A cursory glance through the pages of British organ magazines such as Organists' Review and The Organ gives the impression of a flourishing organ culture in this country at the end of the 1990s. There is a steady stream of good new instruments from several workshops, some of considerable size. Organ tuition, particularly at college level, appears to have a feeling of organised purpose and a sense of musical awareness that would have been difficult to imagine even ten years ago. The music publishing and recording industries are flourishing.For the wind passeth over it and it is gone:
and the place thereof shall know it no more.
Psalm 103, v.16
A perusal of the bi-monthly Reporter from the British Institute of Organ Studies reveals a rather different picture. Organs are still being crassly rebuilt to their artistic detriment. Many are under threat, money is always in short supply, and the column of redundant instruments needing new homes is a plaintive reminder of how marginalised the organ's musical role has become in many places.
At grass-roots level the situation is often worrying. Church attendance is at a record high, or at an all-time low, depending which statistics you happen to have read recently. The continuity of the classical music tradition in worship has been broken in many places, and the chronic shortage of amateur organists in local churches only highlights this. Many instruments built with tubular- or electro-pneumatic action are now in need of serious attention, and in such situations the digital option is more and more tempting. And in any case, the organ simply has no role in some of the more popular British styles of contemporary worship.
As a touring concert organist I have the privilege of performing on good, well-maintained organs in places which value their musical tradition. At home in St. Leonards, on the Sussex coast, the story is less encouraging. True, there are a few organs of real character, and many more which perform their Sunday duties adequately. But looking back over the last forty years there have also been significant losses. Some churches have been demolished, though none to my knowledge was so unlucky as to have an organ destroyed with the building, as has happened elsewhere. The digital incursion has not yet reached the larger churches, though if substantial amounts of money are not found within a few years that may change. Really, the organs of St. Leonards have fared pretty well, though the town itself no longer attracts the great and good (and wealthy) as it once did. But, looking out from my seafront home, I can gaze at the lego-like block of flats which replaced the Royal Concert Hall (containing a substantial rebuilt organ from Lichfield Cathedral). I can marvel at the sci-fi contours of the water pumping station currently under construction on the site of the old Presbyterian church (which had a 2-manual Gray and Davison). If I crane my neck I can see the tower of the Greek Orthodox church, formerly St. Mary Magdalen (whose Holdich/Willis organ has been bastardised in another local church). I can hardly avoid noticing the outsize office block which stands on the former site of the Regal cinema (where the forgotten British master of the theatre organ, Gerald Shaw, served his apprenticeship at the Compton organ). I can easily see the Blomfield spire of Christ Church (whose 1930 Willis still roars gamely, but is in dire need of attention) and, across the road from it, the Congregational church (which contains the final organ of Holdich's career, now silent, and from which some ranks of pipes have already been removed). But, for some reason, one organ intrigues me more than all of these. I walked past the plot of land regularly for several years, hardly noticing the utilitarian block of 1960s flats, not suspecting that here had stood a church where 100 years ago was to be found:
..one of the best musically conducted services in the South, and the nearest approach to a Cathedral choir that it would be possible to find.
The Illustrated Church News, 14 July 1894
Warrior Square station with St. Paul's Church on the hill behind.
A photograph from the early 1900s.
St. Paul's Church was one of many built in the then fashionable town of St. Leonards in the 19th-century. Designed in pseudo decorated gothic by John Newton and dedicated in 1868, its tower, curiously reminiscent of a Venetian campanile, was a prominent local landmark. The interior was noted for the unusual richness of its fittings, with a lavish use of marble.
Musical Standard published details of the organ on 15 August 1868. It was by Holdich (in a town where he was to build no less than seven instruments), and the body of the instrument was in the base of the church tower, which was, unusually, at the north-east corner of the building. There were pipefronts facing nave and chancel.The spacious church, which it should be mentioned is of great beauty, is during the season far too small to accommodate the crowds who would worship there.
Ibid.
This was obviously a time when funds were in plentiful supply, for only thirteen years later,
in 1881, the organ was completely rebuilt by Forster & Andrews of Hull as a four-manual
instrument with 43 stops. The details were published in Musical Opinion on 1 August
1893:
The local newspapers were full of organ recital announcements for St. Paul's Church
around 1900. A few years later, things became suspiciously quiet. By the 1950s the organ
had become virtually unplayable, and a pipeless wonder was installed in 1957. In an area of
town where there were three Anglican churches within spitting distance of one another, it was
perhaps inevitable that the congregation should have gradually dwindled, and eventually found
the cost of running the church prohibitive. The building was demolished in the 1960s, and the
organ sold for scrap.
The outlines of this story are familiar; nor is it of much significance outside the local
area; but I like to think it deserves at least this small a memory in the collective
consciousness of the organ world. Perhaps living by the sea encourages a pensiveness of
heart; but it was only a few miles along the coast from here that Matthew Arnold penned
his famous lines "Dover Beach", which, mentioning the "Sea of Faith", might equally well
apply to our heritage of organs:
GREAT SWELL
8 Open Diapason 16 Double Diapason
8 Gamba 8 Open Diapason
8 Clarabella 8 Stopped Diapason
4 Principal 8 Dulciana
4 Flute 4 Principal
2 2/3 Twelfth 2 Fifteenth
2 Fifteenth - Mixture 19
1 3/5 Tierce 8 Cornopean
- Sesquialtera 8 Hautboy
- Mixture 4 Clarion
8 Trumpet
8 Cremona PEDAL
16 Double Open Diapason
16 Double Stopped Diapason
3 unison couplers 8 Octave
16 Trombone
GREAT SWELL
16 Double Diapason 16 Bourdon
8 Open Diapason 8 Open Diapason
8 Open Diapason 8 Rohr Flute
8 Stopped Diapason 8 Vox Seraphique
8 Gamba 8 Voix Celestes
4 Principal 4 Principal
4 Flute Harmonique 2 Fifteenth
2 2/3 Twelfth II Mixture
2 Fifteenth V Sesquialtera
II Mixture 8 Cornopean
III Sesquialtera 8 Oboe
8 Trumpet 8 Vox Humana
4 Clarion 4 Clarion
CHOIR SOLO
8 Open Diapason 8 Harmonic Flute
8 Dulciana 4 Concert Flute
8 Harmonic Flute 2 Harmonic Piccolo
8 Claribel 8 Orchestral Clarinet
4 Gemshorn 8 Orchestral Oboe
2 Piccolo 8 Tromba
8 Clarinet
PEDAL
16 Open Diapason
16 Bourdon
8 Octave
16 Trombone
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Julian Rhodes
December 1999