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The exercise of restoring an important organ to its original form is a daunting challenge. In the case of the Schulze organ at St. George's Church, Doncaster, there can be no doubt of its excellence -"the noblest work of organbuilding art that England has ever heard or seen" was the enthusiastic comment by a contemporary critic. If the planned restoration of the instrument proceeds, restoring the organ as far as possible to the condition it was left in by its builder, it may well have as great an impact on the British organ as the construction of the Royal Festival Hall Downes/Harrison instrument in the 1950s.
Superlatives are inappropriate in writing of Schulze's masterpiece, but the ramifications and repercussions which this organ caused back in 1862 are still with us and, unless we are prepared to learn, will trouble us for generations to come. For example, in the matter of stop control, Schulze provided a system of ventils and borrowings to other manuals acting as preselectors. Registrations could be set up and then activated merely by changing manual or opening a ventil. Despite the apparent considerable discipline and forethought needed to operate such a system, it is surely not so far removed from that pertaining to the management of a Cavaillé-Coll or other French instrument of the period. The German system of fixed/free combinations functioned in a not dissimilar fashion and it is perhaps ironic that, in those countries famed for their attention to improvisation, organ management systems were arguably much less sophisticated than in this country, where complaints about kaleidoscopic stop changes were already being voiced e.g. in 1911 by H.W. Richards in his The Organ Accompaniment of the Church Services.
"Give the organ back to Schulze" was the plea of one delegate at the December 1996 IBO conference at St. George's Church, Doncaster. In so doing we may have to throw overboard some of our accepted nostrums of how we use the organ both as a recital instrument and for accompaniment. Built at a time when the romantic movement was in full sway in our churches and cathedrals - with surpliced choirs, quasi-theatrical liturgy, and symphonic organ accompaniment, that this instrument remained untouched until at least 1894 might well suggest that our current ideas on service accompaniment are not as securely founded as we might imagine. Even when the organ was rebuilt by Abbott and Smith in that year, playing aids were provided on a distinctly modest scale compared to the size of the instrument; 12 thumb pistons and 7 combination levers. There are many other areas of fruitful discussion and research associated with the restoration of this organ, and Dominic Gwynn discusses some of these in his report elsewhere in this issue, but the delegate's plea encapsulated an essential recognition of Schulze's mastery; tampering with any part of Schulze's work at Doncaster merely results in diminution of his vision and genius. The IBO meeting at Doncaster last December has signalled a scholarly yet musically constructive way forward, drawing on the undoubted reservoir of skills in British organ building. The importance of the chosen instrument places a great responsibility on all involved in this venture. We must wish them wisdom, insight and good fortune. . |