My first visit to Southwell Minster was a surprise visit for my 50th birthday to play the Screen Organ there. My 40th birthday had seen a visit to Salisbury Cathedral and my 60th went unmarked, which must mean my 70th is coming up next year and must be a very auspicious venue indeed! Time will tell.
Southwell Minster hire one of our organs
Anyway, back to Southwell, about 18 months ago we had been asked to prepare a proposal for a hire instrument to cover the cleaning and refurbishment of the instrument I had played almost 20 years before.
We were booked for January 2024 but as is the nature of things in the organ world that slipped back to just after Easter. The pipe organ is being worked on by Nicholson’s for a period of about 6 months so Christmas 2024 will be the target date for our instrument to depart.
An unusual speaker challenge to overcome
On my first visit the problems with the digital 32ft came up, which is used by both Nave and Choir organs. Hearing that replacing the enormous speaker cones was proving difficult, I took a quick look at the challenge and came up with a plan that was completed a few months later to great effect. Always nice to solve an unusual problem.
A narrow triforia didn’t hamper our smooth installation
Speaker location is critical to the success of any digital instrument and happily Southwell has reasonably easily accessed triforia that provide excellent speaker positions at great height and out of sight from below.
The temporary instrument was therefore reasonably easy to set up. The console was located just behind the south side choir stalls. It required a small box platform to be made to extend the stone kerb so that the bench and pedal board had somewhere to sit. Speaker cables then rose almost directly above up to the triforium. The only major challenge being the narrowness of the space along which I had to relay the 8 speakers we needed for this set up.
A head for heights and tethered for safety
The job made all the less comfortable, but safer, as I was wearing a harness. In some locations there is a continuous safety cable that you clip onto and so can move about somewhat like a trolley bus dragging your tether along the line.
No such luck at Southwell where there are a series of rings to clip to. So, you need two tethers, clipping onto the next ring before unclipping from the one before. It’s a bit like an ungainly relay race to make your way along the passage trying desperately not to trip on the redundant dangling hook that you need to secure to the next hook before you once more release and make progress from west to east.
I was in two minds if this complication didn’t make falling more likely. It probably did but on balance a fall knowing you were at least restrained, and life saved, overruled my otherwise somewhat cavalier attitude to the risks life in general can throw our way. After about an hour the 8, speakers were in place and cables pulled up from below were connected.
Impressive sound matched the pipe organs power
The instrument switch on sounded really convincing. An impressive sound that matched the pipe organ in power and presence. Perhaps for the speaker recovery I will delegate to a younger member of the team but making sure they wear the appropriate safety gear and have a reasonable head for heights.
I have had a passion for church organs since the tender age of 12. I own and run Viscount Organs with a close attention to the detail that musicians appreciate; and a clear understanding of the benefits of digital technology and keeping to the traditional and emotional elements of organ playing.
I was at Southwell Minster last Sunday (Pentecost) for Evensong and, of course, to hear your temporary installation which on this occasion was being played by the Organ Scholar Tim Selman. I must admit it sounded very close to the real thing, even with eyes closed, although I did keep looking up at the (almost empty) case on the quire screen. There were a couple of things I had to note which were clearly absent. Obviously there was no residual wind noise and also there was no thump as the general cancel piston (which would have been used on the Nicholson quire organ) pulled in all the stops after each musical item. The real treat however came towards the end and the processional hymn down to the font in the nave where we had a battle of the organs between the Viscount and the Binns nave organ, which was being played by Rector Chori Paul Provost. Both tuning and tempo held together very well on both organs, and even I am still trying to work out at what verse the organ scholar stopped playing..