4 February 1995
This one-day conference at the University Department of Music considered a wealth of topics, ranging in time from the Restoration to the political complexities of our own day.
David Knight opened with a fascinating account of some major events in the working life of Renatus Harris (broadly 1662-1724). Harris built some seventy organs, and repaired a further twenty or so. Borrowing by communication, and a tonal shifting/'swelling' device which we have yet to understand, are two Harris mechanisms. His story is coloured by a number of occasions on which a church would try to avoid paying what he judged a finished organ to be worth. Another incident awaiting full exposure is the extraordinary way in which the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple apparently gave Smith and Harris quite different versions of their requirements and evaluation rules.

Timothy Lawford handed to us a most useful chronology of the-major Town Hall organs built from the 1830s to the 1900s, and took care to remind us that the topic was huge. Transcription art and blower power are but two examples of topics which could readily absorb prodigious research effort. For one hall, an architect could produce or process up to l,000 drawings and 6,000 letters. The rapid growth of industrial town populations generated both new civic income and new civic pride. Music was seen as one way of providing moral education (as well as entertaining). The Town Hall organist's post was generally much preferred to a Cathedral appointment, pay and conditions being invariably better, if not the permissible range of music. Ample examples of recital programmes survive, and impressive stories about recitalists, e.g., W.T. Best and Dr. Kendrick Pyne.

Following a very enjoyable buffet lunch, it was the turn of Robert Ingram, whose topic was the Barker lever and the main landmarks in the history of its development and introduction. In 1827, Booth installed an apparently satisfactory pneumatic action at a church in Attercliffe, and Evrard supplied a 'light touch valve' in Paris in 1830. The first was apparently a total replacement of tracker action, the second pneumatic assistance of one; but nothing further is heard of either achievement. Barker's ideas are documented from 1833-4, and in 1839 he joined Cavaillé-Coll in Paris for the hugely successful St. Denis installation. (Hamilton's excellent 3ft model claimed an 1835-9 documentation, but this is nowhere corroborated). Over the next few decades, an excellent aid to heavy playing weight was developed, perhaps into over-complication, eventually yielding ground to pneumatic tubular and electric actions. Wheels do get re- invented, there being a failed attempt to patent the Barker lever by a notable US firm in 1989!

Next came a quartet describing some important administrative duties and difficulties. Philip Carter (for the Methodist Church), John Mansfield and Norman Taylor (for URC) and John Rowntree (for the Catholic Church) told us a little about organ listing, acquisition and modification control in these particular jurisdictions (a spokesman for the Baptist community could not be found). It was clear both to presenters and audience that a good deal of precious material is offered slight or absolutely no protection. The Department of the Environment broadly has the right to check the treatment of national historic material, but chooses a 'hands off' approach when the stewarding body of an organ can show it has taken responsible independent advice on its treatment, whatever that is construed to mean - a cri-de-coeur for BIOS to work to achieve an official cachet at least comparable with that of The Victorian Society or the Friends of Friendless Churches.

Barry Williams - supported by Eric Pask - provided a remarkably clear summary of that potentially prolix epic, VATman and the organ-builder. To simplify further, a major conclusion is that VAT is payable on most commercial activity in this domain except

(a) via small suppliers (e.g., a tuner with low annual turnover)and

(b) alterations to a listed building or its fixtures.

Organ-builders should consider whether concreting the main frame of a new organ into the very floor of the building would ease the lives of those who followed; it could depend on contemporaneous definitions of VAT rate, turnover limit, building listing criteria, ecclesiastical exemption, 'altered quality' of an architecture, and the like.

The afternoon was elegantly rounded off by Relf Clark's sensitive demonstration of the organ in the Chapel of Reading School, just a few streets away from the Department of Music. This Hill instrument was described in BIOS Reporter 18,4, 12. The programme and performance were most apposite, a few pieces (e.g., Vincent d'Indy, Ethel Smyth) taking many of us into fresh and worthwhile territory.

Our thanks to Christopher Kent, who acted as host and, as commendable Chairman, both kept a managerial eye on the clock and ensured that questions and discussion were orderly and constructive.

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