Pipeline Press
  • HOME
  • Books
    • Organs and Organists
    • Organ-isms Anecdotes Book
    • Organist at your service
    • Puzzle Book >
      • Grids
      • Puzzle Images
      • Errata
      • Solutions >
        • Alphabet soup
        • A-mazing tuner
        • Crosswords
        • Letter Ladders
        • Plain Difficult
        • Ring the Changes
        • Logic Problems
        • Spot the difference
        • Sudoku
        • Tricky Passages
        • Word Search
    • Looking Up
    • The Organ's Prayer
    • Olivier Latry in conversation
    • Paradisus Musicus
  • Recordings
    • Resounding Aftershocks CD
    • Organ Capers
  • Organists In the kitchen
    • RECIPE INDEX >
      • Gillian Weir
      • Hannah Parry
      • Birger Petersen
      • Marie-Louise Langlais
      • Thierry Mechler
      • Nina De Sole
      • Martin Setchell
      • Roberto Bertero
      • Carson Cooman
      • Ronald Watson
      • Katherine Dienes-Williams
      • Grimoaldo Macchia
      • Alexander Kellarev
      • Dorothy Young Riess
      • Andreas Willscher
      • Katelyn Emerson
      • Agnes Armstrong
      • Michael Barone
      • Claudius Winterhalter
      • Titus Grenyer
      • Alison Clark
      • Paul Spicer
      • Christiane Sauter-Pflomm
      • James Kibbie
      • James Flores
      • Inoue Hiroko​
      • Barry Jordan
      • Gareth Perkins
      • Thomas Ospital
    • Notes on weights and measures
  • Newsletters
  • Gifts
  • Articles & Reviews
    • Book & CD reviews >
      • Bevington
      • Booths of Wakefield
      • The Organ of Saint Sulpice, Paris
      • Messaien - Pierre Pincemaille
      • The Music of Ripon Cathedral
      • The Nordic - Baltic Organ Book
      • A Life in Music
      • Franck played by Pincemaille
      • Mystical vision
      • Noëls of Louis-Claude Daquin
      • Homage à Daniel Roth
      • Bach's complete works
      • Organ works of JPE Hartmann
      • The Box of Whistles ​by John Norman
      • Kristiaan Seynhave plays César Franck
      • Bach Orgelwerke played by Michael Radulescu
      • Le Grand Cavaillé-Coll de la Cathédrale d’Angers
      • The Organs and Organists of Ludlow Parish Church
      • The Hakims at Sacré Coeur
    • 2002 >
      • Alfred Hollins
      • Snetzler-1
      • Snetzler-2
      • Organ Voices
      • Organ Blowers 1
      • Organ Blowers 2
      • Organ Blowers 3
      • Organ Cases
      • Organ Cases 2
      • Organ Cases 3
    • 2003 >
      • Organ Cases 4
      • Architects and organ builders
      • Plain vanilla or chocolate?
      • Canterbury Cousins
      • Blenheim Palace and elsewhere
      • Ornament - applied and misapplied
      • Of hats and arms
      • Invisible organs
      • Organ Anthology
      • Organ Anthology Part 2
      • Ghosts
    • 2004 >
      • Spanish Fly
      • The Wonderful Woofyt
      • Mine's bigger than yours
      • Flames, frets and fiddles
      • Angelicals
      • Telegram from America
      • Booth's Puffs
      • Barker Lever
      • Bettering Barker
      • Alternative Hymn Book
      • Tale of Two Organs
      • Tale of Two Organs (continued)
      • Guitarists do it better
      • Music for the feast of Christmas
    • 2005 >
      • The art of improvisation
      • Records and Reminiscences
      • The Case is Altered
      • Fashion Notes
      • Two town Halls - Sydney & Reading
      • The organ that time and men forgot
      • Edward Heath
      • Tin Whistles
      • Secrets of the Opera
      • Singing in the train
      • Buttoning up
    • 2006 >
      • Automobile blues
      • Pipes and packing cases
      • Harry remembers
      • Harry remembers 2
      • Bismarck and the pipe organ
      • Harry remembers 3
      • Playing Aids 1
      • Playing Aids 2
      • Connections
    • 2007 >
      • The birthday Present
      • Harry Remembers 4
      • Playing Aids 3
      • Wonder of Gascony
      • Gilding the Lily
      • A Most Eloquent Music
      • Seeing Double - Part 1
      • Seeing Double - Part 2
      • Humble Relations - American branch
      • Humble Relations - French branch
      • Tops, Noils, Shoddy and Mungo
      • Tops, Noils, and Handel's Messiah
    • 2008 >
      • Neanderthal Hymn Writer
      • Brindley and Foster Byway
      • The demise of Brindley and Foster
      • Flying High
      • Dorothea, Queen of Denmark - and an organ​
      • Time's Ever-Rolling Stream
    • 2009 >
      • Giving them names
      • Dudley Savage
      • Three organ cases
      • Henery's finest hour
      • Sneezes from the Organ Loft
      • 20th Century Organists
      • Philip Marshall Part 2
      • Part 2 20th Century organists
      • More sneezes from the organ loft
      • Country church curiosity
    • 2010 >
      • The Italian Face of Salzburg
      • Ladies at the Console
      • Gothic organ cases
      • Gothick organ cases
      • Orders and decorations
      • Organs-in-fiction
      • Christmas-recipes
    • 2011 >
      • Oddments and Oddities
      • Memorials and Monuments
      • A Cunning Player - King David
      • Facing the Music
      • Celestial Bands
      • Look-Up
      • Durham-Degrees
    • 2013 >
      • Archibald McIndoe
      • Brigadier-Wagthorpe
    • 2017 >
      • Transports of Delight
  • JIGSAW PUZZLES
  • Competitions
  • Sheet music
  • Photos
  • Calendars
  • Links
  • Blog
  • About Us - and other info
    • Contact Us
    • Search
    • NZOrgan
    • Part 1 of Jenny's earthquake story
    • Part 2 of Jenny's earthquake story
    • Shipping >
      • Returns & refunds
      • Privacy policy
Previous
Index
Next

David Bridgeman-Sutton has divine, feathery inspiration in the form of Angels
Picture
Picture

Angelicals

Picture
“Ye watchers and ye holy ones,
Bright Seraphs, Cherubim and Thrones, 
Raise the glad strain. Alleluyia! 
Cry out Dominions, Princedoms, Powers,
Virtues, Archangels, Angels’ choirs. Alleluyia”. 


(Words by Athelstan Riley to the tune Lasst Uns Erfreuen.)
Heaven was perhaps the favourite subject of Mediaeval artists, who depicted the several orders of angelical in a wall-paintings and stained-glass windows. (The second favourite, Hell and its inhabitants, fortunately does not concern us here.)

Angelic figures, therefore, readily occurred to organ-builders seeking inspiration for the adornment of organ cases. A particularly useful form was that of the cherub, which, consisting only of a youthful head and a pair of wings, could be moulded to fit any space. With wings outstretched cherubim, singly or in rows, support many an entablature; with wings encircling their heads, they form bosses to towers of pipes and, variously contorted, they fill in odd gaps here and there.
Picture
Pic. 1 Mansfield College, Oxford
Picture
Pic. 2 Pembroke College, Oxford
Figure 1, from the organ at Mansfield College, Oxford, shows the most usual form: gilded, as here, the cherubic figure looks particularly fine against dark wood. It and its companion may once have formed part of another organ - many older cases were adapted in the nineteenth century.
​Figure 2, with wings furled, is now incorporated in the case at Pembroke College, Oxford. This is believed to have come from the Harris organ of 1726, built for the Sheldonian Theatre; it is certainly in, at least, its second incarnation.
​Oxford, the poet’s “city of dreaming spires” (parodied by a former Organ Scholar of St John’s College as “city of screaming choirs”) is a good place to find cherubs. The organ case of Christ Church cathedral (partly by Bernhardt Schmidt – c.1680) incorporates unusual pairs of Siamese-twin cherubs, supporting the principal towers. Fine examples are also to be seen on many French organs, including the grand organ of Notre Dame, Paris.
Picture
Pic. 3 Wells Cathedral
Picture
(Wells angel - a bouncer in disguise?
Carving cherubs seems to resemble pastry-making in that a good hand is needed. This was, unfortunately, lacking at Wells in 1662, when Robert Taunton worked on the organ. His cherub (Fig 3) appears utterly dissolute. Anyone meeting it in the street would assume that it earned its living as a night club bouncer, supplementing the income thus earned by nobbling racehorses on commission. Not surprisingly, it was left off the case at a later rebuild and presented to the local museum.
​Shakespeare states that one of the duties of angels is “quiring to the young-eyed cherubims”. Research has so far failed to substantiate this claim. It is, however, widely believed that a great deal of trumpet playing goes on in angelic circles and trumpet-playing angels are a favourite and very beautiful form of ornamentation. In the original plan for Sydney Town Hall, such an angel was shown crowning the case. In a changed design, it gave way to the present tabernacle.

Figure 4 shows those adorning the superb case at Oliwa Cathedral in Poland. The grace and elegance of these figures with their gilded natural trumpets must be unsurpassed. (There are also angelic flautists and bell-ringing putti.) A unique touch here is that the player, from the console, can cause the figures to raise or lower their instruments, an effect said to be much enjoyed by local people.

Let’s have more angelicals on new cases.
Picture
Pic. 4: Oliwa Cathedral, Poland

David Bridgeman-Sutton,
December  14, 2004

Picture captions/credits:

1. Dr Walter Houston, Mansfield College ; 
2 John Brennan, Positif Press, Oxford 
(website www.positifpress.com)
3, Cedric Laycock Archive; 
4, Jenny Setchell.

 
Picture

looking for SOMETHING?

Books
Recordings
Printed music
​
Photographs
Gifts
​Calendars
​Blog
​
Links

Puzzle book grids and solutions
(Free registration & log in required)
GENERAL INFO
Contact
About Us
​
Search
​


Our earthquake stories

Support

Shipping
Returns and refunds
Privacy and Cookie declaration

© COPYRIGHT 2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.