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Six manuals

dll927

New member
Google that Barton organ. It seems that somebody parked a butane truck next to a warehouse where it was stored, the thing blew up, setting the warehouse on fire and destroying the organ.

Maintenance of pipe organs seems to be a subject on its own. You read of cases in which organs have been allowed to deteriorate, almost certainly for financial reasons, then you have Silbermans and St. Bavo in Holland that are centuries old and still playable. Go figure.
 

Dorsetmike

Member
My favourite local organ at Wimborne Minster, has pipes still in use from the instrument built in 1664, others from 1764, through to the latest addition in 2000. I can't think of any other type of instrument which can evolve like this.
 

dll927

New member
I don't know about 1664 or 1764, but there are surely plenty of organs around that have retained pipes from older incarnations.

It seems that "restoring" or "rebuilding" organs can become a controversial topic. Every so often I run into a rant about how some builder "ruined" a once beautiful organ, then 40 or 50 years later another builder comes along and "restores" it to what it supposedly was at first.
 

wljmrbill

Member
I like to have a 3 manual at my disposal: however one can get by fine with 2 manuals for just service playing as we all seem to agree. I played an a Large Episcopal church and performed abit of concert work so I needed a larger instrument available.I have played a number of times a 4 manuel theater organ and I did enjoy having all those extra stops/ranks available. Like most of us organist we must adapt to what there is to play at the time we are there.
 

jvhldb

New member
........Like most of us organist we must adapt to what there is to play at the time we are there.

My teacher is of the opinion that any reasonable musician should be capable of playing their instrument, not matter what the conditions you play under or the condition of the instrument. If it is out of tune, there is nothing you can do about it, so just bite on your teath and carry on.

This bit of wisdom was imparted to me after a discussion about a pianist who refuses to play on anything but a grand piano.
 

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
:lol: Johan ...
I've played some doozies along the way, too. One was at Assisi (Italy) - a portativ that I had to practically sit side-saddle to play. The stops were paperclips with stickynotes attached that bore the stopnames. Forget that it hadn't been tuned in 40 years ... :shake:.
 

dll927

New member
So-called theater organs didn't come along until after electric action was developed. And they are a totally different breed of animal than a classical pipe organ. They are so unified that there can be a hundred stop tabs, all playing off of a dozen or 15 ranks. All those rows of stop tabs just duplicate one another.

As for making do with an organ that's out of tune or otherwise neglected, there ought to be a law against such treatment. Most of it probably happens for financial reasons.

European countries all seem to have some type of "ministry of culture" that tends to hold sway over some of the more historic examples. My understanding is that the rather famous organ at St. Bavo's in Haarlem, Holland is owned by the CITY, which strikes me as a somewhat odd arrangement. Once they become the European equivalent of 'historic monuments' the bureaucracy has as much to say about them as anyone else. Or at least so I understand.
 

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
. . . As for making do with an organ that's out of tune or otherwise neglected, there ought to be a law against such treatment. Most of it probably happens for financial reasons.

Agreed :).

Indeed, lots go neglected due to financial reasons, unfortunately.
Churches here in the US are individually responsible for organ maintenance - I have a budget line item specifically for organ maintenance in the church where I have been the organist since 1982.

Many churches don't prepare for organ maintenance in their annual budgets ... if figured out as a "per parishioner" cost, it's practically nothing and it would always be taken care of. Sad, but true.
 

jvhldb

New member
Agreed :).

Indeed, lots go neglected due to financial reasons, unfortunately.
Churches here in the US are individually responsible for organ maintenance - I have a budget line item specifically for organ maintenance in the church where I have been the organist since 1982.

Many churches don't prepare for organ maintenance in their annual budgets ... if figured out as a "per parishioner" cost, it's practically nothing and it would always be taken care of. Sad, but true.

Sometimes it's not finacial at all, our church has a budget for maintenance, but the technitian is not up to scratch. His last visit lasted about 40 minutes, he didn't use a tuning fork or similar device when doing the tuning. The only part of the organ that was cleaned (by his assistant) was the walkway he had to walk on. There is a 3cm layer of bat guano in the organ (maybe I should scoop it out with a spoon and sell it as fertilizer to pay for the next maintenance:cool:) the dust and dead bugs are so old you will need carbon dating to determine when they died.
 

Aristide

New member
European countries all seem to have some type of "ministry of culture" that tends to hold sway over some of the more historic examples. My understanding is that the rather famous organ at St. Bavo's in Haarlem, Holland is owned by the CITY, which strikes me as a somewhat odd arrangement. Once they become the European equivalent of 'historic monuments' the bureaucracy has as much to say about them as anyone else. Or at least so I understand.

This is (partly) correct.
'My' organ (or at least the one I'm in charge of), is such a case. It is owned by the State, like many historical organs in several European countries. This has happened because of ancient (often Napoleontic) law, valid not only for several organs, but also other church property of all kinds.
As a consequence, the organ in this case is owned by the State and 'in the care of church x or y'. So finally the church has to come up with the money for usual maintenance. It happens that the city contributes to it, somehow.
The real nastiness starts when overhaul or restoration is in order. On this organ here, the State would contribute 90% of the hefty cost if everything is approved. However, the State then controls everything. We (organist, consultant, council) barely have any say in the matter. The real killer is that the cheapest subscribing organ builder gets to do the work. In the case of a valuable historic instrument, this is mostly a disaster waiting to happen. Firms really capable of restoring / overhauling that kind of organ know what price to ask for their expertise. Never a rock-bottom price. So, in this system you never get quality.
As a consequence, the in fact necessary restoration of the organ has been postponed indefinitely, as it may turn into ruins what still stands today - my ultimate nightmare. There are numerous examples of horrible restorations all over the country. Unfortunately, some day it'll be a non-choice ...
 

pcnd5584

New member
I don't know about 1664 or 1764, but there are surely plenty of organs around that have retained pipes from older incarnations.

It seems that "restoring" or "rebuilding" organs can become a controversial topic. Every so often I run into a rant about how some builder "ruined" a once beautiful organ, then 40 or 50 years later another builder comes along and "restores" it to what it supposedly was at first.

This is unlikely - at least in the U.K. It is even less likely in the U.S. or Australasia - for obvious reasons. Unless you mean simply instruments which retained pipework from a previous state - not specifically prior to 1664.

Incidentally, the organ of Wimborne Minster also had a rank changed in 2006.
 
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