I wrote the preceding article some time ago and have tried to rewrite it several times; I now think that I should pay attention to the persistently false ring of a piece of writing that I’ve wrestled with more than once. In this case it has finally hit me that the piece, or the point I have tried to distill in it, contains in its parentheticals the seeds of its own critique: for the actual philosophy of the organ I discerned there is, I think, unfortunately one that sees the organ as an end in itself with no real context or purpose: as a jewel, not a tool.

I subscribed to Choir & Organ in order to learn about organs: a difficult thing to do in a city with only two ( small ) worthy instruments and, as far as I know, no real experts. The writing of Chris Bragg and others ( particularly the late Stephen Bicknell, much earlier in that publication’s history ) has certainly taught me some things and stimulated my thinking. But I remain almost entirely innocent of the ways in which the more or less classical instruments discussed in its pages are, or can be, used. ( As far as remote-control Anglo-American devices in Anglican institutions – the bread and butter of C&O’s church-related coverage – everyone assumes that everyone knows how to ‘play the service’. I think I do, but I don’t care. )

Thoughtful writing about organs is hard to come by. Jonathan Ambrosino once had to call, also in C&O, for a critical attitude in instrument reviews, and even then he worried whether this would upset the fraternity. Too many pieces in C&O read like press releases from the organbuilders ( some of these are in fact written by the relevant consultants ) – as do of course the cover features of The American Organist and The Diapason, which are paid advertisements and should be clearly labelled as such.

Nevertheless even the best reviews in C&O ( and I harp on these because I know of no other such writing in English ) stop well short of providing adequate context for understanding and evaluating the instruments being discussed. The issues are very much the same as those pointed out by, for one, Robin Kinross, discussing in a review of the second edition of Herbert Spencer’s Pioneers of Modern Typography ( Design Issues Spring 1984 ) the problems involved in the reproduction of printed items: 

1 ‘...the edge of the sheet of paper or of the page must be shown...’ 
2 ‘The next step in this direction should be, as a matter of course, to give dimensions of page or paper area...’
3 ‘It might also be desirable to know the method by which the item was printed, the colors used, and the details of paper and typeface. As well as helping the reader, this information serves as a check on the author, who, equipped with measuring rule and notebook, must inspect the item itself. Here, just as with sources of information for the text, the issues of thoroughness and quality of an author’s work are raised unavoidably.’ 

( Anthony Froshaug, reviewing the first edition of Spencer’s book, asked related, if more sociopolitical, questions: ‘But why is there no mention of the society in which they [ the people whose work is shown in the book ] lived? Why does the author not discuss how much these image-breakers earned?... Why celebrate people in books if you cannot say what they did, and why, for what ( and for how much )?’ [ Penrose 1970 ] Compare Paul Stiff ’s response to Kinross’s call for a Dogma-95-like manifesto for design: ‘The designer must not be credited unless all other workers are credited.’ It is indeed surprisingly difficult to find out how much an organ, by far the most expensive musical instrument, cost or might cost. )

The point is that organs, like typography and other ‘applied arts’, are not ends in themselves, to be heard or looked at apart from their specific uses or messages or contexts. Therefore any discussion of an organ – which, like a recording, or like the reproduction of printed material, will always fall far short of the experience of the real thing – should aim to give as much context as possible in order to explain and evaluate it. Only then can knowledge and art increase. To borrow Kinross’s schema above, we might say, 

1  A photo of the whole space, showing how the organ is situated, must be included.
2  The next step in this direction should be, as a matter of course, to give dimensions of the room in plan, volume, seating capacity, and acoustical properties.*
3  It might also be desirable is imperative, if the organ is sited in a church, for the reader ( and writer ) to understand the musico-liturgical context for which it was intended and/or in which it is now used. To be sure, relating music and instrument in earlier times is not so straightforward, as Peter Williams pointed out more than once ( New Grove Organ; ‘The Organs of Saxony’ [ Musical Times Nov 1970 ] ). I am sure I am not the only one to question old registration lists provided by organbuilders, who not infrequently seem to have been far more concerned with the number of possible combinations of stops than with musical utility. Nevertheless one should be able to say what kind of repertory, specifically, is now played and sung, and how. What is the size and makeup of the congregation ( or possibly the congregation is of little interest to those concerned only with ‘choir and organ’ )? Of the choir, if any? How, specifically, are certain stop combinations or other features of the instrument intended to be used, and how are they best used in actual passages or textures of music? ( Perhaps a standard reference set of trial passages could be developed, rather like a test-drive regimen for car reviews. ) Particularly useful would be to know what the inheritor of a new organ – the next person on the bench – thinks of it, if they have actually thoughtful things to say about it. Revisiting organs ten, twenty, even forty or fifty years after their construction could be very instructive indeed.

A few more thoughts for instrument reviewers:

Stop talking about what an organ sounds like from the console. No organ except a tiny dedicated practice instrument ( an ahistorical thing in any case ) is meant to be heard from the console; if it is, it undoubtedly will sound wrong out in the space.

Don’t apologetically ( or is it proudly? ) talk about what the organ does not feature, particularly registration conveniences or shutters. 

If one is going to mention the features of the keydesk – and the interface with the instrument is, to be sure, of great importance – then actual measurements ( with comparative imfornation ) might be useful to include. Key sizes? Holding weight? Keydip? These ought to be available from the builder. How these add up in practice is subjective but useful information.

In the end,Choir & Organ probably cannot give me what I want: it is clearly directed at aficionados, amateurs, and perhaps students, and ( in keeping with its title ) it is not first and foremost, about music itself, but rather about a ‘scene’. Print is almost certainly the wrong medium for conveying what an organ is like and how well it works. There is not only a need for real journalism and real criticism in the field, but also for these to be joined to the genre of the organ-demonstration video ( with high-quality audio, of course ). Such coverage might also usefully bridge the huge gaps among organists, organbuilders, and organologists ( also composers? ), in pursuit of progress across the entire range of disciplines. 

*  cf. Peter Williams, reviewing books on the history of the orchestra ( Musical Times Winter 2004 ): ‘...the part played in the story by the orchestra’s varied physical conditions – how big the room, what kind of audience – could be made clearer. ( Perhaps ‘cubic capacity of hall’ and ‘number of listeners’ should be further statistics in Spitzer & Zaslaw’s tables of Sample Orchestras. )’