David
Bridgeman-Sutton muses about organ
cases - big and small, old and new. The first in a series.
Figure 1.
ORGAN
CASES
Parallel
Movement, Contrary Movement and Pedal Note.
The congregation admired the "plain gold pipes, charmingly
arranged" of the organ in St Christopher's College. (The organist
was murdered during the service that followed, but not because of
his "vague and opiate improvisation". The story is told
in Edmund Crispin's The Case of the Gilded Fly which, like the same
author's Holy Disorders, is essential reading for all organists.)
This arrangement
of pipes would have used one ~ or more ~ of the three basic pipe
layouts. The Parallel Movement of pipe tops and mouths is most frequently
used when an instrument stands in within a pointed arch and is illustrated
in Figure 1.
This instrument, typical of thousands in small churches, has the minimal casework (known as "piperack") where the front pipes are arranged in a row over panelling that hides and protects action and windchests. Shorter pipes have shorter feet, thus producing the parallel movement. It is an arrangement rarely used by the makers of the great organ cases of Holland, Germany and France or of modern cases.
Contrary
Movement is seen in the modern case at Christchurch Priory (Dorset,
England). (Figure 2)
This is by Nicholson of Malvern and suits the substantial Norman
church: the introduction of the round arch motif beneath the case,
reflecting those of the nave, is a good touch. The pipe mouths rise
as the pipe tops descend, producing a better balanced design than
would parallel movement. The silver-coloured pipes, long preferred
by builders on the European mainland, produce a much lighter effect
here than would the painted and stencilled variety.
Martin
Setchell gave one of the first public performances on this organ
in 1999.
Figure
2
Pedal Note
is illustrated in Figure 3,
a charming modern case by J.W. Walker , of Brandon Suffolk for their
new instrument in St Paul's Lutheran Church, Newark, Delaware USA.
Here the pipe feet in the main, lower compartments are all of the
same length, resulting in mouths running in a straight line. Here,
parallel straight lines in the upper compartments provide a kind
of harmonic to the fundamental.
This is one
of the oldest arrangements in organ building and may be found in
illustrations to mediaeval psalters and in many interior views of
churches made in subsequent centuries, though the use of additional
upper compartments occurs only in larger instruments.
It is, of course,
the basis of the case at Christchurch (NZ!) Town Hall. In an organ
case this size, it would probably have been impractical and certainly
monotonous to have carried the straight line unbroken across the
entire front. (As the instrument is shaped to the curved wall behind
the effect of the straight line would have been distorted anyway.)
The interspersing of smaller compartments at other levels, each
of which has its mouths in a straight line, provides unity within
diversity - the aim of all case designers.
Thanks are
due for the provision of photographs and for permission to use these
to Nicholson & Co of Malvern (Figure 2) and to J.W. Walker &
Sons Ltd, Brandon (Figure 3).
