Extraordinary situations

[Martin Cooke]

Having just read an extraordinarily depressing account of the new Aubertin pipe organ in St Birinus, Dorchester on Thames on Facebook - ("Musically, this instrument is an abomination") - which I will leave you to find for yourselves on the British Pipe Organs facebook site, I have just found a news article in which we are told that four years after the installation of the large new Dobson organ in St Thomas, Fifth Avenue, they are to 'reconfigure' the console because there are 'manifold' problems with playing and balancing the instrument with the console where it is. What on earth is one to think? Who would commission a new pipe organ having read experiences like these?

[Damian Beasley-Suffolk]

The ideas for the consoles at St Thomas don't seem too controversial. Presumably there is money around to do it, but things always evolve and, as has often been debated here, mobile consoles are useful - even if that observation won't appeal to mechanical action purists.

As a died in the wool dilletante, although that Facebook page (assuming I'm reading the same one) on pipe organs contains lots of nice pictures of instruments, I try to ignore the many intemperate comments, though I did see enough to read that Bernard Aubertin is retiring. As I write I am looking at the King's Hall in Newcastle which houses our Aubertin, but I still haven't heard it live. It sounded superb in a lockdown concert that Magnus Williamson recorded, and of course it looks fantastic.

[Colin Pykett]

5 hours ago, Martin Cooke said:

Having just read an extraordinarily depressing account of the new Aubertin pipe organ in St Birinus, Dorchester on Thames on Facebook - ("Musically, this instrument is an abomination") - which I will leave you to find for yourselves on the British Pipe Organs facebook site, I have just found a news article in which we are told that four years after the installation of the large new Dobson organ in St Thomas, Fifth Avenue, they are to 'reconfigure' the console because there are 'manifold' problems with playing and balancing the instrument with the console where it is. What on earth is one to think? Who would commission a new pipe organ having read experiences like these?

I've floated the idea before (maybe not here - I can't remember) of using a digital organ as a relatively cheap and flexible way of trying out various tonal options before signing a contract for a new pipe organ.  However it's difficult to get people to understand that this does not mean a digital organ will actually be purchased rather than a pipe organ, consequently this misconception raises all sorts of unhelpful and irrelevant froth which misses the point.  What it does mean is that you can try out the effect of various combinations of stops at different points in the building to see whether the general effect is what you are seeking - or not - when a pipe organ having similar types of stops is finally installed.  And you can also try things out with the building empty or full of people, or even assess different carpeting options!  So it merely uses a digital organ as a flexible test bed, the flexibility arising from the ability to site the loudspeakers as well as the console in several different places at relatively low cost.  As part of the exercise an optimal position (or positions) for the console can also be addressed.

It's not all that different in principle to measuring the frequency response of a building by radiating white or pink (or any other 'colour') noise from loudspeakers, recording the results and then analysing the signals.  This is sometimes done, though the use of signals which are so far removed from real, organesque, sounds is a legitimate criticism.  However I know of several cases where a scaling, regulation and voicing strategy for the major choruses of a pipe organ has been based on such studies.  But using sounds which are more directly related to pipe organ sounds, which a digital organ will provide, seems a better way to go in my opinion.

This isn't just idle musing.  Over the last 15 years or so I've taken my virtual pipe organ, which has a standard 2M&P stop key console which any organist can play, into various buildings often enough to have convinced myself of the virtues of this approach.  So have other people to whom I have given or loaned various sample sets to use in theirs.  On one occasion the audience consisted entirely of a bevy of organ builders, among whom animated conversations ensued about the idea!

You don't even need to physically cart the digital organ into the building.  By making enough intelligently-chosen dry recordings of various groups of stops where the organ happens to reside, these can then be replayed into the building to enable practically the same results to be achieved (apart from helping to site the console of course).  It's certainly better than doing nothing and hoping for the best when the pipe organ finally arrives.

[Dafydd y Garreg Wen]

An eminently sensible idea, so (alas) it’s not surprising it hasn’t caught on!

 

[Rowland Wateridge]

15 hours ago, Martin Cooke said:

Having just read an extraordinarily depressing account of the new Aubertin pipe organ in St Birinus, Dorchester on Thames on Facebook - ("Musically, this instrument is an abomination")  …

Firstly, I neither know the Church nor the organ which hasn’t yet made it to NPOR, doubtless as it is new. St Birinus is a Roman Catholic Church and uses Gregorian chant.  I wonder whether the critic was judging the organ from other criteria than its principal function.  Also, Aubertin generally enjoy a very high reputation.  I’m sure Nigel Alllcoat would be in a position to comment.  

From this photograph it is self-evident that the design and finish are of the highest craftsmanship.

 

[John Furse]

M. Aubertin has made many organs of the finest visual and sonic beauty.

Even the most ‘famous’ builders (in the UK and beyond) have made a less than successful instrument. Some, several. They have been documented in these ‘pages’; as are the ‘corrections’ that they, or others, found it necessary to make.

If this proves to be the case, Bernard may not be in the best of health to travel and undertake such work. I believe he may have suffered from Covid and is, in any case, well past the official retirement age for France.

Many of the comments on FarceBook reflect the ignorance of the poster: whether in architectural, ecclesiastical, acoustical or ‘organological’ areas. I have been deafened at the console of historic instruments in Spain, with en chamade Trompetería almost blowing my hair out of place ! (Did 18^th century organistas use ear-plugs ?) Similarly, when sitting in ‘the wrong place’ at an East Anglian cathedral.

When all of us are gone, his instruments will remain as an outstanding legacy of a visionary master.

[AndrewG]

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_BK7ohuN81I" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

A YouTube clip of the first time the organ was in action.  

[AndrewG]

 

[Dafydd y Garreg Wen]

Without hearing the instrument in the building and in use liturgically, almost impossible to assess it.

My reaction to the visual aspect (granted that even that is better judged in the church) is that it’s clearly constrained by the architecture, and the proportions are therefore unusual, but that does not mean that they are automatically invalid. The case is tall and thin, but so what? Occasional departures from the norm are not necessarily unacceptable in aesthetic terms. If people went around installing lots of tall, thin cases for no good reason that might be another matter (but then again our idea of what the norm should be might shift), but as something of a one-off it seems fine to me - a bit quirky, but what’s wrong with a bit of quirkiness?

[Damian Beasley-Suffolk]

A welcome counterweight to other voices on other websites is that I now know who St Birinus was, thanks to an informative YouTube video which popped up after watching the video posted above. Thanks to those who like to dig into areas of their own interest and share it with the world, the "Dark Ages" get brighter every day.

[Rowland Wateridge]

St Birinus post-dates the ‘Dark Ages’ if we are using the term historically rather than possibly the extent of our own knowledge of that period.  St Birinus, in fact, represents an era of enlightenment.  As a bishop, having set up his see at Dorchester, Oxfordshire, he transferred it to Winchester, becoming the first Bishop of Winchester in the present succession of more than 1,300 years.  For long he was one of the saints, along with St Peter and St Paul and St Swithun, in the dedication of Winchester Cathedral.  

I have learned something new from a quick foray in Wikipedia.  Birinus landed at the port of St Mary circa 634 AD at what is now Southampton, and that was when the first church of St Mary’s, Southampton came into being.  The present church is a direct successor on the same site.  It and its Willis III organ have figured prominently on this Board.

[Rowland Wateridge]

On 19/10/2022 at 07:20, Dafydd y Garreg Wen said:

My reaction to the visual aspect (granted that even that is better judged in the church) is that it’s clearly constrained by the architecture, and the proportions are therefore unusual, but that does not mean that they are automatically invalid. The case is tall and thin, but so what?

I found absolutely nothing jarring, nor even ‘quirky’!  As you say it fits the architecture of the church (many organs don’t).  In the context of Dorchester and St Birinus, there’s another example of ‘tall and thin’ very close by at Douai Abbey, where Kenneth Tickell fitted his fine organ into a single and fairly narrow Gothic arch.

[Keitha]

I would recommend the review of the St Birinus Organ by Chris Bragg in September's Choir & Organ.  His is a very measured and fair view.  For example, he points out the artwork and voicing problems.  Apparently the stars and half moons may yet be revisited by the Diocesan authorities (although I would be surprised if anything is done) and the voicing is nowhere near complete - partly, it seems, due to the pandemic.  In addition it seems that there was a deliberate choice to set the voicing loud (it is described as "overbearingly loud in the room"), with the intention of paring it back as necessary over time.  Sadly it seems that Bernard Aubertin will not be able to do this himself as, it seems, was originally planned. Chris Bragg is also very complimentary about other aspects of the work.

I note Rowland's reference to Douai Abbey.  I know the Abbey well (I was married there!) and I have a recollection that when the Tamburini choir organ (intended to accompany monastic chant) was first installed, the voicing 'screamed' and it had to be significantly toned down before it could be properly used for its intended purpose.  I fully agree with Rowland's opinion of the Tickell instrument - it really is rather fine and beautifully voiced.