By the time you read this, I shall have been at Petersfield for several weeks, and, I hope, fully settled in. What a difference a few miles can make - and I don't mean the commuting. For the first time for more than ten years, I am regularly playing at the east end of the church: at Carrs Lane URC in Birmingham, I was in a church contemporary with St George's both in construction and organ, and therefore in a west gallery. At the time of writing (Feast of the Assumption), the choir is on holiday, and the Thorne Mass is being sung 'lustily and with a good courage' by the congregation (average 120 in number). I have had to get used to yet another hymn book (Ancient & Modern New Standard), which I half know and half don't know: why can't all hymn-books have the same hymn numbers?! a new style of responsorial psalms, and joy of joys, the Book of Common Prayer Psalter. It is no secret, among the choir at least, that I used to find the ASB Psalter a trial with its new-fangled word-order and phraseology.
The question I'm bound to be asked if I don't mention it, is, what's the organ like? Well, it's similar yet very different, if that isn't too close to an oxymoron. It's new (1991) and made by Lammermuir Organs of East Lothian. I will not bore you with the saga of its installation as that is long and involved, but it was decided to replace a much older machine, which was not adequate, with a new one. This resulted in a tracker-action instrument at the head of the north aisle, rather than the old electric-action one tucked virtually into a cupboard of an organ chamber, whence it could not be heard properly. (Moving it out was not an option.) Most of the pipework is similar in sound to the instrument at St George's, though the reed stops (trumpets, etc.) are much harsher in sound (not a fault as such, but a style of making them). It also sounds a bit louder, because with tracker-action, pipes can't double up so easily, so one pipe per note per stop. "Tracker-action" means a direct mechanical linkage, via rods and levers, between the player and the pipe: think of the difference between a real piano and an electronic keyboard, and you will get the idea. It went out of fashion a hundred years ago, and is now coming back in, fast wherever it is possible to use it, money and space being the constricting factors. The other big difference between St George's and St Peter's as far as the organs are concerned is that the pedal-boards are different, basically being more spread out at St Peter's, which means I have to be careful! The people there are friendly - time will tell whether they come up to the standards of Waterloovillians!
A final word of thanks, to every-one who made my couple of years at St George's so pleasant. I did enjoy my time among you, but I felt that Petersfield was an opportunity I could not pass over. To add to the delightful vase and paperweight presented to me on my last Sunday with you, I have now purchased the volumes "Mediaeval Carols" and "The Organ Music of John Blow" from the Musica Britannica series, the huge RHS "A-Z Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants", and book of panoramic views of London, all of which will give me much pleasure for many years. Thank you all, and God bless.
written by Mark Dancer
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