David Bridgeman-Sutton ponders upon architects and organ builders ~ a marriage de convenance?
Architects & organ builders
Christopher Wren sighed and reached for the drawing board and T-square.
Fig. 1
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Like all the best classically-inspired architects, he considered a fine vista to be an essential ingredient of a large building.. His new cathedral of St Paul, in London, was to amaze visitors as they entered the West door with an uninterrupted view to the East end - a total distance of 500 feet (155 metres). Furnishings were to be of relatively small scale and the organ was to tucked away behind the choir stalls. Although he said it himself, this was to be a vista without equal.
Then the wretched clergy - who’d been nothing but nuisances ever since work began - came along and demanded a screen of the kind found in mediaeval cathedrals. This was to divide the choir from the rest of the building, cutting off a third of the length from view. (The thick, blue line on the plan - picture 1, left - shows the approximate site of this). To make matters worse, the organ was to stand on top, thus destroying any vista that might have remained. |
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Then the wretched clergy - who’d been nothing but nuisances ever since work began - came along and demanded a screen of the kind found in mediaeval cathedrals. This was to divide the choir from the rest of the building, cutting off a third of the length from view. (The thick, blue line on the plan - picture 1, above - shows the approximate site of this). To make matters worse, the organ was to stand on top, thus destroying any vista that might have remained.
On the grounds that an object may be large or inconspicuous, but not both, Wren made the screen as low as he dared and redrew the plans for the organ case so that it would obtrude as little as possible. Later, this led to considerable unpleasantness when Bernhardt Schmidt, the organ builder, discovered that there wasn’t room for three of the stops. |
Picture 2 St Paul's Cathedral
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Reference was made by an exasperated Wren to "Your damned box of whistles" and the discarded pipes lay about the cathedral for some years gathering dust and dents.
There was one consolation for Schmidt. The case had been made lower as well as narrower so that the bass pipes stuck out at the top; if Wren had ruined his organ, then a return blow had been struck by introducing an apparent line of chimney pots into the middle of what was left of the vista.
There was one consolation for Schmidt. The case had been made lower as well as narrower so that the bass pipes stuck out at the top; if Wren had ruined his organ, then a return blow had been struck by introducing an apparent line of chimney pots into the middle of what was left of the vista.
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The architect's remedy was to add extensions, with angels in attendance, to the top of each tower. These may be seen on the much-altered organ even to-today (picture 2) as very evident afterthoughts.
Two hundred years or so after Wren, Giles Gilbert Scott and Henry Willis worked on the case of the new organ for Liverpool Anglican cathedral (right). The console is placed in the projecting gallery, some twenty five feet above the choir stalls. The organist was asked what he thought of the design. “Pretty good”, he said. “But how am I to get to the console? There aren't any stairs.” Giles Gilbert Scott sighed and reached for the drawing board and T-square.
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Liverpool Anglican Cathedral
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David Bridgeman-Sutton,
Feb 16, 2003
Feb 16, 2003
Note:
When Noel Mander was planning the 1973 rebuilding of St Paul's cathedral organ, he proposed that the two halves of the Smith case should be re-united on the screen to contain a section of the instrument. This plan was not adopted, but a sketch showing what its effect would have been is reproduced as the frontispiece to Nicholas Plumpey's The Organs of the City of London. The book (ISBN 0 906894 06 9) is published by Positif Press, 130 Southfield Road, Oxford.
When Noel Mander was planning the 1973 rebuilding of St Paul's cathedral organ, he proposed that the two halves of the Smith case should be re-united on the screen to contain a section of the instrument. This plan was not adopted, but a sketch showing what its effect would have been is reproduced as the frontispiece to Nicholas Plumpey's The Organs of the City of London. The book (ISBN 0 906894 06 9) is published by Positif Press, 130 Southfield Road, Oxford.
Picture credits:
1. Milman's History of St Paul's
2. NPOR/ St Paul's Cathedral
3. The Laycock archive.
1. Milman's History of St Paul's
2. NPOR/ St Paul's Cathedral
3. The Laycock archive.