Town Hall Organ Vst

[Thomas Merino]

Thepicture speaks for itself. Within the beautifully decorated town hall of the city of Leeds in England lies this spectacular organ, towering high into the music hall and silencing the sounds of the city with its earth shuddering, rich, harmonic tones.

We spent some time with organist Dr Simon Lindley who told us all about how the instrument works, it's history and even a guided tour up in to the inside of the organ itself! Simon crafted 6 versatile presets for us and we began the painstaking process of sampling this incredible feat of engineering. Over the next few months we spent many evenings in the town hall recording every single note with multiple round robins and over 10 second note recordings to capture the true sonic character of the organ.

Everyone involved in the project worked long hours and for free, so we felt that it was only right to give away the fruits of our labour and hope that the spirit of this incredible instrument could spread throughout the world and help people to craft wonderful music that moves people to do good things.

We packaged the sounds up into a custom Kontakt 5 instrument with a lovely photo of the organ in all of it's splendor, as well as sampler instruments for Kontakt 4, EXS24, Reason NN-XT and Ableton Sampler. We hope you enjoy making music and spread the word about this wonderful organ so others can too!

This post is part of a series where I share some of my world travels, which my love for organs has taken me. I help friends, associates and fellow organ lovers with projects that mean I get to see new and old organs in gorgeous settings and really experiment with this instrument.

Those of you who have read my earlier blogs in this series will recall that they all have been for CD recordings. On this occasion I was turning and registering for a live concert which is altogether a more pressured challenge, especially at the Oxford Town Hall organ where one needs the additional skill of a tightrope walker.

And so at this organ much of the registration is left to the page turner, but here is the additional difficulty. The organ bench is just 6 inches away from the terrace edge with a drop of about 2 ft down to the next level so moving from side to side requires a crab like gate to ensure you do not fall backwards into thin air. It must be a strange sight to the audience as the assistant shuffles from left to right, sometimes at speed, trying to adjust the stops and turn the pages as well. Happily it went quite well and only on one occasion did some loose papers fly off the music desk as all this pantomime was in progress.

I was there to help Francis Rumsey get through the lunchtime concert which is part of a monthly series the town hall put on. I was there many years ago to page turn and today there still remains a rather quaint flavour to these concerts. The seating is set up against a series of trestle tables (picture below) where the audience is expected, as many indeed do, to eat their picnic lunches. A great urn of coffee sits on a trolley at the rear of the ballroom where a selection of biscuits is also provided all of which is included in the 5 entrance fee. Were it not for the refreshments one might think the room was set up as an overflow for the examination schools and any minute a cohort of gowned students would appear to sit a demanding test paper.

I imagine these concerts have gone on in this same way for many decades, genteel respectful quiet attendance broken only by the occasional clink of a spoon stirring the coffee or a knife cutting a home made sandwich with a 5 minute interval at half time to refresh the coffee cups. So typically Oxford!

Francis started with a charming Handel Organ Concerto, No 2 in B flat, a light hearted dancing piece exploiting the contrast of flutes and principals available on all 3 main manuals. No registration work there for the page turner, so a nice gentle warm up for both musician and assistant.

I have had a passion for church organs since the tender age of 12. I own and run Viscount Organs with a close attention to the detail that musicians appreciate; and a clear understanding of the benefits of digital technology and keeping to the traditional and emotional elements of organ playing.

Does anyone have experience of some of the lesser-known Town Hall organs which still remain? I'm thinking of the likes of Cheltenham, Darlaston, Dover, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, West Bromwich. I suspect some of these places may continue to employ a "Borough Organist".......

Well, I'm sure I could think of lots, but for starters, there is a fascinating re-installation of an organ which once graced the "Victoria Hall" Settle, in the Yorkshire Dales; built (it is thought) by Wilkinson of Kendal.

When as a young boy I used to attend wartime symphony concerts in Watford Town Hall it did not (I believe) have an organ. It does now, I think it's a Compton, but there's never any mention of it or if Watford has a civic organist which I very much doubt.

On the subject of civic organists are there many, if any, left? Peter Goodman was the last official "organist and custodian" at Hull City Hall and I know Hull Corporation paid him a derisory pittance.

There was a Willis in Wallasey Town Hall, which I think was bomb damaged, but from a photo looked roughly intact, beyond a rather shattered facade. What became of it I don't know, I recall someone mention once about a church in Manchester getting it (was it Christchurch, Heaton) and rebuilding it in a reduced form. Any takers?

Cheltenham has a three-manual Rushworth & Dreaper of 1928 designed by Herbert Brewer. It's a fairly bold, but thick-sounding job, not the best R&D of the period by any means. I'm comparing it to New College Oxford (the old organ!) and Malvern Priory. CTH is not, in fact, an organ that I would pay to hear anyone play upon though I have to admit I did go once, just to see what someone I knew made of it in public performance! The best stops are probably the smooth but beautifully finished reeds. It remains exactly as built and was recently overhauled by Trevor Tipple of Worcester, since which time it has worked better and wheezed a lot less. It is used once or twice a season for an organ recital in the lunchtime series of concerts and I've given a couple of these over the years (my personal taste flexes sometimes when anyone waves money in front of me!). There is no Borough Organist and choral societies etc. make their own arrangements if they want an organist. Anyone wanting to pay a visit would probably get a helpful response, the TH number is 01242 521621 and the officer who deals with the organ is Mrs.Alison Luna.

You haven't asked about Kidderminster which would probably count as 'lesser known'. This is an excellent old Hill three-manual with some more recent internal workings from HN&B including optional electric coupling. It's still used fairly regularly and the Borough Organist (Kidderminster comes under Wyre Forest District Council) is Tim Morris, who is also Organist and Choirmaster of St.George's Kidderminster. W.F.Central Services Department is on 01562 820505. Once again, I think they are proud of their instrument and would probably be sympathetic to a polite approach.

Most fortunately quite a lot of TH organs seem to have survived - lack of money is a great blessing sometimes. I particularly like Oxford, Rochdale and Nottingham, and also know Hull City Hall and Brangwyn Hall, Swansea quite well. These last two are both monsters which I firmly believe could kill in the wrong hands, but can sound wonderful if players are selective. Hull City Hall can sound quite different month to month, reflecting the taste of those that visit us. For example, Colin Wright (from Beverley Minster) who played very recently hardly used the full organ (or anything like) and the whole recital experience came off extremely well. I'd better not say who has made it sound worst in the last year's-worth of concerts (a very well-known name) Just to pick a couple more out.... Carol Williams turned it inside out and enjoyed the Theatre Organ Sounds to a large extent, and Carlo made it sound nothing less than world-class in everything he played! IMHO The Brangwyn Hall is a contender for the loudest organ in the UK along with Notre Dame de France, Leicester Place and Liverpool (plenum plus new reed).

A lot of the best TH organs don't seem to get much of an airing (or if they do, we never seem to get to hear about what is going on) I would list Reading and Huddersfield here. Maybe I just read the wrong magazines.

P.S. I was recently taken to try the organ at Wallsall TH. I had hoped to include it on a Wallsall 'Benchmarks' CD - you know, six organs from the one area. Anyway, I thought the organ in seriously bad nick. Recording it and publishing the results would do nobody any favours. They have moderately recently appointed Peter Morris, the organist of St.Matthew's Walsall (another big organ) to replace Harold Britton as Borough Organist. Maybe he can get something done. Harold Britton kept an eye on the instrument while he was incumbent and in the not-so-distant past a well-known builder (though not one you would expect) added a complete family of Tibias on the top manual. The local firm, Hawkins, have done some work......... (...stops sentence early!)

Birmingham Town Hall has been out of use for some time - I hear that work should be completed on the building soon, so maybe the organ will be recommissioned. Other than those already mentioned, the only town hall organ I can think of is Portslade in Sussex, which at one time had a small (2 manual?) straight job - now removed and replaced by a theatre organ of somewhat varied pedigree (to put it politely). Not town halls, but similar buildings are the Assembly Hall, Worthing (another large Wurlitzer from various sources) and the Dome, Brighton (HNB/CHristie dual-purpose instrument recently restored by David Wells). That might be an interesting contendor. St' George's Hall, Bradford is unplayable - and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

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