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OUR PARISH CHURCH
PART 4
CHURCH ORGAN
No other musical instrument has inspired such avowed respect as the organ “That great triumph of human skill....the most perfect musical instrument in my eyes and ears....the king of instruments.” (Mozart in his letter to his father, 18th October 1777)
English organ music originated from the highly sophisticated ritual of the medieval church. The existence of organs in the British Isles is well attested from at least the eighth century onwards, but it was not until the fifteenth century that organ music began to assume an individual identity independent of singers, and from then up to the death of Samuel Wesley in 1837 its history is that of a continuous and accumulating tradition covering a period of some four hundred years.
It can hardly be disputed that the organ was accepted as making an essential contribution to the performance of the medieval liturgy under the Benedictine rule which chiefly encouraged the use of organs. There is evidence too of a lead taken by the monasteries in Ireland, whose influence spread to England. The abbeys of Malmesbury, Abingdon and Glastonbury received organs from St.Dunstan, a remarkable medieval artist and theologian (924-988) who eventually became Archbishop of Canterbury. He was equally skilled in music, painting and the mechanical arts and in addition to chime bells and other instruments. He was shown the art of organ building by “Irish masters in Glastonbury”. His instruments were like the water-operated organ (hydraulis) that was invented by Ktesibios of Alexandria in the third century BC and was very popular in the days of imperial Rome.
The hydraulis continued to the ninth and tenth century and was gradually superseded by the pneumatic organ and its most famous and much quoted instrument at Winchester. This was the gift of Bishop Alphege, who was later canonised after his martyrdom at Canterbury in 951.It was built in the Saxon church on the same site as today’s cathedral. “Twelve bellows are ranged in a row above and fourteen below. These, by alternate blasts, supply an immense quantity of wind, and are worked by seventy strong men, labouring with their arms, covered with perspiration, each urging his companion to drive up the wind with all his strength, that the full bosomed box may speak with its four hundred pipes, which the hand of the organist controls”. Apparently the sound it generated was heard throughout the town.
Fifteenth century examples of organ music are rare, which is amply compensated during the later Tudor period, which was one of the richest in British musical history. This was the golden age of the Renaissance and one that was particularly marked with advances in keyboard composition in which England was the foremost in Europe.
The name of Schmidt, later anglicised as Smith, became known as the master of organ builders. The first organ he built in England was for the Chapel Royal and the one for Westminster Abbey brought him to the notice of King Charles II who appointed him “organ-builder in ordinary”. Father Smith, as he was to be known, acquired such fame, particularly with regard to the one he built for Durham Cathedral, that he was asked to provide an organ for St. Paul’s Cathedral. He was not only a builder but also a performer, holding his position as organist at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, to his death in 1708.
The years 1750 – 1811 beckoned in a number of great organ builders including John Snetzler and Samuel Green, whose names are connected with a number of organs scattered about the country. There were then Messrs Crang and Hancock, a firm which built many organs of considerable note, and John Avery whose name is honoured as that of a master builder.
Much more could be written about the church organ; its origins, its builders; the science; and the wonderful instruments still in use giving a tremendous amount of joy, but to finish I have invited Geoffrey Dowling, our chorister and currently President of The Manchester Organists’ Association, to give a description of our own organ here at St. Peters:
“David has already mentioned the 18th-century English organ builder, Samuel Green. It was he who built the first organ of Bolton Parish Church which was inaugurated on Christmas Day, 1795. Green built several other instruments locally - at Leigh, at Heaton Hall and at St. Thomas, Ardwick Green, Manchester. Only the case survives at Leigh, but the organs of Heaton Hall and Ardwick survive almost unchanged, though the Ardwick organ was moved to a church in Salford in the 1970s.
So what of our own organ? In 1852, the Green organ was replaced by a larger instrument by Gray & Davison. It retained most of the pipe-work of Green's organ, but was a much larger instrument with three manual keyboards, a pedal keyboard, and many new stops. When the medieval church was taken down to be replaced by the present fine building, the organ was put into storage, and then re-erected in the new church. It soon proved inadequate for the much larger building, so another new organ was commissioned from William Hill & Sons in 1882. It had four manuals and 48 stops, and once again many pipes from the previous instrument were retained, including ten of the surviving Green stops. This instrument lasted over seventy years before the next major rebuild, by Hill's successors in 1953. It was reduced to three manuals once again, but there were several new stops bringing the total to fifty, and again, nine of Green's stops were retained. The result is that, when the current rebuild is completed in the summer, the organ will have pipes from 1795, 1852, 1882, 1953, 1969 & 1976, plus several new stops re-instating some of those removed in 1953. Among the exhibition of photographs showing work in progress at York, is a specification of the organ as it will be, which shows the original dates of all the pipe-work. Parts of the organ have already been returned from York and are stored in the South aisle awaiting installation: these include some of the largest wooden pipes. By the end of April there should be quite a lot of activity in the church as the builders make changes to the framework and interior workings and during this time, it will be interesting to see the frequent changes to the stack of returned parts.” G.D.
David Bevis |
