JULIAN RHODES' DREAM ORGANS
PROPOSALS WHICH REMAINED ON PAPER

In the same year as their controversial modernist organ at New College Chapel, Oxford, the following proposal was submitted by Grant, Degens & Bradbeer for the new Concert Hall in the Barbican Centre, London. The budget was £30,000, a small sum with which to build an organ adequate for a large concert hall. Within this limit GD&B produced the following scheme. Schwellwerk was to sit above Brustpositiv over the central console, with Hauptwerk divided on each side, and Pedal divided at the extreme left and right of the uncompromising oblong case.

HAUPTWERK     
    16       Pommer          
     8       Prinzipal
     8       Rohrflöte
     4       Oktave
     2       Blockflöte
    II       Rauschquint 12
    IV       Mixtur 19
    16       Dulzian
     8       Kupfer Trompete
             Tremulant
 
SCHWELLWERK    
     8       Gedackt
     8       Spitzgamba
     8       Schwebung
     4       Koppelflöte
    2 2/3    Nazat
     2       Flachflöte
    1 3/5    Terz
    IV       Scharff Zimbel
    16       Fagot
     8       Hautbois
             Tremulant        
 
BRUSTPOSITIV
     8       Holzgedackt
     4       Spitzgedackt
     2       Prinzipal
    1 1/3    Sifflöte
    III      Glockenton 29
     8       Krummhorn
             Tremulant
 
PEDAL
    16       Prinzipal
    16       Subbass
   10 2/3    Quint
     8       Oktave
     4       Hohlflöte
    IV       Mixtur 12
    32       Contra Posaune
    16       Posaune
     8       Trompete
     4       Rohrschalmei
 
6 unison couplers.
 
Thumb pistons: 4 each to Hauptwerk, Schwellwerk, Brustpositiv.  3 General.
Foot pistons:  4 to Pedal.  3 General.
General cancel thumb piston.
Hauptwerk-Pedal reversible thumb and foot pistons.
 
Mechanical key and pedal action; electric coupling.  Electric stop action.
 
Second console, moveable on the platform, with electric action.
 
Slider windchests with inbuilt regulators.
Full wind open foot voicing.

In a letter to GD&B in 1971, the consultant for the project, Simon Preston, remarked:

As we left it two years ago, you had produced a specification which... we both felt would not produce a big enough sound in a hall of that size contrasted against an orchestra...
So.. apart from delicate flute and mixture-work this organ must have a powerful Pedal with at least one large 16' flue, a complete chorus of reeds on at least two manuals as well as on the Pedal.

In the event, plans for an organ for the Barbican Concert Hall were shelved. There is still no organ in the hall.

(Information from 'Twenty-one years of organ-building' by Maurice Forsyth-Grant, 1987)