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Everything posted by davidh

  1. The former console was made by Hermann prior to his death in 1964 (of course) and should have been solid wood, but when the 1990 restoration took place it was found to be chipboard with a rosewood veneer. Alterations were impossible, so a completely new console was built by Philippe Emeriau.
  2. In 1999 it was controlled by two IBM PS/2 with 80486 microprocessors working at 16Mbps linked by a token ring, and two CRT displays, controlling the pipes via MIDI. There was also a synthetic voice so that the console could inform a blind organist of its settings. All state of the art at the time, but some people have expressed the view that MIDI would have too much latency to work effectively on an instrument that size.
  3. davidh


    It's a vocal piece, but might well work on the organ if the performer knows the appropriate conventions: Guillaume de Machaut's "Ma fin est mon commencement". The top two parts are the same, but one is the mirror image of the other. The third part is the same as the first, but at twice the speed and reversed from the middle. So it's a palindrome plus!
  4. The reviewer wrote, "the wonders of Carpenter's technique (his foot pedalling is beyond compare) could only sustain interest up to the end of the first piece." No comment on his hand pedalling then!
  5. That raises the interesting question of why new operating systems should be incompatible with older ones. There is no obvious technical reason why a new version of Windows, say, should not run all existing programs as before, while providing new facilities as options for new programs. I am cynical enough to suspect that this is to necessitate the purchase of new versions of software which were quite satisfactory, thus helping the software industry, and as operating systems and programs get larger, forcing the user to upgrade the hardware as well.
  6. It is a long time ago that I took services in one of the free churches, but I had been taught that the service needed to be planned as a whole, with the readings, hymns and sermon related to each other, and if the DOM chooses the hymns, the lectionary prescribes the readings, and the preacher chooses the theme of the sermon, without some co-ordination won't the result be an unrelated ragbag?
  7. See http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=D04911
  8. I still wait to hear from David Drinkell. I'm sorry, CV, but I have only one copy and I respect copyright (when the publisher bothers to keep an item in print). My copy cost 2/6d - in today's money 12 1/2p, and the price now from Fuller Music is £7.50, which is 60 times as much, a ridiculous price for 4 pages of music + title page and biography of Sowande
  9. A Benedictine monk is correctly addressed as "Brother Joe Bloggs OSB". So confusion at the monastery when an envelope arrived, marked "Private and Confidential" and addressed to "Brother OSB"!
  10. I have a copy that I don't need. Please send me a PM with your address, and I will post it to you.. David
  11. That is the sad thing about so many postings on Youtube and other sites; there are clips from interesting CDs and DVDs, but often it is impossible to find the source, and even when one tries to buy a copy they have been discontinued. Short clips might technically (and legally) breach copyright, but they could be regarded as free adverts which would attract legitimate purchasers. If the copyright owner has ceased to sell the material, then he or she is losing nothing by the web posting - which is still not legitimate.
  12. It's better than a lute. It is claimed that lutenists spend 2/3 of their time tuning their instruments, and the other third playing them out of tune. A lutenist of my acquaintance did not disagree with that view.
  13. I recall Ernest Hart (of Copeman Hart) saying that he set his instruments to sound as if they were tuned a few days ago. There are good reasons for Hauptwerk sample set producers to fine-tune sample sets which may be subject to temperament changes, but some sample sets forbid that, and perhaps they do include the minor shifts from perfect tuning, so producing a slightly richer chorus effect.
  14. This is one argument for a toaster.
  15. There's a lot of good stuff at Carus-verlag. In particular I would recommend Contrapunctus 14 (the incomplete one) from Bach's Art of Fugue. Zoltán Goncz has demonstrated that the 3 subjects in the known part follow a definite pattern, and the same pattern can be continued systematically in a way which includes the missing theme. While it is less exciting, for example, than the more free completion by Lionel Rogg, it can be argued that it is a logically more consistent completion than rival versions.
  16. What will he be wearing? Will the programmes be televised?
  17. How about a Consolation of organists?
  18. They did put in pneumatic action on the pedal a while ago, but it didn't last. I believe that the whole action was replaced during the 1959 -1961 Marcussen "restoration" with a balanced action. And very nice it feels, with no "clanking" at all.
  19. And it would have been even happier with its tierce mixtures before it was retuned to equal temperament.
  20. Simple acoustic theory is often quite inadequate to explain what really happens in musical instruments. Take organ pipes, for example. The sounding length differs from the physical length by the end correction, but this is frequency dependent (and the simplest accounts don't even mention that) and so the harmonics should be out of tune. Add phase locking to the account, and we see why the harmonics really are all in tune, unlike the nasty harmonics of a piano with its stiff strings. Now in simple terms, celestes and angelicas should sound the same. When tuning one pipe against another the beats don't tell you whether you are above or below pitch until you change the pitch slightly and observe whether the beat rates get faster or slower. So what are the extra factors which determine any difference in sound between the two?
  21. From April 16th to 21st, 2012 there will be a tour of organs in the South of Holland. There will be a maximum of 16 participants (not all players) so the players will have an exceptional amount of time on each instrument. So far 13 people have registered, so there is room for 3 more. See http://www.dutchorgantours.nl/ for details, and in particular note the review of an earlier tour. Everyone is welcome from non-playing listeners to players of all abilities. David Hitchin
  22. I like long messages, and if the first few lines are not interesting I give myself permission to skip the rest. I do NOT like messages which quote long earlier message in their entirety. (hint, hint). David
  23. "Hark, the herald angels sing" might be near the top of the list, but both the writer of the words and the composer of the music would have disapproved of what we sing now. In 1739 Charles Wesley published a hymn which began Hark! how all the welkin rings, Glory to the King of Kings It was perhaps because not many people knew what a “welkin” was, or perhaps because the tune used then wasn’t very inspiring, that it didn’t achieve great popularity. John Wesley wrote, “Many Gentlemen have done my brother and me (though without naming us) the honour to reprint many of our hymns. Now they are perfectly welcome to do so, provided they print them just as they are. But I desire that they would not attempt to mend them – for they really are not able. None of them is able to mend either the sense or the verse. Therefore I must beg the one of these two favours: either to let them stand just as they are, to take them for better for worse; or to add the true reading in the margin, or at the bottom of the page; that we may no longer be accountable either for the nonsense or doggerel of other men.” Martin Madan and George Whitfield published a new version of it in 1767, with the first lines changed to Hark! the Herald Angels sing Glory to the new-born King ! Other music was tried, including Handel’s See the Conqu’ring hero comes, and it is still sung to that tune in Ireland. In 1840 Felix Mendelssohn wrote the music for a secular cantata to celebrate Gutenberg, the inventor of printing. The cantata was first presented at the great festival held at Leipzig. The lyrics (probably just as bad in the original German), went something like this:- Fatherland, once a golden day dawned in your regions Bringing dawn to your people, Germany, Gutenberg, a German came, Gutenberg, a German came, It was he who lit the flame, Gutenberg, a German came, It was he who lit the flame. Festgesang's second chorus, "Vaterland, in deinem Gauen", was adapted in 1855 by William Hayman Cummings. Mendelssohn said of the song that it could be used with many different choruses but that it should not be used for sacred music. This may be because the melodic and harmonic structure of the tune are similar to the Gavotte of Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 4; indeed Mendelssohn (who has always been linked with the music of Bach) may simply have adapted Bach's music for his chorus, as was suggested by Nigel Poole with his (transposed) arrangement of the Gavotte as Bach's Christmas Carol.
  24. If you are happy with soundfonts and Jeux, there is a Zimbelstern there which starts, runs and, when turned off, slows down and stops in a convincing way.
  25. See http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1qdqu/Chi...esources/46.htm for an organ which is available free for a church which can arrange the cost of collection. (The advert is misleadingly under a "For Sale" heading.) This appears to be from St Marys, Felpham, Sussex, see http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=E00717
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