JULIAN RHODES' DREAM ORGANS
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Dream Organs!If you are visiting for the first time, this page will give you an overview of the contents of this Website. If you have visited before, the What's New page shows recent additions.
This site is designed for clarity of appearance, ease of use and quick download times. Graphics are kept to a minimum in most areas of the site, and frames and Java are not used at all. Organ stoplists demand pre-formatted text, and if you are browsing with Netscape you may find that the appearance of many of these pages is improved by the following simple adjustment: select Preferences in the Edit menu, choose Appearance - Fonts, and ensure that the Variable Width Font and the Fixed Width Font are both set to the same size - usually 12.
This website was founded in July 1999 and is maintained in Britain. Two sections especially are the result of first-hand research: Organs in & around Chesterfield (in the industrial midlands) and Organs of Hastings & St. Leonards (on the south coast). The internet is a particularly good forum for presenting this kind of research, and a much better one than the customary self-published book which would reach far fewer people world-wide.
The same applies to the Organ facts & figures section, where changes can be made as they occur. Included here are lists of the world's largest organs (past and present), 64ft. pedal stops, reed mutations, rare mutations and more.
The organ in literature is as complete an account as my research allows. The organ has appeared - often fleetingly - in literature from the time of its invention in the Classical world to the paperback thrillers of the present day. This section includes quotations from authors as diverse as John Milton, Hermann Hesse, Charles Baudelaire, Geoffrey Chaucer and Patricia Cornwell.
Organ designs, proposals and stoplists includes a diverse collection of material. There are still-born proposals and ideal organ stoplists by well-known builders and organists, and longer features on the individualistic tonal ideals of H.J. Gauntlett, G.A. Audsley, Norman Cocker and George Dixon. There is an examination of tonal schemes from the 'Romantic Zenith' (c.1890-1935), and a small collection of interesting stoplists world-wide.
There are Essays and Miscellaneous musings about a range of organ matters, while Esoteric organs examines certain aspects of organ design from a metaphysical point of view. Echoes from the Past contains interesting articles from the 1930s and before.
My own hypothetical organ schemes can be found in the imaginary organs section; there is also Liber Organum: an 8,276-stop organ.
The collection of Links is a small one; but as some websites seem to change their URL almost weekly, large numbers of links often contain much 'dead' matter. I hope at least to be able to keep up to date with my list of recommended sites.
Enjoy your visit to Dream Organs!
Julian Rhodes