St Stephen’s
I first heard about the organ at St Stephen’s church through Huw Morgan, who I got chatting to after one of his Mainly Slow concerts at St John on the Wall. Then, after another concert I met the church administrator Marc, a synthesiser enthusiast who also knows Huw, and I arranged through him to come and see the organ.
There are in fact two organs at St Stephen’s: the main organ, which you can see in the back corner, and a mini-organ in the foreground. The main organ blower has blown up and so the organ isn’t in operation. In the meantime the church is using this wonderful mini instrument, which was rescued from a church in Cirencester.
The organ is fully mechanical, and so pulling out the stops and pressing the keys moves a component which adjusts the amount of air which flows through the pipes. Pulling out the stops slowly creates an eerie glissando as the action modulates the sound. This effect is often lost on modern organs, whose stops are now electrically linked to the pipes, and produce an on/off effect.
Main organ console
Here you can see the intricate 1960s wiring of the main organ console.
Organ stop configuration
Pulling out the stops on this console sends an electronic signal to the organ
After talking about the two organs, Marc gave me the opportunity to sit and play the mini organ.
I enclose four improvisations here:
Improv II showcases the effect of slowly pulling out the stops, and finally I was able to try Huw’s idea of holding down three consecutive notes (in this case C, D and E) to bring out the organ’s harmonic variations. I’m very grateful to Marc for his time, and for letting me set and get lost in the sound of this wonderful instrument!
