Sorry, I was too busy praising the organ...

I know I said I was going to write weekly entries here - and I invoked the reliable spirit of Francis’s mother, Patricia, to keep me up to the mark … well, I’m sorry, all I can do is explain that deadlines have been coming from all sides and I took far far longer than I should have done, writing the programme notes for the Waltham Singers forthcoming concert, celebrating the restoration of the Waltham Abbey Church organ. I have learned a lot however — like how the church organ works….

Laudes Organi: celebrating the organ at Waltham Abbey Church

The pipe organ is both the largest musical instrument and the most complex. (Its Wikipedia entry describes it as the most complex man-made device before the invention of the telephone exchange!)  Organs can be massive – they fill buildings physically as well with their astonishing sound – and their range is both below and above that of a concert grand piano. The highest pitches achievable are almost beyond the capability of the human ear, but are used in combination with tones of normative pitch, to produce bright tone colours immediately identifiable as coming from an organ. 

The basic sound comes from air driven through the pipes which are arranged in ranks, according to their similarity of timbre. The length of the columns of air within the pipes determines the pitch.  As well as its capability for high notes, the rebuilt Waltham Abbey organ includes the tallest and deepest pitched organ pipes in Essex. These will come into their own at the climaxes to Kodály’s Laudes Organi and the Dupré motet, ‘Laudate’ – both marked fff. The stop is called Contra Trombone and sounds like the lowest notes on a trombone or tuba, but deeper still.

Although an individual note can be sustained for as long as a key is depressed, on the pre 19th century organ it cannot, of itself, grow louder or softer. On the organs known to J.S. Bach, for instance, the volume of sound could only be built up or decreased by opening or closing the stops, which control access to the pipes – thus adding additional notes to reinforce one another.  Different types of pipes (eg reeds or flues, wood or metal) produce sounds of varying timbres. These can be combined in an astonishing variety of ways – and keeping them reliably tuned is an ongoing organ-builder’s challenge.

During the 19th Century ‘romantic’ period, the design and functioning of pipe organs developed in two important respects.  Firstly, certain divisions (a division is a set of pipes, controlled from at least one of the keyboards) were enclosed in slatted boxes. The slats – like large Venetian blinds – could be manipulated to mute or release the sound. This feature, known as swell, made it possible to vary the volume of a single note.  Subsequently, organ-builders (such as Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in France) grew more adept at facilitating yet more new linkages and combinations of notes in order to mimic orchestral instruments. This had a profound impact on the organ repertoire as the range of available tones encouraged a rich symphonic style.

The organ became a concert-hall as well as a cathedral instrument. Later, in the mid-20th century, there began a reaction against such auditory lushness and some ‘organ-revival’ proponents (those who build and commissioned organs as well as those who wrote and performed on them)  staged a deliberate return to the organ’s ‘own’ characteristic range of sound – often brighter and clearer than the symphonic range. In this evening’s concert, for instance, you may hear these contrasting approaches exemplified in Kodály’s Laudes Organi  (1966) compared with the Four Motets (1916) by the French virtuoso Marcel Dupré. These differences are a subtle matter of alternative atmospheres and it’s a joy to be able to experience both.

The Waltham Abbey organ has three manuals (keyboards), a pedal board and 2665 pipes.  Its essential divisions are Great Organ, Swell Organ, Choir Organ and Pedal Organ. It was first built during the 1850s by the highly respected English firm of Walker organs who were at the forefront of the ecclesiastical ‘Gothic revival’ moment. Among its distinctive features, then, were the swell chorus reeds and the orchestral-sounding oboe and clarinet on the Choir organ. These are retained in the most recent re-build by East London based Mander organs and, in this evening’s programme can be heard at their most characteristic in the Parry and Stanford pieces. 

The 21st century contributes significant electronic development to the historic mix. Pragmatically this means (among many other things) that the organist can manipulate (ped-ipulate?) essential stops with his or her feet when both hands are fully occupied. On a much older organ an accompaniment such as that to Balfour Gardiner’s Evening Hymn (1908) might have required a human assistant diligently managing the stops. Thumb and toe pistons for working the stops started to appear in the mid-19th century, but there are now many more of them, and they’re fully programmable.

This rebuilt organ in Waltham Abbey Church is a versatile, practical and aesthetically wide-ranging instrument. Those who contributed financially, organisationally or creatively to its most recent incarnation deserve our thanks.