Your local pipe organ sounds like ...

[Contratrombone64]

Now here's a challenge (and when I finally get that recording of the Bach "famous" Toccata and Fugue sorted out my with sound engineer work colleague-which will happen today I hear):

Upload a performance of YOUR local pipe organ for us to enjoy (MP3 would be great).

I'd love to hear Lars' organ, Soubasse's organ in Adelaide, Panos' greek organ and so forth.

[wljmrbill]

That sounds like a great idea to me. I too would like to hear them played. I enjoed Luis post with him playing his spanish organ ( found under Nick's spanish organ post)

[Krummhorn]

Nice idea, David - and happy to oblige.

Narrowed down my selection to three ... hard to decide which "one" to include here, so there are three.

1. Lithanie .... composed for me by our very own J-Paul Verpeaux (Musicalis)
2. Come, Come Ye Saints .... an arrangement of a well known Mormon hymn originally recorded by the late Frank Asper, but never published in written form.
3. Passacaglia ... Dietrich Buxtehude

All performed on my church's II/9 Möller (1979) ... pardon the really dead acoustics, but that's the way it is in my church. I did add some reverb to the Buxtehude in my MP3 editor, so it has more presence. All of the registration changes were done either manually or through careful use of the crescendo shoe. The recordings were made using my Zoom H4.

[Contratrombone64]

So, here's the PLC College organ (Lewis) two manual, where I work (note well, I'm not playing it in this recording).

[wljmrbill]

Lars .. Nicely one. I enjoyed listening .Is to bad that the church has such dead acoustics as that would add greaty to the over all sound of the instrument.

CT64.. Great sounding small organ..ought to put this link on the post with the info and pictures of this organ you posted too.

[Krummhorn]

Thanks , Bill.

We've discussed over the years the subject of sealing the walls ... even with a clear coating ... the congregation has nixed it everytime it comes up for a vote. Sealing the concrete block walls would add just enough bounce to make it "undead" .

For it's relatively small size, it does deliver a good punch ... the reeds may be slightly brash for some, but I had them voiced that way, as I like a "nasty" sounding reed when the box is open. The reeds are the first rank just inside the swell shades.

When the church is full, the sound of the organ stops before I pull my fingers off the keys ...

[Mat]

So, here's the PLC College organ (Lewis) two manual, where I work (note well, I'm not playing it in this recording).

Geez, you could have warned me about the pitch!

[Contratrombone64]

Yep - the orchestra can't play with it because it's almost a semitone sharp ... mind that, that wouldn't have phased Johann Sebastian as there was no standardised pitch until the very early 1900s.

[Ntalikeris666]

Hehe! My 'Local' pipe organ is at least an hour away from my house :P
But when i find the time i will do it. In the meantime i will try to record in in my digital organ, though the recording quality wont be that good.

[jvhldb]

... the reeds may be slightly brash for some, but I had them voiced that way, as I like a "nasty" sounding reed when the box is open.

Yikes! I didn't know one could request that an organ be voiced a specific way. We once asked our organ tuner to tune the organ to concert pitch so we could play with the Free State Symphonic Orchestra (depending on which rank you use the tuning is anything from a quarter/half tone above/below or anywhere but concert pitch) and was simply told NO, it can't be done, so we still sit with two pianos in church tuned to concert pitch and an organ that can't be used in combination with either one. (We asked the piano tuner if he could tune one of the pianos to the organ. He told us he is blind, not deaf and will never degrade any instrument by tuning it to the noise coming from the organ).

[Contratrombone64]

Johan - that's not so uncommon with Pipe organs sadly. Often tuning them to pitch is a major and extremely expensive undertaking. Sydney Town Hall's monster is a classic case of where this happened in the 1920s ... Sydney Symphony refused to play with it until its pitch was lowered.

When i went for my epic crawl about inside it, I saw that all the pipes were adjusted for this pitch change, ugly but necessary.

[Soubasse]

I wish I'd chosen to click on this thread yesterday when I had the USB stick with several mp3s of some organs around here! This is a nice idea.

I have one clip to hand which is the superb J. W. Walker and Sons organ in our Town Hall (the organ is celebrating it's 20th birthday this year so it's starting to sound quite well "settled in" ). This is still my favourite instrument (in this city anyway) and I've had the immense pleasure of performing on it many times over the years, mostly in solo recitals but also occasionally with the city's Symphony Orchestra and numerous choirs. The instrument has been beautifully voiced (although possibly a little on the loud side for this particular auditorium but that's never bothered me because it's nice being able to drown out a Symphony Orchestra from time to time)

This is one of the few recordings of me that I'm still relatively pleased with (despite a few unfortunate slips). I was privileged to have been able to devote a whole recital to Jehan Alain on the 60th anniversary of his death (I have regrettably been unable to do so on the same scale this year for the 70th) and when it came to doing Litanies, I chose to (for reasons that still escape me) close the score and perform from memory (I may have felt as though I wanted no distractions or something ).

Anyway, for what it's worth, mp3 is attached below.
And for info on the organ including history, specs and photos: http://www.ohta.org.au/organs/organs/AdelaideTH.html
(The first error is the address which should read "King William st" !)

[technical info for anyone interested: I didn't have my lovely Zoom H4 back then because it didn't exist, so this would have been done with two PZMs (which I doctored with higher voltage input for a better frequency response) going to a Sony DAT. All moot anyway since it's now been compressed to mp3!!]

[Krummhorn]

Wonderful performance, Soubasse .. it's one of my favorite pieces of Alain, from a listening standpoint. Your playing abilities are superb

Yikes! I didn't know one could request that an organ be voiced a specific way . . .

In my parish, I am the individual in charge of keeping the organ tuned and maintained. My official title [per my written contract] at the church is Dean of the Organ, and as such, I can have whatever changes I so desire done to the organ without having to answer to anyone. My only constraint is to remain within the annual line item amount for such care.

My technician, Grahame Davis (a regional pipe organ builder/restorer), had raised the wind pressure to 3" at one point several years back, and during the re-voicing process I had the reeds adjusted to their present tonal condition.

[wljmrbill]

Soubasse.. I am impressed.. well done and I love the sound of the organ..Thanks

[FinnViking]

I love to play music that I never hear in organ recitals. So here is Offertoire in B Minor by Edouard Batiste, played by Yours truly on the Grönlund organ (52/III) at St. Michael's church, Turku, Finland. Recorded using two Sennheiser MKH-20 omnidirectional mics and a CDRW.

Attachment 1530