musicus wrote:(A slightly frustrated moderator muses.......I would be happier if they could focus on the issue of 'esteem'.
Oh well, all right then. There is such esteem for the pipe organ at St Chad's that should a second instrument really be required to be placed near the ambo to help out the Psalmist/Cantor, this can be done. Of course, this necessitates a second organist. Will that do?
Any opinions expressed are my own, not those of the Archdiocese of Birmingham Liturgy Commission, Church Music Committee. Website
The Skrabl organ at St. Patrick's, Huddersfield was installed when I used to go to Mass there when I was a student at Huddersfield. I never actually got to play it for Mass as they have one of the Cathedral organists pop over to play on a Sunday. Apparantly, they extended the budget so they could have the Pozavna, and it positively shakes the building when they use it. The parish certainly held their organ in high esteem as a very large number sponsored pipesto help with the cost. I myself sponsored a high F on one of the fultey ranks if I remember correctly.
Around these parts the church pipe organ is held in high esteem - after all, loads were made round here and there are still workshops in the area specializing in organ pipes and what not. Binns, Abbot and Costello, Wordsworth were busy in the vicinity providing marvellous mechanical devices for the Victorians to sing lovely hymns with. But all in all, the bestest organs tended to be in the Anglican and non conformist churches - and if you read the NPOR you find that many are lost now. Recently there was and early Methodist Chapel for sale up road, with organ still present - all for auction around £100,00. A lot of organs were lost in our direct vicinity as churches were closed, at least four Anglican Commision churches within close walking distance of our parish church - one bombed and the others closed due to lack of congregation. There is a marvel just up the road which is internationally famous and has cost millions of public funds to maintain and restore. There are at least 6 notable organists associated with it. Fascinating stuff.
But, there are still loads of the monsters around. Enough for our parish curio organ to attract little interest from anyone.
And in terms of liturgy, our organ is not the best way for one person to lead music. This is best done out of the organ loft and with the parish via a keyboard or any other more intimate instrument. You can highly esteem the organ in documents of ambition, but the other denominations win hands down for owning and loving the mechanical marvels and in many parishes, the resources in terms of hands mean that having an organ is not a blessing, or in our case, a financial burden. One parishioner told me recently that she loved to hear the organ - but bless, they do not sing with it. Our sister parish has removed their organette and replaced it with a digital costing many thousands. Recitals are arranged and marvellous they are too, but the attendance is around 12 per concert. It's obviously not highly esteemed on that particular housing estate is that there organ. Or maybe they wanted a real organ. Twould have made more sense to put that money into preserving our older heritage organ but sometimes people don't see the bigger picture.
And between you me and the wallpaper - I think pipe organs are boys toys. We are considering making a see through panel for ours so that the workings can be seen because that is the aspect of the organ that people are interested in. Even I get faintly interested in the insides of our organ. That and the old milk bottle we found inside it.
How much do you think it would fetch? Maybe we could use the money for a lovely digital organ! How much is lead worth nowadys?
The pipe organ was a Victorian must have for proper worship and perhaps the RC church is suffering from organ envy.
Around here, in our deanery, they are held in such low esteem that I am not aware of a single functioning organ of any kind (pipe or other) in any of the Catholic churches. Many of the clavinovas are in need of a kindly vets attention too, if truth be told.
About twenty years back, you could pick up a pipe organ for around £20 at Andy Thorntons. This was when carpets were more the vogue and old chapels and churches were being turned into carpet warehouses. "They park vans upon the graves they store carpets in the naves for religions dead and God has had his day"
So is the pipe organ a blast from the past? Even when parishes restore them - is this like becoming part of the Heritage Industry? Like, oh, we say, "This is our heritage and our faith (see original post" and they say "Oh, that is a nice organ, well done and off you go and play with your antiques" than pat us on the head and count their cultural capital.
alan29 wrote:Around here, in our deanery, they are held in such low esteem that I am not aware of a single functioning organ of any kind (pipe or other) in any of the Catholic churches.
What happened to that lovely little one manual at St Alban's? And don't you have a rather fine instrument at St Joseph's, Seacombe? I think the organ at Ss Peter & Paul was played at it's reopening - although the last time I played it (30 years ago!) bits were falling off!
Then there's the one manual (no pedals), 8',4',2' installed in 1977 when I was organist there. It's not big enough for the church, though, and now stands next to the two manual digi which came along in the mid-80s -used that at my Aunt's funeral last year although, being in the West gallery, we had to use the Clavinova for many items.
I wonder whether the tangental discussions regarding accompaniment issues could be "hived off" into a separate thread? I would like to comment here but I daren't for fear of bears and sparkling beverages.......
Thanks, Hare. That's a good suggestion. Unfortunately, the editing tools available to the moderators are rather clunky and it would be all too easy to make a canine repast of it. It's relatively simple to, say, split off the last six posts to make a new topic, but the very Devil to extract posts, especially non-contiguous ones, from the middle of a thread.
This, incidentally, is why we on this forum and moderators & users throughout the Web, are so insistent about posting on-topic. It's all to easy to get lost in a topic that has got confused.
The easiest solution, of course, is to start a new topic. No-one need feel shy about doing so, by the way: just look at some of the inane subjects people have started threads on!
All gone the way of all flesh, Nick. Unplayable or removed, the lot of them. Don't know about St P & P since wild horses wouldn't get me through the door.
I am posting on topic. Well almost. I won't mention the fact that to play our instrument you would need to have the build of a gorilla or maybe an orang-utan.
One northern organ is held in high esteem by Asda who have named it community action project of the month. You know, one of those giant cheques...? Wow. A drop in the ocean compared to (sh sh)
But hey isn't a pipe organ a big box of tin whistles and recorders? Expensive to buy and maintain, and in design, attempting to mimic other instruments by clever tricks? Surely an orchestra is what is really desired - many instruments played by many people together acting as one.
Also I think (but not very often some people say) when the church states they should be highly esteemed for church music then the church must be most interested in the great power of pipe organs to make the air and vaults shudder - what could be called the WIzard of Oz effect - the kind of thing that organ recitals and the classical repertoire for organs does so well. If this were to be the case then I could see that the grand pipe organ in the great cathedral style churches would be appropriate for cultural reasons. It would follow though, that the pipe organ might not be the best (and thus highly esteemed) instrument to support the singing of a small congregation in a smaller building. The best instrument in such building or with smaller groups might be the human voice.
The world has changed much since the Church chose the pipe organ for music - a more human and more ecological approach is called for when providing for music to support the Liturgy and Mission of the Church. For example in our parish we are giving food parcels and other aid to newcomers and to the very needy in the area. We have a struggle to find any kind of musicians and any kind of active parishioner who is not already burdened and tired with the everyday constraintsand pressures of modern life. Repertoires too have changed which is another factor to consider.
To organise and fund organ restoration has taken a heavy toll and many parishioners are not really interested or are actively against fund raising for it. Facing another couple of thousand to raise means some might withdraw their support altogether. It is a highly esteemed object that is acting a bit like a millstone......
You may be interested to know that 8 of our English Anglican Cathedrals have woman organists on their staff. A number of our Catholic Cathedrals have woman organists (numbers not readily available), then we have Dame Gillian Weir, Jennifer Bate, Jane Parker-Smith...
Maybe. But I think the worry over what's producing the sound is a boy toy thing. Personally can't tell the difference between pipes and midi but I am totally boy toy when it comes to the Mac/PC debate (well, there isn't one as we Macolytes know). So I think Oops has a point.
Exacly NB. There are plenty of washerwomen, but very few female plumbers. Most of our lovely pipe organs were created alongside the age of the steam train. OOOo steam punk, that's what pipe organs are! The train on platform 2 is the 1912 Wurlitzer for Wigan.
There is such esteem for the pipe organ at St Chad's that should a second instrument really be required to be placed near the ambo to help out the Psalmist/Cantor, this can be done. Of course, this necessitates a second organist. Will that do? 
