Taking stock - organs

[John Morris]

British Pipe Organs Facebook site is excellent.

[Phoneuma]

I see very little worthwhile ‘debate’ at all. A useful place but inhabited by closed mindsets, instances of shutting down inconvenient ‘chats’ and , in the end, its public presence does organists no favours at all. That’s FB for you, a mixture of some good information shovelled into a cesspit.

[Colin Pykett]

44 minutes ago, Phoneuma said:

I see very little worthwhile ‘debate’ at all. A useful place but inhabited by closed mindsets, instances of shutting down inconvenient ‘chats’ and , in the end, its public presence does organists no favours at all. That’s FB for you, a mixture of some good information shovelled into a cesspit.

Although I might have expressed it differently I cannot disagree with the conclusions.  Maybe 'inconsequential claptrap' is the phrase I would have reached for.

Unfortunately the general level of internet dialogue has long reduced discussion of just about everything to its lowest common denominator.  At one time I had naive hopes that forums such as this would continue to be a home for those who wanted something better, but things have not turned out like this.  Even here we now find members (usually anonymous of course), who have played little or no useful part in a thread, attempting to belittle those who have.

It's a problem which affects all fora - I can't mention them because we aren't supposed to do that, but most readers will know what I mean ...

 

[Phoneuma]

I don’t post as much as I used to but I still come here only because it still has that balance of knowledge, decent debate and good manners. Forums come and go but I’m pleased this one has survived, albeit somewhat shrunk.

For those wondering about ‘that FB site’ the very latest ‘post’ (comparing DACs to donkeys) epitomises the lowest common denominator Colin mentions. 

[S_L]

On 09/04/2022 at 14:05, Phoneuma said:

I don’t post as much as I used to but I still come here only because it still has that balance of knowledge, decent debate and good manners. Forums come and go but I’m pleased this one has survived, albeit somewhat shrunk.

For those wondering about ‘that FB site’ the very latest ‘post’ (comparing DACs to donkeys) epitomises the lowest common denominator Colin mentions. 

I think 'that site' often shows organists in a very bad light. Some may even say that it typifies the race! I'm not a member and I have no intention of joining. The comments by Phoneuma and by Dr. Colin are 'spot on'!!

'balance of knowledge',' decent debate' and 'good manners'  is what we have here - absolutely correct

[Colin Pykett]

While on the topic of the direness of the internet, I've just come across another example, though it's only yet another of many I've encountered.  Searching just now for a subject to do with temperament, I came across the Wikipedia entry for Wolf intervals.  According to the not-very-learned anonymous sage who penned the first part of this entry, quarter comma mean tone temperament not only has a Wolf fifth (correct) but eleven perfectly tuned fifths (totally wrong).  For the benefit of whomever might read and learn, the eleven fifths in this temperament are flattened by a quarter of the syntonic comma - hence the name of the temperament.  (Further down in the Wikipedia entry a completely different answer is given, obviously by a different author, though I can't be bothered to check their maths.  Why should I be expected to be an honorary proof reader for Wikipedia?)

It's terrible though, isn't it.  Google automatically promotes a Wikipedia article to its first search item (after any ads), and the vast majority of the planet seem to accept it as gospel.  It's not unusual to be in a social setting where virtually everything you say sets somebody checking it on Wikipedia via their phones, and then arguing with you about it.  It's totally wrecked what used to be the sort of dinner party I looked forward to.  What a world we live in.

Long ago I decided that Wikipedia was an excellent example of an organisation that was set up to produce absolute garbage to a uniformly high standard.  Social media sites deliver the same product but don't even bother about the high standard bit.

(P S: Apologies to those who are rightly fed up to the back teeth with me banging on about temperament ... )

[S_L]

2 hours ago, Colin Pykett said:

......................................... I came across the Wikipedia entry for Wolf intervals. ....................

 

I have long raged about Wikipedia. I'm mentioned on half a dozen sites and, at one point there was a site devoted to me! It had so many inaccuracies that I attempted to correct it without success and, eventually, I had it removed.

My mother, long since deceased, is also mentioned on Wikipedia - but on Military Wiki - which seems to be more accurate than the mainstream site.  

[pwhodges]

6 hours ago, Colin Pykett said:

Why should I be expected to be an honorary proof reader for Wikipedia?

Because that's how it's meant to work?  People who know the answers correct it - there's no magical authority which checks all the text continuously.  For that there are commercial offerings, but I wouldn't like to guarantee that they are uniformly better than Wikipedia.  I quite often correct articles in which I find mistakes, and have even contributed much of the main text of a few articles.

Paul

[Colin Pykett]

Maybe I'm being too curmudgeonly, Paul.  However on too many occasions I've found myself unintentionally in the middle of edit wars, where my carefully crafted purple prose was wiped out and replaced by, well, garbage.  On another occasion I contributed to an article about digital organs only to have it deleted by somebody who complained in the 'talk' pages that it referred to my personal website - which it didn't.    Somebody else had inserted that link.  (I gather Wikipedia doesn't like links to personal websites).

In the end I got fed up.  Life's too short and I'm fortunate in having far more fulfilling things to do.  There just seemed too many people on there who might be happier, and do us all a favour, if they got out a bit more.  Or tried stronger tablets.  Or whatever.  Not unlike social media in fact, now I come to think about it.

But good on you for persevering and sharing your knowledge.  Wikipedia certainly needs more like you.

[Rowland Wateridge]

I also edit fairly regularly on Wikipedia (as recently as yesterday), mostly on church, organ or other music-related topics including performers and instruments, sometimes architecture which can overlap other subjects, as an example, the works of Georgian and Victorian architect Edward Blore responsible for things as disparate as a palace in the Crimea, the choir stalls of Westminster Abbey and organ cases in two English cathedrals - among many other things.  But it’s essential to cite sources by providing notes or references.  I find that when this is done, the edit is accepted instantly.  Nevertheless, it is fair comment that some Wikipedia content is inaccurate (or incomplete), otherwise there would not be the need to edit.

[AndrewG]

Wikipedia can be a great resource to start a search.

But we teach our students to never trust its contents without cross checking original sources.

(The same applies to newspaper articles - even in the supposedly reputable broadsheets). 

[DaveHarries]

One organ which seems to have been missed is that of St. Mary's Priory, Abergavenny. The most recent entry on the NPOR (D08506) records that the organ sank (or began to, thanks apparently to a burial chamber that had not been known about) into the floor of the church and was subsequently dismantled by, and moved to the workshops of, Percy Daniel & Co. back in 1998. Despite approval in 2001 of a scheme to rebuild the organ an electronic was recorded as being in use in 2002 with no pipe organ as most recently, on the NPOR, as 2008.

At Bristol Cathedral we had, over the weekend of 23rd / 24th April, the choir of St. Mary's Priory as the visiting choir and very good they were too. After the service I talked to the person who had played the organ for the service and also to the choir's director. From that conversation I understand that it seems the organ which was at St. Mary's Priory (NPOR D08506) is not going to return there and the church still has the electronic organ in use. From what I understood, however, funds are being raised (or will be) for a replacement pipe organ. The organ that I was told is being considered for Abergavenny is the one from Highfield Church (listed as Christ Church), Portswood, Southampton (NPOR T00497) where the pipes have been redundant since 2012 with an electronic in use there since. If this info is correct and the scheme succeeds I don't know if there will be any alterations to the specification of the Portswood organ when it moves to Abergavenny. I couldn't find anything on the Priory's website though.

HTIOI,
Dave

[SomeChap]

The plans at Abergavenny were ambitious and could have been wonderful.  Sadly Stephen Bicknell's website is now down, but it's on the wayback engine, and there is a description of the plans that were afoot, complete with gorgeous-looking drawing of a double case which would have stood across the south transept.

I've never been to Abergavenny but judging from pictures it looks like a lovely buliding. One for the 'one day' list...

[Rowland Wateridge]

A little puzzled that Dave Harries was told recently that there is no pipe organ there.  The linked Google maps video clearly shows one against what I take to be the west wall of the north transept.  But that was recorded in 2018.  Does this mean that this pipe organ has now gone?  

I have known several people connected with Highfield Church, Southampton, and it was a surprise to learn that its pipe organ was now redundant.  Let’s hope it finds a new home at Abergavenny.  Former organists of Highfield included a long-serving Treasurer of the IAO. 

[SomeChap]

NPOR calls that the 'small organ' (I/5)

Interesting that they're buying in a 2nd hand organ.   The Bicknell article mentions that some material from their own organ was found to be historic:

Quote

The old organ appeared to be Victorian, dating from 1881. On close inspection it has been found to contain a large number of much earlier pipes. Research has shown that these pipes survive from an organ that once stood in the Lord Mayor's Chapel in Bristol and was sold to Abergavenny in 1830. These older pipes date from about 1745; the name of the maker is not known. This valuable historic material will be carefully restored to its original function and pitch, and will eventually be in use again at the heart of the organ.

 

[DaveHarries]

9 hours ago, SomeChap said:

NPOR calls that the 'small organ' (I/5)

Interesting that they're buying in a 2nd hand organ.   The Bicknell article mentions that some material from their own organ was found to be historic:

 

A most interesting quote: thank you for sharing it. The NPOR for the Lord Mayor's Chapel has no organ earlier than 1830 although I wouldn't be surprised if one had existed there before then.

Dave

[bam]

The pipe organ in St Mary's is a charming one manual built from the Nelson instrument previously in St Nick's, Durham.  It's very much an 'orgue de choeur' and none the worse for that, but the 'main' organ is the electronic.  The G&D is the URC is well worth a visit if you are in the area - the only pipe organ left in Abergavenny and a testament to the longevity of Victorian tracker actions.

All Saints, High Wycombe has an appeal running for the overhaul of their 1930 HW III, a fine instrument which fills the church and has an almost ideal layout - Great speaking west, Choir south and Swell between the two.  It has what I think is the only full length 32' in Buckinghamshire, the pipes being in the north east corner of the church in what is now the 'Chapel of Rest'!  The mechanisms are well past their sell-by date, said to be a mixture of very old slider chests and Willis pitman chests, and some unsuccessful tonal changes were made in 1984, together with some ugly revisions to the console.  Hopefully the appeal will be successful and it can be edged back towards its former character.  Reading Minster (St Mary the Virgin) - not an organ I know - has a long running appeal for the restoration of its Willis I / Bishop / Willis III.  The old Mander firm was looking after the instrument but I don't know the present situation.

 

 

[pwhodges]

Reading Minster ("St Mary's, Butts" as we called it, to distinguish it from "St Mary's, Castle Street" about 200 yards away) is where I first played and practiced the organ.  Although ignorant of most things about organs at the time, I felt that it compared favourably with the similarly-sized organ in Christ Church, Oxford, which was the only other organ I knew well (not to play, though).  It was all working fine back in the 1960s...  The rebuild appeal has been going for ever, it seems to me.

I have an privately published LP recording which includes one track on the All Saints, High Wycombe Willis.  It is Widor's Toccata, played by Alastair Ross, and it's the slowest performance I have ever come across - apparently because he couldn't reliably play it faster on the organ as it then was (in 1977).  I don't know why that organ was used, given that the rest of the LP was recorded in Reading Town Hall; perhaps the Willis there (not so very long before its restoration) was in a worse condition at the time.

Paul

[bam]

Another appeal which I hope is successful is that for Holy Trinity, Coventry, where the plan is to transplant the 3m H&H from St Thomas, Leigh, Greater Manchester.  If you search 'holy trinity coventry organ' there's a fair amount of info online.

[S_L]

Whilst forumites are mentioning instruments they hope to see rebuilt/restored/replaced and, before Barry Oakley starts banging the drum before me, let me get in first and mention the sleeping giant in Holy Trinity, Hull, now known as Hull Minster. Arguably the largest Parish church in England, it contains a magnificent four manual beast, last worked on in the 1930's. The organ has survived the bombing of that great city during WWII, the 'organ reform movement' of the 1960's and a considerable amount of 'happy-clappyness'. Now the Minster is being regenerated. The building has had millions spent on it, a choral tradition has begun and is developing, as well as a singing programme for Hull schools. 

Surely someone, somewhere, has a spare million pounds!!!!

[Barry Oakley]

Enormous thanks, Stephen!

[S_L]

3 hours ago, Barry Oakley said:

Enormous thanks, Stephen!

It will be done eventually - but whether you and I live to see it is another matter!!!!

 

 

[Peter Allison]

3 hours ago, S_L said:

It will be done eventually - but whether you and I live to see it is another matter!!!!

 

 

don't want to put a dampener on it, BUT the way things are going, what with money been sought after from many many places, large organs in cold underused buildings will find it harder and harder, until places just shut down , especially the churches (that have been in decline for years now) imho

[S_L]

4 hours ago, Peter Allison said:

don't want to put a dampener on it, BUT the way things are going, what with money been sought after from many many places, large organs in cold underused buildings will find it harder and harder, until places just shut down , especially the churches (that have been in decline for years now) imho

But Hull Minster isn't a cold, underused building. It is, now, a vibrant, much used, building. As well as it's role as the Civic Church with all that entails, there is a thriving choral programme, concerts, exhibitions and all that one would associate with a busy city church. It also, like the Metropolitan Cathedral in Liverpool, hosted a Beer Festival - last week!

[Peter Allison]

14 hours ago, S_L said:

But Hull Minster isn't a cold, underused building. It is, now, a vibrant, much used, building. As well as it's role as the Civic Church with all that entails, there is a thriving choral programme, concerts, exhibitions and all that one would associate with a busy city church. It also, like the Metropolitan Cathedral in Liverpool, hosted a Beer Festival - last week!

Thats  good, but I meant many of the "Lesser" churches. Am all for diversification, like a marquee for various events held on Palace Green at Durham (I can remember the many signs saying "Keep Off The Grass" from when I was younger))