BIOS Reporter – Volume 16, No.3 – July 1992

Volume 16, no. 1 has generated considerable controversy. Whether the Archdeacon of Rochester actually exists or is simply a devil’s advocate created by a mischievous contributor is something we hope to discover on 17 October, at St. Anne’s Church, Underwood Road, London El [see later. Ed.]. His remarks nonetheless raise very important issues, issues which cannot be avoided by the kind of parody which follows. Organ advisors on Diocesan Advisory Committees are well aware of the pressures that liturgical changes are bringing to bear upon pipe organs. These changes cannot be ignored. However, we are members of BIOS, surely, because we have found that organ music provides experiences that are unattainable in other ways, experiences, I suspect, much like those that were enjoyed by worshippers entering great liturgical buildings for the first time. When the Abbé Sugar completed his plans for the monastery of St. Denis, he expressed the hope that when members of the congregation entered the great cathedral church, they would be awestruck by its craftsmanship, and sense something of the infinity of creation. Similarly, I am sure that members of BIOS will agree that few musical experiences are comparable with hearing on a pipe organ the greatest music written for the instrument. I myself, when barely ten years old, was overwhelmed, hearing Fernando Germani playing Franck’s Trois Chorals, at Westminster Cathedral…