The UK's leading Digital Church Organ specialist
It was on almost the eve of the first lockdown in March 2020 that Richard Goodall and I visited Lambeth Palace Chapel to explore the options for a digital organ there. Here 15 months later is the story of the installation in this most important historic London building, which is also the residence of the…
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It seems that the need for hire organs just keeps on growing as another ‘SOS’ request came in recently from St Martin’s Church Bladon. A call on a Thursday needed an organ installed the next day for a wedding on Saturday following the pipe organ blower failure. Bladon at least is quite close also being…
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About a year ago now I learnt that Miller’s Music of Cambridge had provided a Cadet Compact 31 which was installed in the rooms of the senior organ scholar. I was aware that many college organ scholars often had a piano in their rooms and had wondered why none (to my knowledge) at either Oxford…
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Welcome to the sixth and final release in the Choral Organ Accompaniment series. Sussex Carol speaks “Christmas” from its first notes, it being well known as one of the mainstays of the traditional Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge on Christmas Eve. For our 2018 tutorial series we’re concentrating on the…
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I (Francis Rumsey) found myself in Dublin in late August, invited by Viscount’s Irish dealer David Jeffers to voice two rather different Physis-based organs that they had recently installed. The experience brought into sharp focus the differences between voicing a smallish organ in a modest church with limited reverberation, and a large one in a…
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Our third release in the Choral Organ Accompaniment series is a delightful pair of movements from Haydn’s Mass Sancti Joannis de Deo, often known as his “Little Organ Mass”. For our 2018 tutorial series we’re concentrating on the organ as a means of choral accompaniment. Church choral music was chosen to illustrate the accompaniment of…
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Our second release for 2018 Choral Accompaniment series is Noble’s Magnificat in B minor. Here the organ has a relatively simple accompaniment with little opportunity for independent flair, but there is the chance for a wide range of registration variation as discussed below. For our 2018 tutorial series we’re concentrating on the organ as a…
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Not since I was in school in Somerset have I set foot in Wells Cathedral which I hate to consider let alone write is 44 years ago. In those days my organ tutor David Ponsford was the assistant at Wells Cathedral and so I managed to get an hour or so at the organ console…
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Welcome to the first release in the 2018 Choral Accompaniment series. In this first tutorial we’ve chosen the rousing favourite, “O Thou the Central Orb” by Charles Wood. For our 2018 tutorial series we’re concentrating on the organ as a means of choral accompaniment. Church choral music was chosen to illustrate the accompaniment of various…
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The Hymn of the Month this time is “Let us with a gladsome mind” which is a text written in 1623 by John Milton (1608-1674), the famous poet and author of Paradise Lost. This is set to the hymn tune Monkland, by John Antes (1740-1811), a Moravian minister and composer. Monkland’s melodic contour is a…
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This time our Hymn of the Month is the song, “Faithful Shepherd, feed me” accompanied by the beautiful tune “Pastor Pastorum” by Friedrich Silcher (1789-1860). The words, by Thomas Benson Pollock (1836-1896), are appropriate for Communion. Faithful Shepherd is a gentle, serene hymn and Silcher’s simple yet elegant hymn tune Pastor Pastorum provides a perfect…
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Viscount provide 3 practice organs to Oundle for Organists For many years now the name of Oundle has been well known in the organ world for running teaching courses specifically aimed at young musicians. I first was involved over 20 years ago when I sponsored individual recitals which were part of the course activities. Oundle for Organists…
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The 2017 series was recorded at the lovely medieval church of St Mary’s Chalgrove. I chose this church partly because it is close to our base in Bicester but also because it is of a fairly typical size of the parish church in which we install our organs and especially as it has some of…
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[This is a series where we share short tutorials on a range of different pieces introduced and played by our colleague Jonathan Kingston, on our Viscount Organs. ] In this edition of the series, we bring you a Gavotte by William Boyce. William born in 1711 began his musical education when he became a chorister…
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