What's the vintage? I'm wondering who the tonal director might have been at the time because I really like it.
I oversaw the creation of a small Casavant at one of my parishes. I became famous for the removal of one of EM Skinner's largest instruments (not one of his best) -- very long story and not very interesting -- and replacing it with said Casavant. They called it a 3 manual masquerading as a 2 manual. I quite liked the end result.
It was installed in 1982 - long before I had ever touched an organ. Someone was once telling me about the most likely tonal designer, but I can't remember the name they dropped - and it really meant nothing to me. The only thing I remember was that this person was the lover/husband/something? of that British organist Gillian Weir. I remember thinking UK>Quebec - that's odd.
I think I can understand the controversy of removing a Skinner - especially a large one. The new organ sounds somewhat like one I heard in St. Paul. It was a handsome instrument and had beautifully mellow but very clear sounds - I loved it.
The former was a classic more-on instrument. Rebuilt several times by various groups since Skinner, it kept getting larger to compensate for more and more soft surfaces introduced into the worship space. With 5 chambers, the instrument was no longer integrated and it was exceedingly difficult to make music with it. The pipes were packed in so tightly they could no longer be serviced properly. We eventually discovered that ours was one of his earliest (and it showed), one that he used to create large instruments at St. John the Divine and Trinity Wall Street. We kept everything that was Skinner, including the console (a five manual monstrosity). We kept a few things and put the rest up for sale (we even offered a few things for free) but there were nearly no takers. Interesting.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-03-17 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-17 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-17 01:52 am (UTC)I oversaw the creation of a small Casavant at one of my parishes. I became famous for the removal of one of EM Skinner's largest instruments (not one of his best) -- very long story and not very interesting -- and replacing it with said Casavant. They called it a 3 manual masquerading as a 2 manual. I quite liked the end result.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-17 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-17 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-17 03:48 am (UTC)The former was a classic more-on instrument. Rebuilt several times by various groups since Skinner, it kept getting larger to compensate for more and more soft surfaces introduced into the worship space. With 5 chambers, the instrument was no longer integrated and it was exceedingly difficult to make music with it. The pipes were packed in so tightly they could no longer be serviced properly. We eventually discovered that ours was one of his earliest (and it showed), one that he used to create large instruments at St. John the Divine and Trinity Wall Street. We kept everything that was Skinner, including the console (a five manual monstrosity). We kept a few things and put the rest up for sale (we even offered a few things for free) but there were nearly no takers. Interesting.