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New organ for Charterhouse school


DariusB

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Herbert Howells had a special relationship with the instrument - 

The instrument was commissioned during the tenureship of Reginald Thatcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Thatcher as Director of Music who was a well known organist for the whole of his life. https://artuk.org/.../sir-reginald-thatcher-18881957... and is probably underappreciated as a composer, setting no doubt more than one Psalm tune https://youtu.be/S9G7KKeJFtM?t=225

After Thatcher, Thomas Fielden took over in 1928 and in 1930 commissioned Herbert Howells to compose "A Hymn Tune for Charterhouse". This is better known as "All my hope on God is founded". Howells would have been intimately acquainted with the chapel and the instrument. 

Best wishes

David P

 

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The organ-related archive is now completely transcribed - 

ORGAN SOLO REPERTOIRE

https://youtu.be/jaKX1Tpr9-o Guilmant Symphony No. 1 Robin Wells
https://youtu.be/0recmn65DJk Organ favourites - Robin Wells 1983
https://youtu.be/AWkUhnqxaDE Organ favourites 1988 Phil Scriven
https://youtu.be/9kB1JCJFgBI 1986 Handel Organ Concerto and Albinoni Adagio
https://youtu.be/Y2wMZeYpwWQ Trumpet and Organ - Patrick Addinnal and Robin Wells 

https://youtu.be/h3VxGbll9uY Herbert Howells recording

https://youtu.be/Fgpu7Tx4ID0 Benjamin Britten - Rejoice in the Lamb and Late evening carols 1988

https://youtu.be/bCj0GV1o5Us Chapel Choir and Special Choir 1990-93 Choral music from Charterhouse Chapel

ORGAN IN CHAPEL ACCOMPANYING MODE
https://youtu.be/IIsP6OfQSJw Leith Hill Music Festival Choirs 1986 (a particularly magnificent recording)
https://youtu.be/S9G7KKeJFtM Matins and Anthems 1984/85
https://youtu.be/f8YKVPWLbJE BBC World Service Worship 1986
https://youtu.be/56iadfadpEY BBC World Service live October 1986
https://youtu.be/Kbvdd1t0d2k BBC World Service live November 1987
https://youtu.be/0o1QxW9So2M Jerusalem extracted from a longer recording
https://youtu.be/eXdsx_vsuu4 John Rutter Gloria
https://youtu.be/_VDPHUcnUXY Mozart Requiem
https://youtu.be/J5mv66uI7NI Praetorius - Lutheran Mass for Christmas Morning

https://youtu.be/Fgpu7Tx4ID0 Benjamin Britten - Rejoice in the Lamb and Late evening carols 1988
https://youtu.be/bCj0GV1o5Us Chapel Choir and Special Choir 1990-93 Choral music from Charterhouse Chapel
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  • 4 months later...

I too was taught on this very fine Harrison & Harrison and am really sad to see it go. I don’t know but imagine it is the second most complex organ in our county after Guildford Cathedral. As schoolboys we benefited from a fine choir master/ organist Robin Wells under a brilliant and hugely enthusiastic head of music Bill Llewelyn and many went on to the university colleges as choral or organ scholars. So high was the standard in that chapel which we attended seven days a week that I was very surprised when we got married to hear that the Fugue of Bach’s Toccata, Prelude and Fugue in C was considered too difficult, something I had heard played I should think at least 10 times by children on this organ. Apparently the Dubois Toccata in G, something I used to really enjoy playing on the Harrison & Harrison as a boy, is easier so we walked out to that.  

 

i do not understand the issues but it must be in places the same age as a vintage Bentley and I suppose could be a horrendously complex thing to maintain, which I suppose must be the reason for the change.
 

I was at a funeral there attended by about 650 sailors with very big nautical voice boxes about 3 years ago and to hear Jerusalem and the 8-foot Tuba again in the last verse of Thine be the Glory was very fine indeed, something I had not heard for over 30 years. 
 

After schooling there, Phil Kenyon occasionally allowed me to play at St. John’s Cambridge where he was one of the organ scholars. That instrument had four keyboards and near twice as many stops (62 to 32, I think). It was not nearly as powerful but could do some very nice stuff! I am not really sure whether Nicholsons will install electronic speakers or actual rows of pipes - I just have no idea - and it would be good if anyone can advise. I like the idea of 50 stops (instead of 32) but this organ, now the school is going fully co-ed, will need to be able to roar against 1,000 voices or more instead of 700 so it will need some really powerful stuff. Maybe they are keeping the Tuba and Oephecleide stops as I always thought these an excellent basis along with just about everything out on the swell and great and pedal and with swell to great and swell and great to pedal I suppose for the last verse of Thine be the Glory or “Bread of  Heaven” with the Tuba on the choir. 
 

i think the point may have nearly been made further up: this building is the largest War Memorial of any type in the UK. It has a long, thin and tall chamber with many hard surfaces and has a thumping long echo like Ely Cathedral even with nearly a thousand people inside.  The organ is high up half way along as at Kings Cambridge where the chamber has very similar properties.  The decision was taken to build Memorial Chapel once the total number of old boys killed in WW1 (700) rose towards the same as the number of boys in the school. Reading these 700 names and those of the 350 who fell in WW2 and others since is s sombre.  I am sure the school will bear this in mind as they modernise. 

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On 11/07/2022 at 14:08, James M said:

[...]

i think the point may have nearly been made further up: this building is the largest War Memorial of any type in the UK. [...]

Sorry to digress and nit-pick, but is this really true?

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On 11/07/2022 at 14:08, James M said:

I think the point may have nearly been made further up: this building is the largest War Memorial of any type in the UK.

Yes, that point was made above and it is confirmed by, among others, Historic England.  I suppose it’s unique as a completely enclosed building, a consecrated church, in fact, as distinct from structures like the Cenotaph or the larger freestanding memorials. There are lists, sadly incomplete, on Wikipedia of war memorials which are Grade 1 or Grade 2* listed, but they don’t include the Charterhouse Chapel.

Your reference to All Souls College, Oxford is puzzling.  There’s no apparent connection!

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I've only been to Oxford once - to buy some pheasants in the covered market!!!

NPOR doesn't have an instrument listed and there is no choir at All Souls (according to their website)

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All Souls has no organ.  At present University College is using the All Souls chapel during refurbishment work, and they've imported a Peter Collins box organ to cover, which will be taken to Univ when the services return there.

Paul

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I’m afraid I have rather lost the plot here.  This started as a discussion about whether Charterhouse College chapel is the largest war memorial in the UK.  There’s strong evidence that it is. It isn’t at all clear how All Souls College, with or without an organ in its chapel, figures in this. 

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The question that arose was was whether All Souls College was a war memorial, which would be bigger than Charterhouse chapel.

I would say not, but can see how that view might arise.  In All Souls' own account of their founding you will find:

Quote

Chichele's twofold aim was that his College should produce a learned clerical 'militia' to serve church and state, and that it should also be a chantry where the Fellows should pray for the souls of the faithful departed and of those killed in the French wars – in particular for members of the House of Lancaster, with whom Chichele had close political connections.

I don't consider that to make the college itself a memorial.

Paul

PS, to update my previous answer about an organ, the college did have an organ in early days, but it was lost in the Reformation, and never replaced.

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On 15/07/2022 at 18:45, Rowland Wateridge said:

I’m afraid I have rather lost the plot here.  This started as a discussion about whether Charterhouse College chapel is the largest war memorial in the UK.  There’s strong evidence that it is. It isn’t at all clear how All Souls College, with or without an organ in its chapel, figures in this. 

It’s really not difficult, Rowland. All Souls College, Oxford has been suggested as a larger war memorial in the UK. 

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You seem not to have read all of the posts here!  I did some independent research of my own (courtesy of Google) which tallied with Paul Hodges’, and came to the same conclusion as Paul.  The suggestion that All Souls College, per se, is a war memorial doesn’t reflect fact.  

Charterhouse Chapel is, unquestionably, a war memorial.  Earlier on this thread I supplied details of the chapel’s consecration service.  As a unified building, rather than freestanding memorial, it is widely accepted as being the largest.

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  • 1 year later...

Hebridean’s comment on the current Rushworth & Dreaper - 1930s thread mentioning the Imperial War Museum’s listing of a church war memorial reminded me of the lengthy discussion we had about Charterhouse School Chapel also being a war memorial.   Eventually it was agreed that this is the case; on reflection, the Imperial War Museum would have been an obvious starting place to look!

And, here is the relevant entry:

https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/23503

Surprisingly there is a rather basic error: the architect was Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, probably most famous as the architect of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral (where he is buried), not his grandfather Sir George Gilbert.

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