exchanges!!

 

The fact that Brindley built a stupendous organ for Centenary Methodist Church, Dewsbury (now destroyed) with an almost identical Great Organ stop-list to that found at Armley, and with much the same eclat and force, suggests that he learned a great deal from Schulze. I knew this organ well and helped tune it many times as a spotty-kid. It was a fabulous sound, with a very German terrace of dynamics....a dominant Great, secondary Swell and almost an Echo version of an English Choir Organ. Any Brindley organ of that special period (around the 1870's) is worth keeping and treasuring.

 

It may have had something to do with the fact that when Schulze departed these shores, not all his workmen used their return tickets to Germany, and one Karl Schulze (no relative) stayed, and eventually became head-voicer to the Brindley company, before moving to take up employment with Alfred Keats, also of Sheffield.

 

Tony has now added a bit of a missing link, because I was aware of the fact that Schulze did not make his own metal-pipes, and when the crates arrived in Hull, they would have contained all the wooden parts and pipes only. The most obvious place to get metal-pipes would have been Hull, from which rail-transport to Doncaster would have been relatively easy (these things mattered much more in those days). However, Forster & Andrews were known to have obtained pipes from the (Frenchman?) Courcelle in Marylebone, London, again using the obvious rail-links twixt one and t'other, presumably. (I'm presuming again!)

 

My own gut-feeling is that Courcelle probably DID make pipes for Schulze, but by some circuitous method and transport-route, unless of course, they went straight to Doncaster by train (again, and excellent train-link to London), and were invoiced from either Sheffield or Hull as the case may be.

 

And why do I think this?

 

Well, those Schulze reeds are thin, continental sounding things, just as were the ones slotted into the pipe-racks of so many Brindley & Foster organs. The link just has to be there on the aural evidence alone, but at least I am now a tiny-step nearer to understanding what may have taken place in what was clearly a very international effort.

 

Of course, it also explains the German style of Brindley, and the copy-cat attempts by Forster & Andrews, which included the "Schulze" style organ at All Soul's, Hayley Hill, Halifax, which utilised ranks of pipes allegedly by Schulze.....which we know ain't true, because they're all metal !!

 

I suppose we'll next learn that Agatha Christie had links to Hill, Norman & Beard !!

 

MM

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

 

I suppose we'll next learn that Agatha Christie had links to Hill, Norman & Beard !!

 

MM

 

 

And why not ? After all Percy Whitlock had links with Dorothy Sayers. ("For D.L.S. and Harriet" is the dedication of one of his pieces but I cannot recall which)

 

 

BAC

 

PS For the avoidance of doubt I do "get" the Christie reference. Where did you say the marble Arch organ was located ?

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

 

You've re-written history Tony!!  It's FoRster & Andrews and Brindley & Foster.

Of course, we know what you MEAN.

 

 

Tony has now added a bit of a missing link, because I was aware of the fact that Schulze did not make his own metal-pipes, and when the crates arrived in Hull, they would have contained all the wooden parts and pipes only. The most obvious place to get metal-pipes would have been Hull, from which rail-transport to Doncaster would have been relatively easy (these things mattered much more in those days). However, Forster & Andrews were known to have obtained pipes from the (Frenchman?) Courcelle in Marylebone, London, again using the obvious rail-links twixt one and t'other, presumably. (I'm presuming again!)

 

My own gut-feeling is that Courcelle probably DID make pipes for Schulze, but by some circuitous method and transport-route, unless of course, they went straight to Doncaster by train (again, and excellent train-link to London), and were invoiced from either Sheffield or  Hull as the case may be.

 

MM

 

Hi

 

Sorry about the typos!

 

Further info (from Bryan Hughes' book p.190);-

"Charles Brindley, ... had played a greater role in Schukze's success in England than has sometimes been realised. In 1868, he acquired the pipe making concern of Edward Violette of London, who had supplied most of the metal pipework for Doncaster Parish Church in 1861-2. Tin was cheaper in England than in Europe and it would be economical for Schulze to obtain his supplies from "Violette" and later from Charles Brindley. The metal pipes were manufactured to Schulze's scales and directions and voiced "onsite" by Schulze for the instruments at Tyne Dock, Leeds Parish Church and St. Peter's Church, Hindley, with the exception being Meanwood Towers, Leeds."

 

As I said earlier there are also some links with Forster & Andrews.

 

All very interesting.

 

Every Blessing

 

Tony

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I know someone who will know about Courcelle as his house organ was built by this company - I could pass on queries if anyone wants. Strangely also the new big Klais/Glatter-Goetz in Moscow has a Courcellina on the Solo. 'Not sure quite where the link between this and a 19th Century London organ builder comes from however - see:

 

http://www.klais.de/m.php?tx=57)

 

A stringy/fluty diapason will be lost amongst that lot though!!

 

AJJ

 

For that matter, what is a Vox Balanae? (Pedal, 64p same instrument?)

:(

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Hi

 

Sorry about the typos!

 

Further info (from Bryan Hughes' book p.190);-

"Charles Brindley, ... had played a greater role in Schukze's success in England than has sometimes been realised. In 1868, he acquired the pipe making concern of Edward Violette of London, who had supplied most of the metal pipework for Doncaster Parish Church in 1861-2. Tin was cheaper in England than in Europe and it would be economical for Schulze to obtain his supplies from "Violette" and later from Charles Brindley. The metal pipes were manufactured to Schulze's scales and directions and voiced "onsite" by Schulze for the instruments at Tyne Dock, Leeds Parish Church and St. Peter's Church, Hindley, with the exception being Meanwood Towers, Leeds."

 

As I said earlier there are also some links with Forster & Andrews.

 

All very interesting.

 

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

 

Well, that seems to confirm what I had always thought, but with the name Violette rather than Courcelle. I believe Violette also supplied pipes to Fr.Wilis!

 

It becomes especially tragic to think that the wonderful....and it was wonderful....instrument at Dewsbury Methodists is no longer, for it would have remained as the supreme example of an "English" Schulze, from which stuidents of the instrument might have been able to hear from themselves the extraordinary influence which Schulze brought to bear, and the success that Charles Brindley had in imitating the sound. (Or was that Karl Schulze?)

 

How odd, that after teaming-up with Foster, the Brindley company became one of the most standardised factory-style builders of all, as the influence of Charles Brindley gave way to commercial considerations.

 

At least Brindley & Foster gave us John Compton!

 

MM

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For that matter, what is a Vox Balanae? (Pedal, 64p same instrument?)

:(

Cologne Cathedral has one of these too. So does St Fridolin's, Munster, but there it only plays the bottom note (a resultant one, of course) - presumably you use it much as you would a thunder pedal.
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Cologne Cathedral has one of these too.

 

I presume you mean the large Klais which skulks in the angle between the North Transept and the North Choir Aisle?

 

Has it been added in the recent (2002?) rebuild? I do not recall such a stop listed on the specification given in the booklet which accompanied the CD recorded by Cochereau.

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