JULIAN RHODES' DREAM ORGANS

THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY:
A CAUTIONARY TALE

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780-1836)

At the end of the 20th-century the pipe vs. pipeless debate shows no sign of resolution, stale and well-worn though most of its arguments are. To re-hash them would be tedious, yet my thoughts have inevitably returned to the matter ever since, a few days ago, I was reminded in conversation of a certain pipeless installation in the north of England. This instrument takes flattery to new heights of imitation.

A little background information.

The organ of Durham Cathedral, like many of its kind, is the product of several stages of evolution. 'Father' Willis built a new 55-stop organ in 1876. It was rebuilt by Harrison & Harrison in 1904/5 and again in 1935, by which time it had become a late romantic instrument of 77 stops. Many of the Willis ranks remained, but now spoke with a different accent. The 18-stop Great included two open flue doubles and four Open Diapasons; Solo had choruses of orchestral strings, wind and brass; Pedal had for its backbone a chorus of Open Woods at 32.16.16.8.4. The most recent rebuild was in 1970, when the main additions were more mixturework, a 12-stop Positive division and a second 32ft. reed. It now has 98 stops, and is held in deservedly high regard by lovers of British cathedral organs.

The Durham organ has the good fortune to reside in what Bill Bryson has called "the best cathedral on planet Earth". Begun in 1093 and completed by about 1130, it is a definitive and massive statement of Norman Romanesque architecture. Visitors to this great building, spectacularly situated high above a loop in the River Weir, are immediately struck by its enormous scale. It is 400 feet long, and almost overpowering in its majesty.

Some ten miles to the south of Durham is the small town of Bishop Auckland. It is so called because its castle has long been the principal residence of the Bishop of Durham. The town itself prospered in the 19th-century with the coming of the collieries, and much housing was put up to accommodate the influx of mine workers. On a street corner site stands the Wesley Methodist Church, a modest stone building in pastiche gothic. The interior is pleasant and unpretentious, and - in photographs - looks as though there is seating for some three or four hundred people. Until the early 1980s the church music was led by a middle-of-the road organ by Vincent & Co. of Sunderland. There were 26 stops on three manuals and pedal.

Then an electronic organ was installed.

We are familiar with the fact that, when pipe is replaced by pipeless, the new tonal forces are almost inevitably much larger than the old. Taken purely impartially - stop for stop - this may well be an advantage, for constraints of finance and space are the twin causes of tonal poverty in many pipe organs. The guiding rule is surely that the main choruses should be planned and voiced to suit the building and its musical needs. It is as silly to expect a seven-stop octopod to lead hearty congregational singing as it is to overwhelm those same singers with floods of superfluous organ tone.

This, it must be said, is where many pipeless organs have gone wrong. In 1982 I was booked to give the inaugural recital on a new Allen organ in a church in Nottinghamshire. The pipe-organ had effectively been destroyed by water damage, and the insurance payout was generous. Some fifteen ranks of pipes had previously served this church; they were now superseded by a stock-model 62-voice digital stop-tab wonder, with two complete series of flute mutations, large choruses of baroque and romantic reeds and three 32ft. stops including the inevitable reed. It sounded as though a recording of a large organ was being played through a domestic hi-fi system. How much more wisely would the funds have been spent by designing a custom organ from the ground up, with a maximum of about twenty-five to thirty stops, and providing a really excellent amplification and speaker system, together with a solid, elegant drawstop console for the delight of the player and the adornment of the church.

By the time an audience of puzzled villagers witnessed me battling with those 62 canned voices, the church at Bishop Auckland had gone a stage further. Their new pipeless organ by Makin had no fewer than 111 stops on four manuals. Glancing through the builder's leaflet I was bemused by a photograph of the leviathan console, with its gleaming rows of drawstops and pistons, set among the humble wooden pews and the plain white arches. A quick perusal of the stoplist revealed some seriously heavy artillery: two Orchestral Trumpets, a Post Horn, three Royal Trumpets, three Tubas, a seven-rank Grand Chorus with its own Grand Chorus Bass, and an eight-rank climactic Plein Jeu. This aural clamour appeared to be imposed on a scheme which was somehow strangely familiar...

After a few moments I realised that I was looking at the stoplist of Durham Cathedral organ. In almost every detail the specification was reproduced intact. There were the big romantic foundation registers and the main choruses - though Great and Swell had gained a further three mixtures. There was the Pedal, complete with Double Open Wood and two 32ft. reeds. There was the spiky Positive division, from 16ft. Dulzian to 4/5ft. Octave Tierce. There was the orchestral Solo division, and there was the traditional British Choir organ; though the former had gained its 'Grand Chorus' stops, and the latter an 8/9ft. None as well as the Orchestral Trumpets, Royal Trumpets and Post Horn.

It was positively surreal. The organist responsible for this stoplist (and it bears little relation to Makin's house style) was evidently so obsessed with the Durham Cathedral organ that he wished for nothing better than a replica of it in his local Methodist Church. Then, worried that the congregation might somehow fail to notice its 98-stop presence, with a liberal hand he made his stentorific and blastophonic additions.

No mention is made in the builder's leaflet of any special provision for the audio system. In one of the photographs a lone speaker cabinet perhaps 5ft. tall is attached to a wall at the west end of the nave. Presumably the chancel speakers were housed behind the pipefront retained from the old organ. And perhaps I've been unfair - for if ever an organ sounded canned in its surroundings, it must have been this one, for all its majestic cathedral stoplist. Perhaps, in reality, all that musical weaponry made no greater impression than a toy pistol.

But that was only part of my concern, for even more acutely than the mismatch of organ and surroundings - and there have been larger pipeless instruments in people's front rooms - I was disturbed by the wholescale plagarism of the scheme. Imitation may indeed be the sincerest form of flattery; though what Messrs. Harrison feel about this particular example we do not know. Indisputably, imitation is integral to the learning of any artistic discipline, for through it we gain insight into the work of past masters more surely than through a merely passive study. In literature and the fine arts it needs no justification; in music it relates equally to the examination candidate harmonising chorales in the style of Bach, and to the budding instrumentalist modelling his performances on those of his teacher or his favourite recording artist. Having served its purpose, imitation is something which is then cast aside, as when a baby releases its mother's hand and takes its first unaided steps. An artist may return to it periodically, but rather for discipline and inspiration than for reassurance.

In the organ world imitation has its uses. It enables instruments to be restored 'as new', with damaged or missing parts replaced in the original style. It enables instruments to be built for study, such as the 1921 'Praetorius' organ by Walcker, and recent recreations of historic European organ styles in Canada and the USA. Perhaps the only example of a large, modern organ built to an imitative stoplist is the Aeolian at Duke University Chapel, Durham NC, which (except for its additional Echo and Antiphonal divisions) is an almost exact copy of the 1928 Skinner at Princeton University Chapel NJ.

By the late 1970s, Makin (the builders of the Bishop Auckland organ) had developed their own house-style. It is instantly recognisable, even though we may read quite seriously in the builder's leaflet that a particular instrument "was designed by the organist of the church". I attended the first recital on the 1981 Makin installed in the nave of Ripon Cathedral, Yorkshire, and was impressed by its effect in the large building. I attended Carlo Curley's performances at Alexandra Palace, London in the late 1970s, when for the first time the English public heard the sound of a large Allen. I liked that, too, perhaps even more for its characteristically digital sounds than for its imitative qualities. It seemed to me that the Allen organs of that generation had a tonal quality which was enjoyable on its own terms, even in its very lack of fidelity to the pipe-organ.

Which brings me back - finally - to Bishop Auckland and its cathedral-organ-in-a-teapot. To me, this seems like the most colossal missed opportunity. With the sum of money available, a small but adequate pipe-organ would have been a realistic option. I fear that the Makin owed more to an organist's console fantasies than to musical need and quality. And, taking a pipeless organ as a given, here was a chance to demonstrate just how seriously and effectively an instrument could be designed to be completely suitable for its venue, and built to the highest standards. To reach a decision which results in more being less, and in so doing to abdicate artistic responsibility quite so thoroughly, seems especially sad.

A cautionary tale indeed.

Julian Rhodes
December 1999