Howard Goodall's Organ Works
In Howard Goodall’s Organ Works (1997) Howard unveils the secret and the not-so-secret life of the world’s most misunderstood musical wonder - its passion, its murky past, and its madness…This sweeping odyssey through the Northern Hemisphere, whilst being grippingly informative, is anything but reverential. Howard investigates the organ’s turbulent history as the servant of two masters, sacred and secular. From Mediaeval cathedrals to the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool; from Tyrolean castles to the Jazz Café, he follows its relentless progress from holiness to hipness, from classical simplicity to outrageous eccentricity.
For most people, the organ is inextricably linked with gorgeous old churches, and during the series Howard visits some fabulous examples, jolly famous ones, like the ones Bach & Mozart played, and obscure discoveries that have never been filmed before. There are French whoppers by Cavaillé-Coll, and exquisite miniatures from Austria. But the series leaps just as enthusiastically into the organ’s other life outside the church, the world of the mighty Wurlitzer, the bluesy Hammond, and that bleeping electronic thing behind your neighbour’s sofa. This series separates the flutes from the reeds, the digital from the electronic, and the hauptwerk from the brustwerk...
[Outside Salamanca Cathedral during filming, photo Paul Sommers]
In 1997 Howard Goodall's Organ Works won the RTS Award for Best Music.
{A list of
the music played in the programmes can be found at the bottom of this page}
What the critics said...
"Goodall himself is a clever chap; he knows a lot but puts it over simply without making you feel silly; he drives a car and he cracks jokes; and he actually plays the organ rather well… He’s certainly entertaining, and the director Rupert Edwards seems to have a good eye for atmosphere in some beautiful, and if not beautiful, some intriguing locations." The Independent
Videos of the series are at present only commercially available in the USA (click here), but bona fide students & enthusiasts in Australia and the UK can order privately-made copies by emailing this site. It is possible that Channel 4 Learning will also be making videos & dvds available soon: their shop link is here.
HG's (quite) Interesting Organobilia
1. Something that pumps a lot of air with the help of electricity and makes a huge racket is a vacuum cleaner. An organ is the same thing with shiny pipe attachments, not generally available at department stores. Maybe invented by the ancient Greeks but definitely used by the Romans (parts of one were dug up at Pompeii). Ctesibius of Alexandria invented a mechanical flute-playing device blown by compressed air with then help of water pressure called the hydraulis.
grave organ
2. No-one can agree about the biggest in the world, but I reckon it's the so-called Wanamaker pipe organ in a department store in Philadelphia, USA, which has the largest number of pipes (29,000). It spreads over four floors of the shop and is played every day at 12 noon for the customers. The largest organ in the world that doesn't work would have to be the Richards-Midmer-Losh-Willis organ that used to live in the Convention Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey, which has 14 swell-boxes, two consoles with 12 manuals and nearly 2000 stops between them, and 33,112 pipes: it was often played by the legendary, appropriately-named E Power Biggs. The Moller chapel organ at West Point Military Academy, already huge, is still growing, since the ranks of pipes are donated to the Academy by the relatives of cadets killed in action for the US military
3. The biggest organ in Europe is probably the monster at Passau cathedral in Germany, though it's really 5 organs linked together. At the Mafra Imperial Palace near Lisbon they have 6 organs in one chapel. In 1795 Seville Cathedral had 15 organs.
One of JS Bach's organs
4. The largest organ in Britain is in the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool, it has 9704 pipes.
5. In St Joseph's Church, Las Pinas, in the Philippines, there is an organ made entirely out of bamboo pipes. It was built in 1820 and has survived flood, earthquake, fire, vandalism, civil war, and termite attack.
6. In the town of Novelda in Spain, a chap is building an organ made out of stone (mostly marble and granite), with 700 pipes.
rock organ
7. There are two organs in southern Scotland which are powered not by electricity but by water from the mains. Apparently they do work but they are rather drippy.
8. In 17th century London it was popular to put organs into public parks and gardens to amuse people as they took their Sunday stroll, at one point there were apparently 65 of them in use. Nowadays there are open air organs in such places as baseball stadiums in the USA, an Alipne valley in Austria, and a desert park in San Diego, California.
9. 'The Devil's Organ' is a weird and wondrous geological formation overlooking 'The Giant's Causeway' in Northern Ireland, by the sea edge, which gives the impression of a row of enormous stone organ pipes carved into the cliff side.
wood organ
10. A mini-organ that you pump with your feet and actually has tiny little reeds in it is called a Harmonium or Reed Organ. They were very popular in Victorian times for churches that didn't have very much money or space to build a proper organ. They were exported to all over the old British Empire, it was even possible to buy harmoniums whose wood was injected with special poisons and insecticides to keep off the tropical creepy-crawlies.
field organ
11. Although 'Barrel Organs' are mainly known for their use with old-fashioned street traders, they were in fact also used in churches. They had cylinders on the inside, which you turned round with a handle on the outside, and spokes and holes on the barrel operated small pipes and reeds as the barrel turned. Thomas Dallam built a barrel organ in 1597 as a gift from Elizabeth I to the Sultan Mohammed III of Turkey. There is still a working church barrel organ in St Mary's Church, Wissington, in Suffolk.
early organ
12. Yamaha teaches over 10,000 people a year to play the electric organ. There are 180 organ societies in the UK. One of them, the Association of Organ Enthusiasts, is run by the magician Paul Daniel's brother, Trevor.
organ cave
13. Electricity was not introduced into organs, to pump the bellows, until late in the nineteenth century. One of the first to have electrical power was the Willis organ at Canterbury Cathedral in 1886. Before that, people had to pump them by hand, or on the very big ones, on a foot treadmill. One of these foot operated treadmills, for 6 people, still exists at the church of St Sulpice in Paris. If there was a power cut, they could still theoretically use it, if they could find some volunteers!
14. It is generally agreed by scientists and engineers, that before the Industrial Revolution, the organ was mankind's most sophisticated machine invention, along with the clock.
bottle organ
15. In Liverpool Museum's Rushworth Collection they have an organ (sadly, in a state of disrepair) whose pipes are made from bottles filled with wax. It came from an organ constructed in 1798 on the island of Heligoland.
16. Spanish organs of the 18th century include a number of mischievous sound effects: bird tweeting (pajaritos), military drums (tambour) and horizontal battle trumpets (trompeta real, trompeta magna).
17. The odlest working organ in the world might be in Evora Cathedral Portugal (mostly 1562), or Embrun in France (parts from 1463, 1632 and 1750), Sion in Switzerland (parts from 1380, mostly 1718), or Tuy Cathedral in Spain (bits from 1410, mostly 18th century).
18. The world's biggest live organ concert took place on April 14th 1996, when, to mark the 100th anniversary of the American Guild of Organists, a simultaneous performance of Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor took place in every town, city and state in the USA.
19. The great French organ builder, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, at the age of just 22 produced his plans for the design of the organ at the Abbey of St Denis in northern Paris in 3 days. He had previously won a design competition with plans for a circular saw.
20. In the Temppeliaukio Church, Helsinki, Finland, which is quarried out of underground rock, there is a 3001-pipe subterranean organ.
21. The 'Wagner' organ in Trondheim cathedral, Norway, was made by a colleague of J S Bach in Berlin, but became unplayable during the 19th century and was eventually packed into crates under the cathedral floor to protect it from bombardment in the Second World War. The occupying Nazis in Trondheim discovered this hidden historical gem and had it packed up for shipment back to Berlin. The ship never left harbour, the organ never made it to Berlin (where it surely would have been demolished in the bombing of Berlin) and was triumphantly restored to perfect working order in 1995.
22. In Kuftsein in the Austrian Tyrol there is an organ built inside a tower which plays outwards to the valley. The organist sits in a shed at the bottom of the hill and plays a recital at noon every day of the year. It was constructed to commemorate the fallen of World War I.
23. In Balboa Park, San Diego, USA, there is a large and impressive outdoor organ in the desert.
24. The famous melody at the beginning of Procul Harum's song A Whiter Shade of Pale, and which bears a striking resemblance to Bach's Air on a G String is played on a Hammond B3 electronic organ.
25. At the Villa d'Este, Tivoli, just outside Rome, once home to the flamboyant Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, there was in the 16th century an enormous ornamental fountain with a hydraulic organ built into it. The locals got so fed up with the racket from it at all times of day and night that they vandalised it. It is right now being restored to its former glory by the Italian Ministry of Culture, using the original construction plans, and will soon sing again no matter what the neighbours say!
Some organic links:
Another excellent Pipe organ site
St Ignatius Loyola New York Organ Page
Carlo Curley's official website
American Organists' Magazine Internet Magazine
British Institute of Organ Builders
HOWARD GOODALL’S ORGAN WORKS MUSIC LIST
PROGRAMME 1
USA, Chicago Union Center: Frank Pelico (Chicago Black Hawks resident organist) improvises to ice hockey game; Howard Goodall plays Rondeau from Henry Purcell’s Abdelazar
Italian-Austrian Tyrol, Churburg Castle: HG improvises
Spain, Salamanca Cathedral, Salinas Organ: HG plays Antonio de Cabezón Fabordones del septum tono IV: Glosado en el bajo, ed. Felipe Pedrell/Higinio Angles; HG plays Intonationen Terzo Tono by Andrea Gabrieli
Austria, Innsbruck Imperial Chapel: Richard Jaudt plays Eterne rerum alias (iii) by John Blitheman, from The Mulliner Book
Germany, Lüdingworth church: HG plays Toccata (Ionian) by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck; HG plays Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten by Georg Böhm
PROGRAMME 2
Spain, Villalon church: HG plays Herzlich lieb hab ich Dich, O Herr by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
Spain, Abarca church: Kimberley Marshall plays 18c Portugese Battle Music
Germany, Wartburg Castle: HG plays Ein’ feste burg, Lutheran chorale; HG plays J S Bach chorale prelude Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (BWV 645)
Germany, Stormthal church: Cornelia Schneider plays J S Bach Wer nur den Lieben Gott lässt walten
Germany, Hamburg St Jacobi church: HG plays J S Bach ‘St Anne’ Prelude (BWV 552)
Holland, Haarlem, St Bavo church: Jos van der Kooy plays W A Mozart Fantasie in F minor (KV 608)
France, Paris, Basilica of St Denis: Pierre Pincemaille plays Choral no.3 in A minor by César Franck Paris, St Sulpice: Daniel Roth plays Toccata from Organ Symphony no.5 by C M Widor
PROGRAMME 3
UK, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire: HG plays G F Handel Organ Concerto no.5 in F, Presto; Welte Mechanical Device on Willis organ plays organ roll of R Wagner’s Mastersingers overture.
UK, St George’s Hall, Liverpool: Ian Tracy plays Marche Triomphale by S Karg-Elert
UK, Blackpool Tower Ballroom, Wurlitzer organ: Phil Kelsall plays I do like to be beside the seaside, a Tango, and Saint-Saens’ The Swan.
USA, West Point Military Academy: Lee Dettra plays J Sibelius’ Finlandia
USA, Wannamaker Organ, Hecht’s Department Store Philadelphia: Peter Conte plays Gilbert & Sullivan’s overture to Iolanthe
PROGRAMME 4
USA, The Jacques Littlefield Organ, San Francisco, California: HG plays L Boëllman, Toccata from Gothic Suite, opus 25
USA, Jazz Café, Camden Town: James Taylor Quartet Creation
USA, San Diego, California, Balboa Park: Bob Plimpton plays J S Bach Toccata in D minor
UK, Alexandra Palace, London: Alex Mason & Nick O’Neill play Louis Vierne, Finale, Organ Symphonie no.1, opus 14
USA, St Ignatius Loyola, New York: Kent Trytle plays Olivier Messiaen, Dieu parmi nous from La Nativité du Seigneur
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