MEETING REPORT

The name Salisbury (or Sarum) will conjure up a range of images for most organists, not least the names of Alcock, Stainer, Howells (and even Heath), the well-known Willis organ, and the Sarum Rite. So Sarum College, occupying an impressive group of buildings (some designed by Wren) in the Cathedral Close, was a fitting venue for the 2002 BIOS Annual Conference. Sarum College is an ecumenical education, training and conference centre, opened in 1965 from the remnants of the Salisbury and Wells Theological College. It includes a Centre for Liturgical Organ Studies, directed by Robert Fielding. He opened the first session with an introduction to the wide-ranging work of the College; with currents events ranging from day to residential courses and foreign trips for young organists, the College is now exploring higher education courses.
   Although there was no specific theme for the conference, the talks followed similar threads, including the physical position of the organ in churches, musical and organ-building life in the late eighteenth century and, of course, the role of the organ in the life of Salisbury Cathedral, a very visible presence throughout the conference.
   Nicholas Plumley shared some rather free-flowing thoughts on the pre-Commonwealth and Harris organs in the Cathedral. He started with the former, bearing in mind that there were typically at least four organs in buildings such as Salisbury Cathedral. Although the site of the largest organ in Salisbury Cathedral remains unclear, the entrance to the choir was one possibility around 1539, and there is mention of an organ loft in 1559. Examples of sixteenth- and early seventeenth- century screen and north choir organs were given from other churches. The Harris organ of 1668, and his new organ in 1710 (with forty-seven speaking stops, the first four-manual organ in the country), were then discussed. The question of why a new instrument was provided by the same builder so soon after the first was not answered, but fascinating detective work, and some mind-boggling proportional exercises, resulted in a proposal as to how the 1710 Harris organ might have been positioned on a screen in the cathedral.
   Ian Davies gave an entertaining talk on the role of the choir and organ in a cathedral 1780-1830, based on the life and work of Highmore Skeats Snr, organist at Ely and Canterbury during this period. He compared the sizes of various cathedral choirs, ranging from the ten adults and six children at Bristol to the twenty-four adults and ten children at Canterbury, with an average ratio of 2:1 of adults to children. The working conditions of the choirs were described, with mention of secondary singers and involvement with local catch and glee clubs. Among Ian's anecdotes was the cry of 'Chant, ye dogs!' being yelled at a recalcitrant choir. Skeats's taste was reflected in his music purchases, which included lots of Boyce. He did not like Tallis's or Byrd's music, but did approve of that of Gibbons and the tuneful pieces of Purcell and Blow.
   Jenny Nex and Lance Whitehead gave a well-presented joint lecture on the evidence from the Sun Insurance Company records of London organ-builders in the years 1750-1800. These seemingly inauspicious records (now in Guildhall Library, London) reveal a great deal about professional and private lives, not just the insurance value of items of stock and household goods. Records for Flight, Pike, Holland, Lincoln and Green were amongst those studied. Organ-building of the time seems to have been something of a cottage industry, with workshops either attached to the builder's dwelling or close by. A large list of secondary occupations suggests that organ-building did not provide the total means of livelihood, with printing music, the manufacturing of pianos, clocks, watches and toys, cabinet-making, chandlery and dealing in coals being the means of some supplementary income; there was even a couple of victuallers. This continuing research will teach us a lot more about the lives of late Georgian organ-builders.
   Up until this point, most of us had been sneaking glimpses across to the north-east corner of Salisbury Cathedral, surely, we mused, one of the finer cathedrals in Britain. But then came Barrie Clark's talk - a splendidly irreverent demolition of the unfortunate master masons who had scrambled the whole thing together. After an outline of the history of the building of the new cathedral (between 1200 and 1266, following the abandoning of the earlier building at Old Sarum) came the first indication of things going awry. The cloister (not needed in a secular cathedral and added as an afterthought) was built away from the walls of the nave, an architectural oddity perhaps, but a piece of insight that thoughtfully allowed for the later addition of the coffee bar, tourist shop and toilets that the medieval architects failed to provide. The tower, added shortly after 1334, almost immediately started causing problems; successive generations have threatened additional structural supports in, around, and over the existing gothic figuration. Although we all probably accepted that the medieval equivalent of the structural engineer had been rather too adventurous, it took most of us by surprise to hear the cathedral building as a whole described as a piece of second-rate design (although the architectural design of the tower was praised). However, as the design oddities were pointed out and explained, we all began to learn the important process of critically re-assessing historic icons.
   A short resumé of the latest news on the Historic Organs Certificate Scheme by Christopher Gray acted as an aperitif for dinner, which was followed by a walk across to the cathedral, where Geoffrey Morgan was ready to chase away any postprandial stupor with the four-note Tuba blast of Sir Walter Alcock's Introduction and Passacaglia. A well-played recital included a delightfully unauthentic version of Mozart's Fantasia in F K.608, works by John Ireland and Herbert Howells, Alfred Hollins's frothy Theme, Variations and Fugue, and, finally, Mulet's Tu es Petra.
   Most of the middle day was spent at the English Organ School and Museum at Milbourne Port, where Margaret Phillips and her husband, David Hunt, led a fascinating tour of the many different instruments in their collection, demonstrated by Margaret. John Budgen supplied comments on various matters, including information about the instruments, many of which he has been closely involved with. Peter Collins described two of his instruments in the collection, including the impressive new Bach organ installed in 2000. The highlight of the collection is a 1769 Snetzler, possibly originally made for Nynehead Court near Wellington and latterly in the United Reformed Church in Lynton; there was some discussion about the current tuning of the organ, which was estimated to be approximately equal temperament. Other organs in the collection include a c.1795 Davies chamber organ, a c.1809 William Gray (which we did not hear), an 1858 instrument by John Clark of Bath and an anonymous three-manual 1865 organ from Dublin. Margaret's playing was exemplary, not least her ability both to phrase and articulate clearly and keep the music flowing in a testing acoustic, with an audience breathing down her neck.
   We then moved on to Milton Abbey, where Trevor Doar gave a recital on the 1867 Gray & Davison organ, rebuilt and relocated on the (nearly west-end) pulpitum screen by Bishop in 1978. Pachelbel was perhaps not the best choice of opening composer, particularly with registrations that made the sound seem distant. It was a pity that no English music of the mid to late nineteenth century was played - the concluding Widor Symphonie II was a brave choice, but it did rather yearn for different tone colours, as had Karg-Elert and Mulet before.
    The original extravagantly coloured pipe-rack case has been removed recently (with all the original speaking front pipes) and replaced by a remnant of the front of the c.1700 Harris case from St Mary's, Lambeth, shorn of all the interesting spiky bits that should sit on top. While the writer is not usually a fan of pipe-racks, this one was an integral part of the original organ and added an effective splash of colour to the Abbey. Rather than place the severely shaven Harris case on the front (and add a 32' reed), it would have preferable to have seen something done about the sides and back of the organ, which, for the past twenty-five years has been inelegantly exposing its unclothed rear to all who enter the Abbey (NPOR website (reference: N10177), which has recent photographs of the front and rear).
   The final day started with a talk by Christopher Kent which related to that by Ian Davies on day one. Rather than follow a late eighteenth-century cathedral organist from Ely to Canterbury, we heard about musical life in North Wiltshire villages and the town of Chippenham (rural byways and rotten boroughs) during the same period. This was the first talk in the morning after the conference dinner, so a reference to a choir member slipping out during a service to assassinate the Dean, returning just in time for the anthem, might have been misheard.
   Barrie Clark's talk on the nineteenth-century attitude towards organs was relevant to the earlier lecture by Nicholas Plumley; it examined the physical position of the organ (rather than the specific musical use) in larger parish churches and cathedrals. He noted the habit, started in the early nineteenth century by the Oxford Movement, of hiding the organ in all sorts of nooks and crannies close to the choir. Barrie traced the various journeys of organs around Salisbury Cathedral and, in the case of the Green organ, out of the building altogether into the city church of St Thomas, where it remains broodingly jammed into the north choir aisle.
   No visit to Salisbury would be complete without a talk on Sir Walter Alcock, organist at the cathedral from 1916 until his death in 1947. Christopher Anderson obliged, tracing Alcock's career from his early proof-reading days at Novello; he gave a fascinating, detailed analysis of several of Alcock's organ pieces. The six pieces published in Alcock's 1913 primer, The Organ, were compared with later more substantial pieces written around 1930 for the Three Choirs Festivals at Hereford. Given his generation, it was interesting to hear that Alcock did not think of the organ as a mechanical orchestra, and disliked transcriptions. He saw Bach as the foundation of a true organ style, although his own Passacaglia of 1933 (played by Geoffrey Morgan earlier in the conference) owed more to Reger.
   The final talk traced the history of recordings of the little-altered 1876 Willis organ in Salisbury Cathedral, including examples by Alcock himself. Terry Hoyle compared Alcock's 1927 playing of a Bach Sonata with that of Dupré, and we also heard part of Bach's Prelude in D major (from BWV 532), and Terry's own sprightly Toccatina. The use of the organ for recordings of French music inspired by Cavaillé-Coll's organs was noted.
   The conference finished as it began with Robert Fielding, this time playing one of the two small organs in Sarum College. A nicely balanced and well-played programme showed what can be done with a two-manual organ of just six stops; it was particularly good to have a programme note describing the pieces.

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