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Death of a major Compton announced


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4 hours ago, carrick said:

@MusingMuso For your benefit, here's a spec straight from the Civic Hall Compton console, working in sides reading from left to right. Row 1 is the bottom stop rail, Row 3 is the top stop rail. The Krummet was replaced by the Sax. 

Left Stop Jamb
Row 1 - Pedal
32ft Harmonics of
16ft Harmonics of  ETC ETC

As for prices for a new organ - I've always gone along the lines of others, budget for £10-15k per rank and you shouldn't too far off the mark. A new English Horn (theatre organ) will cost about £3500 for the pipework, plus the cost of the chest, winding, labour. 

That's wonderful, thank you very much!   :)  It's the first time I've seen the definitive stop-list, which actually looks VERY close to what I'd worked it out to be from a variety of sources. The notable error was my inclusion of a Vox Humana replacing the Krummet, which I think came from the NPOR listing.

It's interesting, but £15K per rank works out at just short of £800,000, but as destroyed, we would have to include all the percussions, traps, effects and the Grand Piano attachment.

Once again, many thanks.

MM

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No problem at all! 57 ranks at those prices work out between £570,000 to £860,000 from new.  Percussions, traps, effects are all available second hand, and you can always have a digitally sampled piano, there are some pretty impressive samples out there for things like Kontact software etc. The possibilities these days in organ building are almost limitless, with the exception of space and budget. 

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  • 4 months later...

During the Forum’s quieter periods one discovers threads from 10 or 15 years ago, still with interesting and topical material.  I have just gleaned the fact that the rebuilds (or restorations) at St Alban’s Abbey and St Mary Redcliffe both involved asbestos removal (although not in the instrument itself at St Albans).  Pierre Lauwers (very much missed for his seemingly universal organ knowledge and input) joined the discussion with the Belgian experience and perspective, even arguing for retention of asbestos where totally contained as the inner filling of the walls of swell boxes where there was no risk of escape and contamination.  

I think it is generally agreed that the asbestos excuse at Wolverhampton was spurious.

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It was certainly contrived and spurious, because long before the demise of the  organ, the management of the hall wanted to make vertical space available for stage flies, which would have brought it into line with other, rather better venues, and project the hall into the first rank of visual experiences.

If that was the agenda, then the removal of the organ was not without justification, in an age which has made the organ unfashionable. To that end, the City Council did the right thing by appointing the late Steve Tovey as their consultant, with a view to finding a home for the instrument. However, with remarkable speed, following the death of Mr Tovey, certain members of the council seemed to regard this as a green light to simply scrap the instrument in order to hasten the conversion of the hall.

Again, I am not without empathy, but simply scrapping such a splendid and thoroughly well made instrument was, in my view, an act of criminal vandalism. The instrument could have been advertised for sale internationally, and it seems unlikely to me, that there wouldn't have been potential buyers; as the sale of numerous church organs to Germany has shown in recent years.

MM

 

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15 hours ago, MusoMusing said:

It was certainly contrived and spurious, because long before the demise of the  organ, the management of the hall wanted to make vertical space available for stage flies, which would have brought it into line with other, rather better venues, and project the hall into the first rank of visual experiences.

If that was the agenda, then the removal of the organ was not without justification, in an age which has made the organ unfashionable. To that end, the City Council did the right thing by appointing the late Steve Tovey as their consultant, with a view to finding a home for the instrument. However, with remarkable speed, following the death of Mr Tovey, certain members of the council seemed to regard this as a green light to simply scrap the instrument in order to hasten the conversion of the hall.

Again, I am not without empathy, but simply scrapping such a splendid and thoroughly well made instrument was, in my view, an act of criminal vandalism. The instrument could have been advertised for sale internationally, and it seems unlikely to me, that there wouldn't have been potential buyers; as the sale of numerous church organs to Germany has shown in recent years.

MM

 

I wonder how many pipe organs are being “skipped” these days instead of being found new homes? Sheffield Cathedral has been without a main pipe organ for over 20 years, a toaster replacing it. The Cathedral’s website no longer carries any news of progress in either sourcing a brand new pipe organ or a good used replacement. Meanwhile I guess that rumours are still doing the rounds in local circles that at one time included interest in the Parr Hall instrument and a new creation from Swiss builder, Kuhn. Wolverhampton’s former Compton could well have been an ideal solution.

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4 hours ago, MusoMusing said:

I never thought of Sheffield, but you are right.  Not only that, the space occupied by the old Willis/Mander (if it's still in situ) would have been about right for the Compton.

 

MM

I believe the Willis/Mander went several years ago, rumoured to have headed to Willis, Liverpool.

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