New CD release - St Chad's Cathedral Organ

[contrabordun]

Hi all,

Organiacs and/or Midlanders may be interested in Paul Carr's new CD, which is, suprisingly, the first solo recording of the 1994 instrument at St Chad's Birmingham.

Hakim - Ouverture Libanaise
Hendrie - Toccata and Fugue in F sharp minor
Dupré - Esquisse No 1 & No 2 (Op 41)
Purcell arr. Dupré - Trumpet Tune
Prokofiev trans. Guillou - March (Love of 3 Oranges)
Ravel trans. David Briggs - Daphnis et Chloé
Briggs - Variations on Greensleeves
Berlioz arr. W.T. Best - Hungarian March
Litaize - Scherzo (Douze Pièces)
Reuchsel Nuages ensoleillés sur le Cap Nègre (Promenades en Provence)

full details and ordering available at http://www.paulcarr.co.uk/CD.htm

Stunning playing, and Gary Cole has caught the instrument and the building at their best.

[Peter Jones]

Stunning playing, and Gary Cole has caught the instrument and the building at their best.

I shall be very interested to hear this CD - note to self - buy a copy.

However - look at the website and note the position of the microphones - placed in a position that no-one's head will ever be in.

The best humanly possible position to hear the instrument - with all the divisions in balance and blend - is actually presiding at the altar. (I speak from experience.)

If someone sits in the pews at that microphone position, the instrument can sound unbalanced - which is why the Positive tends not to be used for hymn accompaniment.

[Jonathan Thorne]

Stunning playing, and Gary Cole has caught the instrument and the building at their best.

I shall be very interested to hear this CD - note to self - buy a copy.

However - look at the website and note the position of the microphones - placed in a position that no-one's head will ever be in.

The best humanly possible position to hear the instrument - with all the divisions in balance and blend - is actually presiding at the altar. (I speak from experience.)

If someone sits in the pews at that microphone position, the instrument can sound unbalanced - which is why the Positive tends not to be used for hymn accompaniment.

I was interested to read this post. I was present at the recording (offering a second pair of ears) and tuned the organ for the occasion, as I do anyway for the Cathedral. The microphone placing as you see it is a result of a few experiments in the building. I can understand about microphones being too close and too high, but I must say that if the microphones had been placed further back then we ran the risk of picking up traffic noise and the sound would be less focussed. The current organ was never intended to just be heard at the alter and was voiced from the two most easterly arches. In fact the microphones weren't actually that far away from that point. In my own experience the Positive does get used during hymn accompaniments. I hope this clarifies a few things. JT