What Is The Point Of Exact Restoration?

[David Coram]

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For the rest, perhaps steady improvement and modernisation is to be preferred; and a whole lot cheaper.

 

MM

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Trouble is, though - is it not often the steady improvement and modernisation that leads to the need for the exact restoration in the first place? Take Blackburn - a couple of extra reeds here and there. Can't have an organ without an Oboe. That's fine. What will be done in 10 years? 20? 30? How long before it reaches the incredible hulk that was Bath Abbey - for all its many wonderful musical merits (and equal number of defects), a creaking mass of different actions and unsafe building frames and knackered wind systems that just couldn't stagger through another rebuild. That's precisely what happened to the organ Colin refers to - and now the parish has had to spend all that money basically undoing the last 10 rebuilds again to get to where they started out. As Tony Hancock memorably observed, you don't take a Beethoven painting and start adding bits to it.

 

In a nutshell, isn't it a bit dangerous to have one rule for some and another for the rest? Is there ever anybody truly objective enough to assess an organ on its musical merits? Did those who, in the 1950's, recommended Romsey Abbey scrap the Walker and start again think they were being objective? (Priceless sentences: "Any pipework that cannot be brought up to ***** standards to be melted down" and "Not a ***** stop, but acceptable nonetheless.")

 

I think we have to tread carefully and basically work to ensure that the guiding principle of our generation is to unfailingly err on the side of caution and preservation with a keen nose for what the music needs. Quite how we do this when the world is still full of "cowboy" builders and the diocesan scheme is so blissfully inneffective, plus the fact of many instruments being in private, civic or non-C of E hands, is anybody's guess. (I was reading last night, in the Padgham book on temperament, of an event in the 1950's when an organ upon which Handel undoubtedly played and was virtually untouched and unplayed since having all the pipe tops snipped, tuning slides fitted and being reset to equal temperament, all in 48 hours - destroying who knows what physical evidence of historical tuning - in order to make an "authentic" recording of Handel!!!) Also, the strictures of lottery funding seem, in the cases I have been aware of, to have brought more problems than benefits - such as the expense and hassle and wasted space of the tracker console at Christchurch Priory. Perhaps the EU has a solution up its sleeve... perhaps not... then we're back to "these bloody foreigners" again!!!

[Pierre Lauwers]

"Each instrument must be assessed on its merits, and where there is genuine benefit, (musical or otherwise), to be gained from exact restoration, then this may... "

(Quote)

 

So far, so good, and well explained.

 

But there is a stûût there (belgian word defying translation; a problem that cannot be solved by simple means, something like a flat tire in the middle of nowhere while you realize the spare wheel is flat as well....).

 

WHO can assess what?

 

The whole History shows it blantantly: nobody.

The ancient organs we still have, like Bavo, Alkmaar etc we do not have because of sensible management, but by chance only (most frequent case: lack of money!)

 

Take the younger generation of organists, show them any neo-baroque job of the 70's and discover what will happen if we do not warn them, today, to be extremely carefull with them -indeed, this won't suffice as we are "old daddies do-not-this-nor-that"- in 15 years, when we shall be busy eating the grass by its roots and they will have "Das Sagen"....

Pierre

[Vox Humana]

The ancient organs we still have, like Bavo, Alkmaar etc we do not have because of sensible management, but by chance only (most frequent case: lack of money!)

Hmm. Starts me wondering: could we have lost the finest organ in the world without ever knowing it existed? If so, where was it? Pointless questions, of course!

[nfortin]

Hmm. Starts me wondering: could we have lost the finest organ in the world without ever knowing it existed? If so, where was it? Pointless questions, of course!

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Well clearly we can't cite organs that we never knew existed, but, close to home, I guess those (seemingly many) of us in the Westminster Cathedral camp would tend towards thinking that the Alexandra Palace must go down as a great loss. Never having heard the instrument either in its pomp or in its present reduced state I'm not in a strong position to argue, but its reputation is certainly very high. It seems unlikely that it will ever be restored to a true reflection of its former state.

[Pierre Lauwers]

We may take for certain a considerable number of excellent

old organs were scrapped. During my lifetime, in Belgium,

they did go by the dozens -in whatever style-. Even the Averbode

Loret has been scrapped, a giant organ that left nothing to be desired

next to Alkmaar or St-Maximin du Var. It was the best (an opinion, not an assessment) belgian organ by far.

But in the 60's it was "assessed" exactly like "somewhere in western England"

today; a monster, belonging to an "horribly decadent taste". Brussels cathedral

followed -I did not enter a church afterwards for 20 years-.

 

No, guys, believe me at least once: We cannot assess an organ. The bad

ones (I mean badly made, with poor materials and workmanship) will

decay without our help, and return to the dust. The rest we'd better leave alone!

 

Pierre

[heva]

Even the Averbode Loret has been scrapped, a giant organ that left nothing to be desired next to Alkmaar or St-Maximin du Var. It was the best (an opinion, not an assessment) belgian organ by far.

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It's still (entirely) there, isn't it? So it can be restored, I mean, if we're able to restore old instruments like the small Alkmaar organ - we surely must be able to bring to live the Averbode one?

[Pierre Lauwers]

Halas no, absolutely nothing has been left.

Pierre

[heva]

Halas no, absolutely nothing has been left.

Pierre

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Are you sure???

Read from "Kerkinterieur"

Also, use the "virtueel bezoek "here, click on the church, click on 'kerkportaal'.

 

Let's hope you're absolutely wrong this time ;-)

[Pierre Lauwers]

Aha!

 

I had been told by someone who was my teacher the game was over there,

so I avoided this place.

If I could be completely wrong, that would be great news indeed. But no

belgian organ-builder could do so huge a work, it would be something

for Mander organs.

I shall open a dedicated Thread on my Forum, and give the 1888 state

(The organ was about forty years then)

with the specification as given by the Chanoine Van Couwenbergh, who was

titular there.

 

Pierre

[Pierre Lauwers]

Here is it, for those who are interested:

 

http://z11.invisionfree.com/The_romantic_o...p?showtopic=134

 

Pierre

[Colin Richell]

I have just seen Nfortins message of the 16th August, where he refers to the Alexandra Palace Willis organ.

I fear he is correct when he suggests that the organ could not be returned to its former state, because the unfitted pipes are in poor condition (why?) and new ones would have to be made. The rebuilt Great Hall is very different to the old one, and the acoustics have changed.

However, I am confident that a restoration is feasible, even if the organ has to be moved elsewhere, and there are sufficent organ builders in the UK to complete the work, if we can convince the new developers of the Palace that the project is worthwhile.

Surely one of the Greatest organs in Europe, if not the World.

Colin Richell

[MAB]

I am reluctant to enter this debate which has stirred such hot feelings as I am a bear of such very little brain when it comes to these things.

 

However, I would just say this.

 

I recently played a very famous new historic rebuild with short bottom octave, short echo manual and pedals where the bottom four notes played something about an augmented fourth away from what you were expecting.

 

It occurred to me that when the 'original' version of this organ was built, it was built in this way not because this was musically advantageous, but because the builder was restricted by the technical and economic limitations of that time.

 

Over the centuries, many people have spent a great deal of time, money and ingenuity in solving these problems in order to liberate the musical potential of the instrument.

 

What is the point, therefore, of spending just as much time, money and ingenuity building the limitations back in ? It just made it harder to give a musical performance of the original repertoire I wanted to perform.

 

I set out to play a Stanley voluntary with an echo section, only to find that I ran out of notes on the bottom of the echo manual.

 

By all means build instruments that show us what the historically accurate sound and touch would have been, but what is the point of deliberately hampering yourself when it comes to realising the music which, surely, is what this is all about ?

 

There is rather a good post on the Radio 3 forum which suggests that if we are going to recreate authentic performance, why not go the whole hog and talk throughout the concert and only take a bath once every 8 weeks as well. Obviously, a joking remark, but not without a grain of truth for me.

[Pierre Lauwers]

"It occurred to me that when the 'original' version of this organ was built, it was built in this way not because this was musically advantageous, but because the builder was restricted by the technical and economic limitations of that time.

 

Over the centuries, many people have spent a great deal of time, money and ingenuity in solving these problems in order to liberate the musical potential of the instrument"

 

(Quote)

 

This is a guess, a guess often expressed; if the ancient organs were as they were just because our poor old ancestors "did not know", "did not have our means" etc, then I may say if Bach had known the Hope-Jones at Worcester, he'd fell in love with it, so we need to reconstitute it because I guess JSB would have wished to do so.

(And, and, and)

 

Pierre

[pcnd5584]

"It occurred to me that when the 'original' version of this organ was built, it was built in this way not because this was musically advantageous, but because the builder was restricted by the technical and economic limitations of that time.

 

Over the centuries, many people have spent a great deal of time, money and ingenuity in solving these problems in order to liberate the musical potential of the instrument"

 

(Quote)

 

This is a guess, a guess often expressed; if the ancient organs were as they were just because our poor old ancestors "did not know", "did not have our means" etc, then I may say if Bach had known the Hope-Jones at Worcester, he'd fell in love with it, so we need to reconstitute it because I guess JSB would have wished to do so.

(And, and, and)

 

Pierre

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Well, maybe not so much of a guess. After all, we know more about acoustics, engineering, and many other facets of life these days.

 

Obviously, they did not use electric light or blowing because electricity had not been discovered at the time. There were also a host of other things concerning voicing and pipe construction which they probably did not know at the time, either.

 

If it is a guess, I would say that MAB was making a very educated guess - and not at all unreasonable.

 

I would not care to speculate on whether JSB would have liked the old H-J at Worcester. It is possible that he may have liked some of the effects - but then, he may have missed the chorus-structure. We cannot say.

 

However, I am not sure that this is the point. It is surely not unreasonable to state that there were technical limitations at the time. After the industrial revolution in England, technical knowledge advanced at an increasingly fast pace. Since then, huge advances have been made in all fields of life - for example, medicine*, engineering, electronics, etc. It is surely not so much of a guess to assume that, to an extent, this has always been the case.

 

* I am aware of the fact that the aboriginal peoples were able to carry-out successful trepanning several thousand years ago - apparently without killing the patient in the process. However, there are, of course, some skills which we have lost, in addition to gaining many which are new.

[Pierre Lauwers]

"he may have missed the chorus-structure"

 

(Quote)

 

Even that is a guess. I read an article from Mr Bicknell in which he says you won't find what we call today "a proper chorus" in a Trost organ.

 

We have yes gained one side, and lost on the other. Who could still build a Gabler like Ochsenhausen's today?

We aren't the "reference" to which all other generations should measure themselves.

 

Pierre

[pcnd5584]

"he may have missed the chorus-structure"

 

(Quote)

 

Even that is a guess. I read an article from Mr Bicknell in which he says you won't find what we call today "a proper chorus" in a Trost organ.

 

We have yes gained one side, and lost on the other. Who could still build a Gabler like Ochsenhausen's today?

We aren't the "reference" to which all other generations should measure themselves.

 

Pierre

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OK - but I am fairly certain that he would not miss the itchy wig and the big, fluffy shirt....

 

[Vox Humana]

What is the point, therefore, of spending just as much time, money and ingenuity building the limitations back in ?  It just made it harder to give a musical performance of the original repertoire I wanted to perform.

 

I set out to play a Stanley voluntary with an echo section, only to find that I ran out of notes on the bottom of the echo manual.

Which is surely only what Stanley himself would have found had he tried to play his piece the same way. The point about historic replicas and reconstructions is that they teach you things about how this music should be played. Short octaves that give you notes below bottom C have their use: there are manuals only pieces where you cannot reach the bottom notes without this arrangement.

 

Bill Drake is quite into organs with a GG compass at the moment (though I think his pedals stop at C). Should we shun such a thing because the organ has evolved since along different lines?

 

But, having played devil's advocate, I do agree with you in principle. Straight pedalboards may be appropriate to a particular style of organ being constructed, but I'm not sure what they teach us practically except that they are bloomin' hard to cope with if you've been brought up on radiating and concave boards. And I really don't relish the thought of going back to those narrow C-d' pedal boards you still find on many old village organs. I do think too that, if an organ builder is going to give you a non-adjustable bench on the grounds that an adjustable one is inauthentic, then he should at least provide enough copies of Wesley's A Collection of Hymns or other suitably period books to underpin it.

[Tony Newnham]

Which is surely only what Stanley himself would have found had he tried to play his piece the same way. The point about historic replicas and reconstructions is that they teach you things about how this music should be played. Short octaves that give you notes below bottom C have their use: there are manuals only pieces where you cannot reach the bottom notes without this arrangement.

 

Bill Drake is quite into organs with a GG compass at the moment (though I think his pedals stop at C). Should we shun such a thing because the organ has evolved since along different lines?

 

But, having played devil's advocate, I do agree with you in principle. Straight pedalboards may be appropriate to a particular style of organ being constructed, but I'm not sure what they teach us practically except that they are bloomin' hard to cope with if you've been brought up on radiating and concave boards. And I really don't relish the thought of going back to those narrow C-d' pedal boards you still find on many old village organs. I do think too that, if an organ builder is going to give you a non-adjustable bench on the grounds that an adjustable one is inauthentic, then he should at least provide enough copies of Wesley's A Collection of Hymns or other suitably period books to underpin it.

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Hi

 

I really don't see what the fuss is about with straight pedalboards - I've never found any great problem. Your pedalling technique may have to change, but that's all. I find that it doesn't take long to get used to different pedal key spacings either (at least, not whan I'm in practice). And as for the limitations of a restored Early English organ it's really no different to any other organ, no matter how large, you get used to it and either find ways round the limits or play different repertoire. As someone said in an earlier post, the limitations of the early English organ (and typical stop lists) informs how the composer intended them to be performed.

 

Every Blessing

 

Tony

[Phil T]

Surely the point of an exact restoration is to preserve our heritage for future generations? Yes, historic designs may be flawed (to our thinking at least) but that is a reflection of the thinking of the time. How many times have you heard cathedrals saying that a particular tonal scheme had been jealously guarded or lamenting tonal alterations that destroyed historic instruments?

 

[Vox Humana]

Hi

 

I really don't see what the fuss is about with straight pedalboards - I've never found any great problem.  Your pedalling technique may have to change, but that's all.  I find that it doesn't take long to get used to different pedal key spacings either (at least, not whan I'm in practice).

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That, I think, is the crux of it - practice. I'm sure I could get used to any sort of pedalboard if I played it regularly enough, but I don't have that luxury (or penance). As it is, when I come up against a straight pedalboard I find it quite impossible to cope with (except, oddly enough, for one I came across in Germany which for some inexplicable reason was a doddle).

[Jeremy Ewen]

Talking about authenticity, I recall many years ago when my wife and I were going through our early music/harpsichord phase, and Trevor Pinnock's recordings were normally made on modern copies, thus helping to make the music sound like it would have done when first written, and Christopher Hogwood always seemed to record on old relics which sounded like 300 year old fruit boxes with fencing wire strung across them. You can guess whose CD's we bought most of (but we did get CH's My Lady Nevells Book because that was all done on new fossils).

 

And quite off topic, it made me laugh during the Lord of the Rings film watching sessions at home, when looking at the (interminable) extras about how exacting they had to be with all the props, accents, landscapes, size differentials, etc, but then completely butchered the plot and style of speech ("follow your nose" indeed!).

 

JE

[Phil T]

Talking about authenticity, I recall many years ago when my wife and I were going through our early music/harpsichord phase, and Trevor Pinnock's recordings were normally made on modern copies, thus helping to make the music sound like it would have done when first written, and Christopher Hogwood always seemed to record on old relics which sounded like 300 year old fruit boxes with fencing wire strung across them. You can guess whose CD's we bought most of (but we did get CH's My Lady Nevells Book because that was all done on new fossils).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

When I was a young lad (that makes me sound old) I started listening to different styles of organ music. I liked (and still do) much French organ music, mainly Vierne and Widor. Every performance or recording was on an English church/cathedral/concert hall instrument. I got so used to this sound that when I heard this style of music played authentic Cavaille-Col instruments, it just sounded wrong. Ramble ramble ramble……….

[Tony Newnham]

Surely the point of an exact restoration is to preserve our heritage for future generations?  Yes, historic designs may be flawed (to our thinking at least) but that is a reflection of the thinking of the time.  How many times have you heard cathedrals saying that a particular tonal scheme had been jealously guarded or lamenting tonal alterations that destroyed historic instruments?

 

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Hi

 

To my mind the issue is one of use. Much as I like to see (and play) historic organs, in a church especially, a restored organ is there to do a job, and if it doesn't fulfill the NEEDS of the church (not the wants of the organist!) then there's something wrong - especially if the church has to pay. It's important to restore and preserve our heritage - but funding is necessary - and so is practicality.

 

With our 1820's chamber organ here we've just had to make these sort of decisions. The organ has been rather altered over the years (and has such "features" as a double-rise reservoir with both sets of ribs folding the same way, and GG compass manuals over C compass pedal pull downs arranged as a return coupler). On the grounds that it onviously originally worked, the reservoirconstruction has been retain, and it's just been re-leathered. The tuning slides will remain, as we regularly use the organ with other instruments - so returning to cone tuning and sharp pitch just isn't an option - we couldn't (and wouldn't want) to afford the luxury of an instrument that would only be used once a month (which would be the case with our current pattern of services).

 

If the organ had been relatively untouched then yes - I would have looked seriously at an historic restoration - but I doubt that the church would have funded it!

 

Every Blessing

 

Tony

[Pierre Lauwers]

"Every performance or recording was on an English church/cathedral/concert hall instrument. I got so used to this sound that when I heard this style of music played authentic Cavaille-Col instruments, it just sounded wrong. Ramble ramble ramble…"

 

(Quote)

 

This is most important a matter!

There is a relationship between languages and organ styles, partly because

we are used to the style of organ sound we have at home.

To a french ear, Vierne played on a british organ seems wrong as if someone

had turned the "Treble" button of an amplifier completely off; while for british

or american ears not so long ago, french and spanish organs were horribly

crude, intolerably badly voiced, with rattling reeds etc.

To be able to appreciate several different styles at the same time, you need a long

experience with each one, or -and here areas like Belgium excell- you need to be a polyglott living with several languages everyday, with a wide range of sounds in the ear and accustomed to the fact Sound "A, B, C..." may have different meanings in different

contexts.

 

Pierre

[MusingMuso]

"Every performance or recording was on an English church/cathedral/concert hall instrument. I got so used to this sound that when I heard this style of music played authentic Cavaille-Col instruments, it just sounded wrong. Ramble ramble ramble…"

 

(Quote)

 

This is most important a matter!

There is a relationship between languages and organ styles, partly because

we are used to the style of organ sound we have at home.

To a french ear, Vierne played on a british organ seems wrong as if someone

had turned the "Treble" button of an amplifier completely off; while for british

or american ears not so long ago, french and spanish organs were horribly

crude, intolerably badly voiced, with rattling reeds etc.

To be able to appreciate several different styles at the same time, you need a long

experience with each one, or -and here areas like Belgium excell- you need to be a polyglott living with several languages everyday, with a wide range of sounds in the ear and accustomed to the fact Sound "A, B, C..." may have different meanings in different

contexts.

 

Pierre

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

================

 

It doesn't stop with Belgium of course.

 

I have long admired the Adema organ at St Bavo RC Basilica, Haarlem, which hovers nicely between the styles of German and French romantic.

 

However, another country which never fails to intrigue me, is Hungary.

 

Josef Angster, the best known builder of romantic organs in Hungary, helped Cavaille-Coll in Paris, and then returned home after an extensive "study tour".

 

Were any organists on this board to visit places like Pecs or Szeged, they would hear enormous "French" organs "Hungarian Style".

 

Were they then to go to Prague, and hear the organ of St.Jame's, they would hear the Czech version of "Parisian," as built by Rieger and then re-built by Rieger-Klotz of Krnov.

 

The same is true of Blackburn Cathedral, which is sort of "English/French with a touch of German".

 

Interestingly, were one to compare a Belgian organ, an Hungarian Angster organ, the Rieger-Klotz at Prague, the Adema at Haarlem and the Walker at Blackburn; they would not sound remotely the same; yet each is strongly influenced by the style of Cavaille-Coll.

 

MM