BIOS Reporter

Organologists have a tendency to confine themselves to the instrument, its makers and its repertoire, and only rarely do they focus their attention on organists themselves. Generally speaking, organists of former times do not seem to be of much organological interest unless they played a part either in designing particular instruments or in the evolution […] read more

The Scottish Federation of Organists have kindly sent us a copy of this year’s edition of their journal, The Scottish Organist. It is always pleasant to receive the journals of other organological bodies, and we take this opportunity to record our thanks. It is especially pleasant when such journals seem to echo our own characteristic […] read more

The idea of having some kind of national pipe organ museum is put forward from time to time; it is now under consideration once again, and we hope to be able to include in some future edition a note of the outcome of the discussion that took place in London on 20 March, between the […] read more

One response to Sound Advice, the guidelines on conservation launched at last year’s Annual General Meeting, was a query as to whether the retention of a non-standard pedalboard is invariably correct. Since the query came from within the membership, it may be as well, in this first editorial of 1995, to say a few words […] read more

The Family Law Reform Act 1969 reduced the age of majority to eighteen, so that the summer of 1994 may be said to have witnessed the passage of BIOS into adulthood, its first official meetings having taken place in July 1976, in Cambridge. It was a passage celebrated neither officially nor, so far as we […] read more

Questions continue to be asked about the organ in Worcester Cathedral, and in particular about the Gilbert Scott case which houses the section in the south transept. Along with the two 32-foot flues, it is substantially all that remains of the Hill organ donated to the cathedral by the Earl of Dudley, in 1874 – […] read more

The third of the Society’s aims includes the phrase “historic organs”. What does it mean? It was briefly considered at the January meeting of Council, in connection with a proposal to draw up guidelines on the conservation of such instruments, and though it can hardly be said to have created division, there was no consensus […] read more

In the first editorial of a new year, it is appropriate to review the events and the achievements of the old year, to try to see what conclusions can be drawn, and to attempt to look ahead. Only its most ungenerous critics could argue that 1993 was other than a modestly successful year for the […] read more

The May 1993 issue of Organists’ Review provides further evidence of an increasing interest in foundation stops, and an increasing rejection of the type of upperwork considered desirable in the 1960s and 1970s. Mr. Geoffrey Coffin, in an article on the recent work at York Minster, seems to have been at pains to stress the […] read more

The words of Harold Atterbow, the kerb-crawling cinema organist brilliantly portrayed by Roy Hudd in Dennis Potter’s television play Lipstick on your collar (London, Faber and Faber Limited, 1993, p.196). By this stage in the play, Atterbow’s infatuation with the appalling but undeniably nubile Sylvia has got him into serious trouble, so much so, in […] read more