BIOS publishes a quarterly Reporter newsletter and magazine and a yearly Journal. Both contain articles on organ history, the Journal hoping to attract mature studies, the Reporter offering a place for exposure of interim or conjectural work.
The Journal archive is available under the ‘Resources’ tab but only to BIOS members. For technical reasons, four editions of the Reporter are not yet available through the website but work is ongoing to fill these gaps.
If you are looking for uses of a particular word, the BIOS guide to ‘searching by keyword‘ may be helpful.
BIOS Reporter – Volume 25, No.3 – July 2001
BIOS members have laboured for twenty-five years to improve the status and lot of British organs; all too often their efforts have been rewarded by official indifference, ignorance and even hostility, with the demolition men hovering like vultures over valuable instruments. There has been some progress, the occasional organ case being listed for its artistic or historic value as a… read more
BIOS Reporter – Volume 25, No.2 – April 2001
The question of suitability is not one to be dismissed summarily. It can lead to regrettable results when misconceived notions are applied, as in the so-called ‘Bach organs’ of forty or so years ago. A blunt approach leads to the all-purpose organ allegedly able to play everything in the repertoire; if it were a car, would the same vehicle be… read more
BIOS Reporter – Volume 25, No.1 – January 2001
In this twenty-fifth anniversary year of the founding of BIOS and the publication of the Reporter, it was felt appropriate to hand the Editorial to the Chairman, Professor Peter Williams, and to a former editor of the Reporter, Stephen Bicknell… read more
BIOS Reporter – Volume 24, No.4 – October 2000
The concept of authentic performance is a veritable minefield, whether it be of the music of J.S. Bach in this anniversary year, or of any other composer. Committing to paper ideas on authentic performance is to invite contradiction, a fate which inevitably befell the editorial in the July issue. One member pointed out somewhat irately that Donald Francis Tovey was… read more
BIOS Reporter – Volume 24, No.3 – July 2000
Those of us who studied assiduously the chorales of J.S. Bach for Advanced Level Music will be aware of Bach’s predilection for organising his chords so that each one is the dominant of the next, producing a drive towards the cadence. The simplicity of the procedure is its strength, with a consequent sure-footedness and finality in the cadence; when extended… read more
BIOS Reporter – Volume 24, No.2 – April 2000
Elsewhere in this issue we report on the conference recently held at Reading and which gave pride of place to the recently restored Town Hall organ. The restoration is a milestone in that, apparently unfettered by financial considerations, a serious attempt has been made to evaluate the significance of this instrument and to do justice to the findings. The result… read more
BIOS Reporter – Volume 24, No.1 – January 2000
What is a British organ? A simplistic answer is that it is one conceived and made in the British Isles, within certain limitations as to stop nomenclature, chorus design and so on, although that definition immediately stumbles over the neo-baroque efforts of the 1960s and 1970s, and the political position of Ireland. Organ literature is not helpful in offering a… read more
BIOS Reporter – Volume 23, No.4 – October 1999
The T.C. Lewis organ at St. John’s Church, Upper Norwood, (the venue for the November BIOS Conference and Annual General Meeting) offers, among other topics, the opportunity to reflect on the use of manual couplers. The specification (published in the July Reporter) shows the extent to which the organ was fitted with octave and sub-octave couplers in 1927, along with… read more
BIOS Reporter – Volume 23, No.3 – July 1999
After the enthusiasm presaging the intended restoration of the Schulze organ at Doncaster, one could be forgiven for wondering whether the outcome would match expectations. The effective withdrawal of Lottery funding for organ projects has effectively pulled the rug from under the feet of historic restorations including the Doncaster project. This seems to be symptomatic of a wider malaise affecting… read more
BIOS Reporter – Volume 23, No.2 – April 1999
The recent BIOS – IBO joint conference at the British Organ Archive presented an important opportunity to state the need for adequate documentation of instruments prior to any reconstruction or restoration. Present opinion is well informed of the necessity for recording an object’s history; witness the work being carried out by NADFAS (National Association of Decorative and Fine Art Societies)… read more
