Author: Matt Dixon

It has been a summer of small organs for me (notwithstanding the new Worcester Quire organ – experienced in all its glory during a recent IBO meeting). Moreover, many of the organs that I encountered have been in various states of neglect. During a summer holiday in north Devon we revisited a chapel that was…

One of Handel’s organ concertos (Op. 4 No. 4) is part of the Handel Coronation Anthems programme of the Choral Pilgrimage of The Sixteen. Just like Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s epic Bach pilgrimage of 2000, Harry Christophers’ group decided to take a small organ with them rather than using whatever instrument happened to be at…

In Andrew Freeman’s English Organ Cases (1921) there is a brief mention (p. 40) of a nineteenth-century account of the remains of an early organ at Wingfield church in Suffolk. Along with other historical glimpses of ancient organs, this appeared to be all that would ever be known about this fifteenth-century organ. And yet, here…

If one searches NPOR using the terms ‘school’ or ‘college’ there are a large number of ‘hits’. At one level this is not surprising as many organists and organ scholars received their early training and exposure to organs at school. Long may this continue – but most of these schools are in the private sector.…

Over the past few months a number of organ-related newspaper articles, spanning over 200 years, have come across my desk. Newspapers are a rich source of information about organs, and recent Research Notes have shown how much can be gleaned on organs, builders and organists from London papers. From 1700 onwards, newspapers flourished in Britain,…

Apologies for the late distribution of this edition of the Reporter. Despite timely submissions by contributors, your editor fell foul of some software glitches that led to a considerable delay in getting the file to the printers. This edition of the Reporter includes the first of an occasional series of guest editorials. The author is…

A sure sign of a ‘new boy’ in any position is an obvious change in style, not least in the world of publishing. With this new editor has come a change in font for the Reporter. It’s not that there is anything ‘wrong’ with Times New Roman, I have even dallied with Century Schoolbook in…

If anything was clear at the recent BIOS Day Conference at St Botolph without Aldgate it was the distinctive voice of the organ. This is not the place to employ vague adjectives to describe the sound, but rather to consider its place in the wider context of the organ. What is the purpose of the…

The relationship between the history of the organ, organ-builder, player and repertoire is the subject of perennial perusal; perhaps some of that attention needs to be transferred to the relationship of all four to the young organ student. Striking a balance between dealing with the organ and its repertoire in a scholarly, sober and weighty…

The Oxford Conference, reported elsewhere in this issue, was considerably more than a pleasant platform for the interchange of information and an opportunity to meet fellow BIOS members. It was certainly intellectually challenging, delving into the context and intricacies of the British organ, its music and usage up to 1600; if the occasional lecturer seemed…