Hope-Jones is becoming very popular

[Colin Pykett]

From time to time I dabble among the statistics which show how my website is being used, and recently have become simultaneously gratified yet perplexed at how popular the articles to do with our erstwhile friend Robert Hope-Jones seem to be getting.  The gratification reflects relief that at least some subjects evoke interest, whereas the perplexity stems from asking - why?

I suspect the answer is that a series of books whose central character is a small girl called Hope Jones seems to be creeping ever higher up the global popularity stakes.  Although I haven't yet read a complete volume, and currently have no intention of doing so, it seems that she might be an (insufferably priggish?) individual who has grandiose plans to 'Save the World', judging from a current title.  I trust that those fond parents who are presumably searching for these items are not too fazed when they land on my articles with titles such as 'Hope-Jones and the Dry Cell'.  Maybe it's only a matter of time before I get involved in copyright lawsuits in which I'll have to struggle to prove that my articles appeared first?

[S_L]

I'm quite fascinated by Hope-Jones. I played Ambleside once (yes, I know, rebuilt and rebuilt - does it still have it's concrete swell-box?) There is a line of thought that, perpetuated by some English writers (There is a line somewhere 'Somehow he managed to sell one to Worcester Cathedral') that he was an awful builder, a telephone engineer turned organ builder. And, of course, his rivals, at the time perpetuated such myths and his work was sabotaged in Hendon, Ormskirk and Burton-on-Trent. I'm sure his instruments were fairly unmusical with a preponderance of 8' stops and little upper work but he was, clearly, an inventor and a thinker and, I suspect, history views him slightly differently now to, perhaps, 40/50 years ago. 

[Steve Goodwin]

Talking of getting a bad press...

Diapason Phonon. A very powerful diapason .... The stop is associated with the name of Hope-Jones. It is difficult to think that it has any artistic value.
Diaphone. A valvular reed ... developed by Hope-Jones, and of more use as a foghorn, for which it is valuable, than as a voice in the organ.

The Organ - WL Sumner p.307

I think you are right that he was probably a talented inventor but perhaps some of his technolgy was a little ahead of its time.

 

[S_L]

2 hours ago, Steve Goodwin said:

Talking of getting a bad press...

Diapason Phonon. A very powerful diapason .... The stop is associated with the name of Hope-Jones. It is difficult to think that it has any artistic value.
Diaphone. A valvular reed ... developed by Hope-Jones, and of more use as a foghorn, for which it is valuable, than as a voice in the organ.

The Organ - WL Sumner p.307

It might, very well, have been Sumner where I read  'Somehow he managed to sell one to Worcester Cathedral'

Clearly not a fan!

[Denis O'Connor]

In the 1950's, as a schoolboy, I on occasion visited the Catholic church in West Croydon. This had a 2-manual Hope-Jones organ which was in pretty much original condition. The organist of the church was an elderly priest of some ability. He was not a model organist in that he would appear at the console after Mass had begun and the introit was being sung unaccompanied. He stabbed at a couple of likely notes to establish the pitch and he would then accompany the service. At the conclusion of Mass,he would produce a tattered copy of some organ work and give a good performance. I can remember hearing Guilmant's Cantilene Pastorale  and, on another occasion, Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G minor. My knowledge of different organ sounds was very restricted at the time so I did not notice the absence of chorus- work in the Bach. (It didn't matter in the Guilmant!) Father Harold Knight was a good player and I wonder if any octogenarian members of the forum ever came across him? The organ is no more, having been replaced by an Allen. Sic transit gloria mundi; along with concrete swell boxes and leathered diapasons!

 

[Paul_H]

Robert Hope-Jones featured briefly in another recent book, Colin; "The Foghorn's Lament" by Jennifer Lucy Allen is a history of foghorns and coastal people. I'm only part-way into it but it's fascinating and mentions RH-J in passing.  Maybe that's where a few of your views came from?

I do regularly dip into your website, the recent Wesley article was really interesting!

[Colin Pykett]

12 hours ago, Paul_H said:

Robert Hope-Jones featured briefly in another recent book, Colin; "The Foghorn's Lament" by Jennifer Lucy Allen is a history of foghorns and coastal people. I'm only part-way into it but it's fascinating and mentions RH-J in passing.  Maybe that's where a few of your views came from?

I do regularly dip into your website, the recent Wesley article was really interesting!

I haven't seen Jennifer's book Paul, but was aware she was writing it.  I have a recollection that she might have contacted me about H-J a good while ago, so thank you for bringing me up to date on this.  Another interesting contact, again a long while back though, was from someone who was researching the psychology of loud noises and the technology needed to produce them, and I think he also has now written a book.  He also was interested in organs (and probably foghorns!) in this context.  I recall mentioning one of my pet theories - that organisations such as the church, part of whose raison d'etre was  a political one to dominate and subdue an unruly peasant population by imposing its views on it, built large buildings which visually dominated the landscape (not unlike castles) and they also put large noise-making machines inside them to complete the job acoustically (aka organs).  He thought this was quite an interesting slant on the subject.

Thank you for the kind remark about the Wesley article.  You might have seen the recent thread here on the same subject which was very helpful when I was writing it, and which I referred to.

[stewartt]

Being provocative: were Hope Jones's organs any more useless for choir and hymn accompaniment than some of the instruments that were built in the sixties and seventies?

[Colin Pykett]

To answer that I guess one needs to have played them.  Unfortunately that's been next to impossible for a very long time.  However there's a small 2 manual at St Mary's in Pilton (Devon) which has retained its original pipework despite having had various modern accretions built around it.  This link shows what the original instrument looked like when built in 1898:

https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N10506

I've played it several times, though not for a service, and for what it's worth I formed an impression that it would have been a serviceable liturgical machine.  I even played Bach on it, such as Vom Himmel Hoch (BWV 606) using the boldly voiced swell 4 foot Quintadena and the pedal 8 foot flute, i.e. an octave higher than written.  Helmut Walcha used to do this, using a 4 foot flute plus Larigot which sounded similar to a Quintadena, so I was in good company.  However a friend told me that although the organ was still there when he visited recently, it looked as though it was rather unloved and possibly not in use any longer.  For such a small thing you could draw a surprising amount out of it, and full organ was immensely powerful with everything coupled up using all those couplers.

There's an even smaller one (1899) at Llanrhaeadr in near to original condition, but even this one had to have its pedal Diaphone!  See:

https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=H00091

A conference of Diocesan Organ Advisers stopped by this church some years ago, and the write-up of the visit mentioned that the Diaphone had been 'well trodden' by that august community before it departed!

 

 

 

 

[Dafydd y Garreg Wen]

2 hours ago, Colin Pykett said:

To answer that I guess one needs to have played them.  Unfortunately that's been next to impossible for a very long time.  

[….]

 

There's an even smaller one (1899) at Llanrhaeadr in near to original condition, but even this one had to have its pedal Diaphone!  See:

https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=H00091

As one who has played this instrument liturgically from time to I can say that it is much more useful than most small, village church organs. Once you discard any preconceived ideas about octave couplers not being quite the thing, and embrace them as an integral part of the instrument as its designer intended it, you can do a lot with it. You can certainly play (some) Bach on it, effectively, if not exactly authentically.

The Viol d'Orchestre is an extraordinarily keen rank. Hearing it you would almost think it a reed stop, and it does duty quite  nicely for the soft solo reed that the instrument lacks.

The Flute D'Amour is very chiffy. Not at all what one would expect. A neo-baroque enthusiast from the sixties and seventies would feel very at home with it.

[Colin Pykett]

Thank you Dafydd for this first hand information.  I've never played the Llanrhaeadr organ so found your impressions very interesting.  The Pilton Viol d'Orchestre is just as you described for the Llanrhaeadr one - it could slice bricks at short range.  There's no Flute d'Amour though, but a Viol d'Amour instead which is exactly the opposite of the Viol d'Orchestre, being quiet and reticent.

As you confirmed, one can do a surprising amount with these little instruments, partly because of the highly differentiated tone colours as opposed to conventional organs where achieving blend was the watchword.  It would have been interesting to have sat down at one of the big ones, e.g at Worcester cathedral:

https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=R01239

Note the two versions of the Cor Anglais using free and beating reeds.  One imagines that an immense amount of quiet colour could have been obtained from the instrument.

[John Furse]

What a beautiful console (Llanrhaeadr).

And an 'interesting' bench, too. Is its height adjustable ?

[Dafydd y Garreg Wen]

1 hour ago, John Furse said:

And an 'interesting' bench, too. Is its height adjustable ?

Alas, no.

[John Furse]

Despite working close by, I never visited Pilton, North Devon. I was intrigued to view the photos in: NPORView D02980

In the fourth photo down, the 'bulge in the bench' is facing backwards - the other way to Llanrhaeadr.

One of these benches must have been turned around. Which is the correct positioning, therefore ?

[Colin Pykett]

Those distinctive benches with a raised centre section of unsymmetrical shape seemed to be a feature of Hope-Jones's organs in the UK.  There are two other consoles at the Hope-Jones museum maintained by the Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust in Manchester, and they are the same (both large 4-deckers, from St Paul's and St Modwen's in Burton on Trent).  I haven't enough playing experience of H-J's organs to have formed a view as to whether there is a 'correct' orientation though.  So not very helpful I'm afraid.  Next time I come across one I'll do some experiments to see if the matter can be settled.

[Rowland Wateridge]

Rather strangely, Winchester Cathedral has, or had, a bench shaped with three forward bulges in the Llanrhaeadr orientation.  I have no idea whether it was unique; I was certainly surprised when I first saw it.  It would not have any connection with Hope-Jones.  I have a pre-WW II photograph of Harold Rhodes sitting on it (and playing - not apparently one of those posed pictures) and it then had a substantial back rest or support which had gone by the time I saw it.  I don’t know whether it is still there.  I think all other Willis and H&H benches I have seen have been straight but, of course, there may be individual exceptions where the incumbent organist asked for one.  I suspect the ‘backward’ facing bench at Pilton is probably explained by the organist’s preference for a straight edge.   I think the most bizarre, certainly unusual, benches I have seen were with the two Rothwell consoles at St George’s, Windsor, both incorporating a swivelling ‘captain’s chair’.  

Incidentally, possibly for future discussion, Hope-Jones set up as an independent organ builder in Elmira, New York State, with quite a substantial workforce, possibly twenty or more, including several women, before the connection with Wurlitzer.  He floated a company there, built a very large organ in the main church of Elmira and hosted a mini-convention which included a large group of organ and other visiting worthies (a photograph of the occasion shows him with the mayor and Mark Twain).  When I visited Elmira about twenty years ago, there was a substantial exhibition devoted to Hope-Jones in the main local museum.  Mark Twain was an Elmira resident and invested in the H-J company, but lost out (seemingly substantially) when the company folded.  I’m sure there must have been other, and possibly also large, organs by H-J during this early period in USA, but that has to be a matter for further research..

[Colin Pykett]

2 hours ago, Rowland Wateridge said:

 ...  I’m sure there must have been other, and possibly also large, organs by H-J during this early period in USA, but that has to be a matter for further research..

The history of H-J's activities in the USA is fairly well documented e.g. in David H Fox's book 'Robert Hope-Jones'.  I got a copy of this some years ago from the the excellent OHS and they might still have it.  It also covers his prior work in Britain, though in less detail and unfortunately with some errors and omissions which you have to be on the alert for.  On the whole his work both at the time and since seems to have been rather better regarded over there than here, at least in the sense that it is appraised more objectively by and large, and with less of the inflammatory excesses of criticism which have often characterised its reception in Britain.  A particularly interesting video exists of Farny Wurlitzer addressing the American Theatre Organ Enthusiasts (later the ATOS) convention in 1964 which is entertaining and often amusing in its references to Hope-Jones, whom Farny W must have known very well half a century earlier.  The passage of time did not seem to have dimmed his views about H-J and he pulls few punches, though at one point he says words to the effect that 'he was one of the most charming fellers you could ever meet',  and that 'he could always convince you that black was white'!  Even so, Wurlitzer could not have been the success that it was without H-J's enabling technology, notwithstanding the awkwardness of the relationship between them.

The video is in four parts at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoYKO7X8Duc

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMqT5vqAahE

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK3Uaeq74gA

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJUNlXk0l8s

Quite an important historical document in my view for those with interests in this direction.

[Colin Pykett]

On 17/08/2022 at 06:03, John Furse said:

Despite working close by, I never visited Pilton, North Devon. I was intrigued to view the photos in: NPORView D02980

In the fourth photo down, the 'bulge in the bench' is facing backwards - the other way to Llanrhaeadr.

One of these benches must have been turned around. Which is the correct positioning, therefore ?

I have been informed by a Hope-Jones historian that the correct position is with the curve at the rear, otherwise you can't hook your heels over the rail under the seat when not pedalling.

[Dafydd y Garreg Wen]

10 hours ago, Colin Pykett said:

I have been informed by a Hope-Jones historian that the correct position is with the curve at the rear, otherwise you can't hook your heels over the rail under the seat when not pedalling.

Thank you. I must tell the people at Llanrhaeadr when I next go there.

The well-known photograph of Hope-Jones playing from outside S. John’s Birkenhead features one of these benches but the detail isn’t clear enough to answer the question. His coat tails almost look as if they are displaced by the projecting part, but they could just have fallen that way. Equally, had his coat been a few inches shorter the relevant part of the bench would have been visible!