BIOS Reporter

Elsewhere in this issue there is a report on progress on the organ in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh. This massive instrument, a true heavyweight amongst organs, is built in a self-confident style that the Edwardians could carry off with real conviction. Having received no major attention since it was built in 1914, and suffering from serious overheating since the 1960s,… read more

The most recent issue of the Organists Review has various things to say about electronic organs. There are letters on the subject, and they are mentioned in the Editorial column as well. As yet, there are no advertisements from their makers in the pages of the Review, as the Incorporated Association of Organists maintains a policy of promoting the pipe… read more

As a child – probably on the way to sail a boat in the Round Pond – and long before I became interested in organs, I remember the striking appearance presented by the Royal College of Organists in Kensington Gore. Though the elephants, camels and lions so carefully sculpted on the nearby Albert Memorial were certainly interesting, they were sombre… read more

We seem to be surrounded by reminders that Church Music is under siege. Or is it not in fact a battle? Are the disputes and difficulties that arise from time to time rather the kind of fractious squabbles that inevitably arise at a time of conspicuous decline? I do not think that one could argue that the core of sacred… read more

I apologise for the rather lurid nature of the article that follows this Editorial. Though it contains several words of more than two syllables, it has the air of having been written by someone more at home describing the cost of strawberries in Wimbledon fortnight or the activities of dodgy double-glazing salesmen. It seems quite likely that the story has… read more

A recent leader in The Times was intruigingly headed ‘Organ Trade Must Cease’. Startled, I reflected briefly on the security – or otherwise – of my livelihood: but of course the editorial referred to the trade in human organs destined for transplant.. read more

Yes, it is exasperating for all BIOS members that publications appear rather erratically. In the last Reporter I wrote a very brief note apologising for what, at the time of writing, seemed likely to be a delay of two or three weeks. In the event, all the parties involved in the production and mailing of the Reporter were caught off-guard,… read more

Fortuitously this issue contains references to the preservation and restoration of historic English organs, some of them in Australia. This is a happy chance, for it already seemed that it would be a good idea to devote the Editorial to the same subject… read more

Our understanding of organ building and culture in Britain in the nineteenth century still largely rests on a view, cultivated in the early twentieth century, that Willis was the most important pioneer and the true precursor of the style adopted by following generations. This is by no means false, but it is an approach to the history of the Victorian… read more

At the time this issue of the Reporter was going to press, BIOS was about to hold a day conference at Reading University in collaboration with the Incorporated Society of Organ Builders and the Federation of Master Organ Builders. This will have been the first occasion of any kind at which BIOS has met these groups or their representatives… read more