The UK's leading Digital Church Organ specialist
We are always delighted when a church chooses to purchase a Viscount organ. Especially having done their own lengthy research into the various brands available. A decision to purchase a Viscount Envoy 35-F It is exactly what happened earlier this year when we were contacted by Reg Huxtable from Our Lady and The English Martyrs…
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Traveling with colleague Richard Patt to meet a potential customer in Suffolk recently, I had the opportunity to pass close by one of our recent installations in a very fine country church. So I took the opportunity to break the journey and pop into St Mary’s to listen to our instrument. St Mary the Virgin…
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On a lovely April spring day, we had exclusive use of St Kenelm’s Church Enstone to film a much more detailed presentation of our popular Envoy 35-F church and home practice instrument. The particular model we used having been ‘upgraded’ to provide sub and super swell octave couplers. Francis Rumsey in charge As ever the…
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It was almost exactly a year ago that we had a call out of the blue from Richard Apperley and Michael Stewart who were in the UK to find a supplier of a large digital instrument for Wellington Cathedral in New Zealand. Their fine pipe organ had been destroyed by an earthquake late in 2016…
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We thought that it would be helpful to provide a detailed run through of one of our more popular instruments, the Viscount Envoy 35-F, on a voice by voice basis. On the video produced you will hear almost all stops individually demonstrated and also their use in the choruses to which they belong. This will…
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In October this year I found myself for the first time visiting St Mary’s Melton Mowbray. My only knowledge of this church was as a venue where Carlo Curley often played organ battles with his touring organ set up in the nave. Carlo lived nearby and so was a regular visitor. An Organ just in…
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After a very busy week it is nice to look forward to catching up with some private work and time at the week end as most often we do, but just occasionally the weekend piece is interrupted by the need for help which just cannot be ignored. July the 22nd 2017 was one such a…
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In 2016 we ran an extensive three month competition to introduce more people to the sound of digital church organs. We developed a Quiz that tested the players as to whether they could identify specific clips of music as a pipe organ or a digital organ. In July last year I had the happy job…
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Our final tune in this year’s series is befittingly the old English traditional Christmas carol “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”. The composer is unknown but there are records of it being sung within the Christian Church since the 15th century. The hymn was first put into print in 1760 but made available to a wider…
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The hymn tune Thaxted is taken from the middle section of “Jupiter”, one of the seven movements in the orchestral suite “The Planets” by Gustav Theodore Holst (1874 –1934). Holst adapted the theme from Jupiter to suit the patriotic poem “I Vow to Thee, my Country”, by Cecil Spring-Rice (1859–1918), which honours the soldiers who…
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Darwall’s 148th or simply Darwall as it is sometimes known is the tune featured this month. The is an especially confident and optimistic tune with the resounding ascent of the final line, was composed by Reverend John Darwall (1731–1789). It was first published as a setting for Psalm 148 in Aaron William’s New Universal Psalmodist…
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Our tune this month is Golden Sheaves, composed by the very popular man of his time (and ours) Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900). Sullivan was a Member of the Victorian Order (MVO) and an English composer. William Chatterton Dix (1837 – 1898) wrote the words to “To thee, O…
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When choosing the hymn tunes for this first series of ‘Hymn of the Month’ I was determined that we should have at least a couple of ‘Welsh’ ones and Bleanwern is as good an example as you can find. Composed by William Penfro Rowlands (1860–1937), during the Welsh revival of 1904–1905. William is pictured here…
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This tune is possibly one of the best known from its inclusion in almost all hymnals and it is a fitting accompaniment for the words ‘Now thank we all our God’ Both words and music originate in Germany in the early 1600’s. The tune written by Cruger who was simultaneously a teacher at the school Zum Grauen…
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Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, ( 1848 – 1918) was a fine composer, teacher and historian of music. As a composer he is no doubt best known for the choral song Jerusalem which sets the words of William Blake. And recently he came to notice again when his coronation anthem I was Glad was part of…
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Our tune this month is written by a most remarkable American William Howard Doane Doane was born in Connecticut in 1832 to prosperous parents. His father was the head of Doane and Treat, cotton manufacturers. Doane showed impressive musical talent and by early adolescence he was playing the flute, violin and double bass fiddle. Doane attended…
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This month we feature “Lord of All Hopefulness” as part of our Hymn of the Month series played by our in-house organist, Jonathan Kingston. Slane is believed to be an old Irish folk tune and the name is certainly common to a hill near Tara in County Meath, Ireland. It first came to significant attention…
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This month we feature “All My Hope on God is Founded” as part of our Hymn of the Month series played by our inhouse organist, Jonathan Kingston. The original words “Meine Hoffnung stehet feste” were written in around 1680 by Joachim Neander and these are often sung to an early German tune of the same name….
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We have received a number of requests asking us to present music that our instruments would routinely play in a church context. So what better examples than well known and loved hymn tunes? This year we are launching our new tutorial series called ‘Hymn of the Month’. So watch out for them each month. This month we…
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In this edition of the series, we bring you Chanson De Matin by Edward Elgar in an arrangement for organ by Herbert Brewer. Originally written for piano and violin the arrangement for organ is particularly effective with the melody contrasting well against a quiet accompaniment. An effective presentation of this piece is all about sensitive…
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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 the first movement of a violing concerto by Ernst transcribed for organ by J S Bach. Ernst was…
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Did you know the poor church mouse was originally a hungry one? The saying was originally said to be hungry as a church mouse. Churches in the 1600’s had no kitchens to cook meals and no storage or pantries to store food. A mouse that was so unlucky to take up residence in a church…
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