BIOS Reporter – Volume 20, No.3 – July 1996

Imagine the following situation: you have been asked to give a recital at a local church and in some Kafkaesque twists of fate, the programme has been dictated to you – all you have to do is play it. Most is staple fare with the exception that several items are usually heard played on a large instrument in a building with a generous acoustic. They can however be played on two manuals with a little thought. Another twist. The organ has nine stops, each manual with one four foot stop, the Great, a flute, the Swell, a Gemshorn. You might be blessed with a Cornopean and an octave coupler. The final twist, there is no possibility of cancelling the recital, altering the programme to ‘suit the organ’ or arranging for someone else to play should you plead indisposition…