Ailred’s complaint from the twelfth century resonates in unexpected ways in the early years of the twenty-first century. We no longer have to endure ‘the noise of the cymbals’ (the irreverent might suspect that Ailred may have possessed prescience of some neo-baroque organs); ‘the sound of the bellows’ rarely troubles the modem organist, although the benign bump from the bellows at Ploujean is truly delightful…
