Planned Work

Current Problems

We are already fortunate to have a musical instrument of great character and versatility. It would be difficult to imagine the excitement of Christmas Eve without its accompaniment, or a joyous wedding, or a solemn funeral. It is an instrument for all our lives, and it speaks to us whether we are students of the organ or simply those who delight in listening.  

Our organ, built in 1986, is a flexible instrument that can play music across the whole repertoire - from the earliest to the most modern. It is fully mechanical, which means that the player is in direct contact with the pipes through the keyboards and a system of levers. As such it is an excellent instrument for us and future generations.  

Now work is needed – not just any old maintenance, but £40,000 worth of it. Those of you attending church or concerts recently will have noticed strange noises - from full squawks to a quietly piercing and annoying ringing-in-the-ears sound. These 'aviary' moments are the occasions when the organist has failed to overcome the problems, or is suddenly confronted with a new one. It is like having a washing machine that malfunctions on several cycles. It is not always easy to avoid the problem. Although in its design, the organ is a fine instrument, the way it was built has meant that the infrastructure has deteriorated - rather earlier than should have happened. The result is unreliability.

Simple Changes

1. The mechanical action Connecting the keyboard to the 1,775 pipes there is a complex array of rods, levers and brackets. These mechanisms for transferring control from finger to pipe have not stood up well to use, and often fail, resulting in those strange noises. All the connections between the keyboards and the pipes will be rebuilt. This will be done to a more 'standard' specification and will be made of materials of the highest quality.

This work will make the touch of each key more regular. Currently, some keys need pressing harder than others and the lack of regular 'touch' means music often sounds jumpy and unmusical. With this put right, organists will be able to make music rather than plan damage control; and the specialist who maintains our instrument will be able to concentrate on tuning rather than on patching the faults.

2. The electronic system An organ has lots of 'stops' or sounds that the organist combines as a painter would combine colours, or a composer combine sounds in an orchestra. As organs have become larger and more varied, the demands placed on them to make contrasting sounds have increased. For the last hundred years or so, organists have had systems to help 'remember' combinations of sounds. So, like finding a preset station on a radio, you can make big changes at the touch of a button.

Without such a system, one has to turn each sound on or off individually – impossible if you need suddenly to make big changes. It is a requirement of most organ music that the changes happen swiftly and reliably – especially in the more modern repertoire which assumes that these 'system' demands can be met. The present very basic system will be replaced with a state-of-the-art and industry-standard system. A further problem with the existing system is that there is no access to some electrical components except by sawing through the wood of the instrument. The proposed alterations will overcome this problem.

3. The wind Just like organists writing articles, organs are full of wind, and this wind must be effectively channelled. Unfortunately for the organ in St. Peter's, the wind is often in the wrong places and not always steadily supplied. The system of control valves has broken down several times in the past few years. During Christmas 2004, the wind system broke down so that the organ was out of action. Fixing the problem and reaching the defective valve, necessitated removing pipes and sawing through the complicated wind box on which the pipes sit.

The systems supplying the wind will be replaced with the more tried-and-tested method of bellows. This will make the wind supply more constant, and able to cope with heavy demands during loud playing. Both the stability of tuning and the sound- quality will  both be improved.

4. Rumble on the bottom You will all know that organists operate a pedal keyboard as well as a manual one. It is on the pedals that all the exhilarating low sounds are created. The pedals need to be balanced in sound with the rest of the instrument if their independent line is to be heard fully. Alas, the pedal sounds on the present organ are not strong enough to achieve this balance with the result that the overall sound is not full-bodied but rather weedy.

How to add more sound? To add just one new stop of pedal pipes, would need the space for 30 big pipes, with the biggest being nearly three times as tall as the writer of this piece. The solution is to add a 'digital' pedal sound. One sound only, but it will provide a deep bass to the instrument, give depth and balance to the current sound, increase the possibilities for the organist, and provide definite, new excitement for all those listening. A 'digital' sound at these depths will not have the synthetic artificiality that we might associate with a fully digital instrument.

Changes in Technical Detail

1. Manual Key Action

• New levers, backfalls, trackers and wires to achieve the best working and reliability possible. Tracker ends and action wires will be threaded and double buttoned with Laukhuff plastic buttons and cloth washers to give the best adjustment.
• Existing coupler 'Slic' motors will be retained
• Keyboards inspected and pins adjusted. Depth will be set at 8.5/9 mm
• Action will be rebuilt from windchests back to console including inspection of each part and readjustment to half-action. Existing aluminium wires and tracker ends will be changed to 15-gauge phosphor bronze wire, or nickel plated brass tracker ends, depending on required application.
• Pallet pull down wires will be changed. Plastic and leather links between the pull down wire and pallet will be removed to leave a wire-on-wire connection.
• Roller boards will be checked as some do not have he correct second fixing to keep them in line with the roller. Sprung square beams will have the coil springs removed and the beams firmly fixed.
  

2. Piston and Combination System

• The design, construction and installation of a new combination piston system. It will include a stepper facility giving some 12 levels on a rotary switch for all department pistons and 256 levels on a digital display for all general piston levels. There will be an adjustable pulse holding facility.
• Shanks of draw stops will be changed from square to round to reduce friction and the possibility of sticking.
• Pistons will be increased to 8 general and 6 divisional pistons per level.
• Existing thumb pistons will be removed and replaced with more usual conventional design. These will be placed on the back of the key rail where they may be accessed for repair.
  

3. Manual Winding

• Pipework will be removed temporarily from the Swell Organ
• Two new wind inlets will be made – one as part of the existing inlet at the treble end and one at the bass. This will help stabilise tuning. New wind trunks will drop down over the treble pipes of the Swell division before exiting the case into the new wind regulating area. The windchest will be removed to make this work possible.
• Two new bellows will be designed and built. These bellows will have control valves outside the case to the rear of the organ. The Great bellows will be in a frame above the Swell bellows. In order to accommodate this, there will be either an extended case or separate arrangement with access space for tuning and maintenance.
  

4. Pedal Organ

• A unit fitted to the pedal organ will provide a 32' pitch sound, based on a digitally sampled sound.
• The pedal board will be fitted with electrical contacts
• Speakers will be positioned.

So, there it is – a full £40,000 of work.

Builder and Consultation process

In 2005, it became clear that the Organ needed some major work. Since the millennium year, a catalogue of unnecessary problems had occurred:

• The electrical combination system was failing. Occasionally it was forgetting its settings and at least one failing part had to be disconnected to stop it interfering with the rest, and with no maintenance to the failing component without drilling through the console, it remains so.
• On two separate occasions, the wind regulation system based inside the complex windchests had broken. With no maintenance access to the particular system, the only option was a delicate procedure of sawing through the instrument having removed the pipes. The systems remain liable to cause problems again.
• The tracker action continues to have regular problems. In 2005, we lost all depth to the keys as a system collapsed deep inside the instrument. More regularly the mechanism regularly falls out of place, and with perishing components and aluminium rods, the problems regularly continue to interfere with playing with increasingly less possibility of fine adjustment.

At that point the Music Staff and Parish Council spent time talking in depth about these problems to our organ builder Vincent Woodstock, and also the Diocesan Organ Advisor, John Norman. After several meetings and an official consultation, it was obvious that all parties were in agreement over the problems and the way to proceed. It was the feeling of the church representatives and the Diocesan representatives, that Vincent Woodstock was the ideal builder to undertake this work. Vincent is well-reputed mechanical instrument specialist whose organs are used by some of the top orchestras and musicians. In addition, he has looked after our instrument for a number of years and knows it intimately.

Use of Organ now and future

The popular misconception of organ use is 'just' for a few hymns and a couple of badly-played voluntaries. In the case of St. Peter's, we are fortunate that the organ is used for the following:

• The Ordinary and Festal life and worship of the church community – including the popular Christmas and Easter services
• Accompanying the weddings of the community of Berkhamsted
• A final tribute to the departed of Berkhamsted
• Accompanying services for the schools of Berkhamsted, occasionally the Royal British Legion, the Scouts, the Diocese, Christian Aid, and many more
• Teaching the next generation of players – both by the resident music staff, and organists further afield
• A practice instrument for organists both of amateur and high-professional calibre
• Accompanying choral and solo voice and instrumental concerts
• Enjoying its possibility as an orchestral instrument during orchestral concerts.

Once the instrument is working reliably and is a much more enjoyable instrument to play, we will be planning regular and interesting organ recitals from a wide variety of players. (This is not currently possible due to the unreliability of the instrument.) It will also attract teachers and pupils, inspire young musicians who hear it, and we hope that recordings could be possible in the near future.

FAQs

Below you will find answers to some frequently asked questions about the instrument.


The organ sounds fine to me, how does it need so much work?

A lot of the problems are not to do with the 'sound'. The way the instrument 'sounds' is dependant on the way the pipes are made by the builder. Like any good system, however, the mechanism that controls and supplies the pipes can make them sound better – usually because it controls the pipes more easily and reliably. Instead of circumnavigating the places where there are problems and trying to cope with regular unreliability, the organist will be able to create music more easily. This, almost certainly, enhances the enjoyment of the listener – parts of the instrument should sound more in tune than they ever have been and the playing should be less jumpy and bumpy. In addition, once the work is completed, there will be more sounds available more frequently as there will be no need to avoid failing parts of the mechanism. The planned electronics upgrade will allow for more dramatic and varied sounds and thereby enhance musical effect.


£40,000 is a lot of money. Why don't we just replace it with an electronic instrument?

It is true that £40,000 will buy us an electronic organ. Unfortunately the negatives of an electronic instrument are quite overwhelming:

1. It is not the same instrument and does not feel the same to play. Similar to the difference between a piano and an electric piano.
2. Just like an electric piano, no matter how good the samples are it will never sound the same – this is because it does not move the air in the same way – like listening to a recording instead of hearing something live. The frequency response is compressed for the size of the speaker. For these first two reasons, it will always be difficult to attract musicians to maintain the 'St. Peter's tradition' with an electronic organ. It also means that the sound is not nearly as thrilling to a congregation as it cannot lead singing so successfully.
3. Electric instruments are false economy. You can spend £40,000 on one in 2008, but just like a computer, the quality of the sounds and internal workings are soon out of date – all being based on computer technology. To maintain a good digital organ will mean returning to large expenditure when it is all beginning to fail – not just a few components. Equally whereas digital organs depreciate in value almost as soon as purchased, good pipe organs remain exactly what they are and remain a valuable asset. A much more wise investment.
4. By having a quality and reliable pipe organ we will be able to attract church organists, non-liturgical performers, students and teachers, not to mention congregations and audiences. This will enhance the life, ministry and worship in the church and for the town, as well as safeguarding the future of this marvellous instrument. Digital instruments will never attract calibre performers, players and teachers on a regular basis.

But you say that a digital organ is not an option, yet you are planning to install a digital pedal stop. How does that work?

An electronic organ can be a good option for churches or schools or homes where there is simply not room or money to install a pipe organ. They often sound fairly synthetic because, at most, a handful of speakers are trying to replicate the sounds of many different sizes and types of pipes. Just the difference in numbers of resonators is an indication – that is before you consider the harmonics that speakers are not able to reproduce across the range of sounds effectively. As you don't get the natural harmonics of the pipes from a speaker, the air does not move in the same way (speakers have a limited frequency response). We are planning to add one single electronic stop at '32 foot' pitch. This is a very low sound that you feel perhaps as much as you can hear it. It is called 32 foot because that is the size of the biggest pipe in the rank. As you will know from the position of the organ in St. Peter's, even if we raised the money to install such a rank of pipes, there would be no space to put them. Adding only one stop means that the speakers will be specially designed to give the best frequency response for that stop as possible – they will have to cope with no other pipe sounds. In addition, any synthetic sound of the sample will not be audible at such low pitch, and in fact, you rarely use a 32 foot stop by itself in any case. In reality, we believe this addition is the best option to address the problems of a pedal department that has a lack of supportive power, and an instrument that lacks the depth of foundation. It is also important to point out that the concept of 'pedigree' in an instrument such as the one in St Peter's is slightly anachronistic since a majority of the pipes came from the previous instrument – it's pedigree is already fixed by the mixture of its provenance.



£40,000 is a lot of money and you seem to be replacing most of the inside of the instrument. Would it not be better just to get a new organ?

Actually, we believe the £40,000 is extremely reasonable for the extent of work being undertaken. Although not trying to do the impossible and compare the impossible, the work currently being undertaken to refurbish the organ at St. Alban's Abbey is costing £700,000. In the case of St. Peter's, a new organ would probably cost in the region of £500,000. Whilst we would be happy to have a fund of that size to buy a new instrument with, it is our opinion that it is an unrealistic amount to achieve the fundraising for, and we would like to preserve and improve some of the great possibility that exists.