March 2013
St Michael & All Angels South Lancing.
A cold and snowy start to a day which took a number of members into Sussex to see two very different instruments. The first a 1984 Peter Collins organ in South Lancing - St Michael & All Angels. This was a small specification in a church with a lovely acoustic. The organ has very recently been cleaned and overhauled by the original builders. It had quite a mellow tone and certainly was not as "spikey" as I feared it might be.
The instrument in the South Aisle of the church had the console to the rear with a clear view of the liturgical action, although a clever system of mirrors allows a view down the church. Sadly there is no sight of the choir and perhaps little sound of them to get to the organist.
All in though a very pleasing organ.
St Andrew & St Cuthman Steyning
After this we moved to St Andrew and St Cuthman in Steyning which is a stunning church with some very well preserved stonework in the interior betraying its monastic origins from the 11th Century.
The organ, which is based around a Walker extension organ of 1968, is in a very small chamber at the west end of the church. It underwent a rebuild in the last couple of years and now contains a number of electronic stops. In fact there is the option of a whole organ of electronic sampled stops using the "Hauptwerk" system.
The overall result here is a very pleasing sound although the organ would take some getting used to playing without just using the standard piston set-up which used a combination of pipe and electronic sampled stops. The Hauptwerk system can easily be tuned at the start of any session to the ptich of the pipes in the instrument.
The organist - Brian Sawyer - demonstrated the organ with a superb rendition of the first movement of Elgar's Organ Sonata.
Members played a variety of music in both locations. Please join us for our next meeting details of which will appear on the this site shortly.