All Hallows Convent, Ditchingham - Multum In Parvo

[David Drinkell]

Very true. My own opinion on organs of 10 ranks or less is largely in agreement with the full complement of couplers such as with the Casavant you have cited. However, I would be inclined to make the Great intra-manual couplers function as "radio buttons" so as to provide an octave transposer; which is to say one coupler at-a-time. There is a tendency around here for full registrations with every stop and coupler active (including celestes) that needs to be addressed!

 

Best,

- Nathan

 

 

Hmm - occupational hazard. I used to notice a similar problem on the Binns, Fitton and Haley at St. Mary Magdalen, Colchester, in my teens. I was organist of the parish next door and we occasionally had joint services. Invariably, the organist would sit down with his leather-bound volume of One Thousand Melodious Voluntaries (or something like that) by Caleb Simper before the service, and by the end of the first hymn all the octave couplers would be on and would stay that way thereafter. Octave couplers on Binns organs tend to be by drawstop above the top manual, so 'all on' looks much like 'all off'. Being wicked and in the back row of the choir-stalls, I once reached over and pushed them all in while the organist was at communion, and they didn't come out again for the rest of the service.

 

I am very alarmed at the non-selective registration which seems so prevalent. My old friend back home in Colchester was a dear soul who made no claims to anything more than competence, but I see PhD performance students who sit down at my organ, draw Great Diapason I Diapason II, Doppel Flute, Hohl Flute, Gemshorn, Octave, Flute Harmonique, Twelfth, Fifteenth and Mixture and then play Bach. It's enough to make you weep.....