The Story of Our Organ

“Organs and their cases should be taken away and utterly defaced and none hereafter set up in their places.”

So ordered Cromwell’s Lords and Commons in 1644; whether St. Bartholomew the Great had an organ at the time, we do not know, but it is not until 1715, in solid royalist days, that we read of an organ being built in the church. However, at the election of Prior Robert Fuller on 28th June 1532, a Te Deum was performed with the organ sounding. It would appear that the church had an organ before the destruction order of 1644, but it was probably not the one played in 1532.

The organ builder in 1715 was Johan Knoppell (this is his own spelling; in other sources it appears as ‘Conoble’, ‘Kanople’, ‘Canoble’, ‘Knoppal’). He appeared first in 1698 when he gave evidence in a dispute between Bernard Smith and Christ Church Cathedral Dublin. Nicholas Thistlethwaite in The Organ of St. James Garlickhythe (Oxford: Positif Press, 2007), suggests that he was probably an immigrant, and was probably a member of Smith’s workshop in Whitehall. He was described as being of St Martin in the Fields, which would have been convenient for Whitehall. He later set up on his own and from 1713–1741 was associated with Canterbury Cathedral, worked at various churches in and around the City, as well as Durham Cathedral in 1738). He died either in 1745 or 1746.

This organ, the first which the church had since the Restoration of the Monarchy, was erected on the west gallery which had been rebuilt in 1624. This gallery, unlike the present one, extended round across the South Transept, as can be seen from a print of 1740. In fact, there were pews in the gallery, and in 1777 the vestry ordered that the north side of the gallery be granted for the use of the charity school of the parish.Description text goes here

The Knoppell organ was apparently found insufficient for the church because in 1730 it was ordered that the organ be enlarged and some other stops added to it, Or that the whole organ be exchanged for one more large and compleat. The latter course was eventually chosen and a new organ was built in 1731 by Richard Bridge of Woods Close, Clerkenwell.

As was typical of English organs of the time, there were no pedals, but the Great and Choir extended down to G below the C two octaves below Middle C, which is the usual lowest key today. Again typically, the Swell was of short compass, extending down only to violin G. The upper range for all three manuals was to D above top C. The keys were black and the sharps had a strip of white inserted in them.

Leffler remarked that it was a very good organ all through. The opening was advertised in the Daily Journal of October 30th , 1731:

On Sunday next [Oct.31] the curious New Organ, made by Richard Bridge, Organ Maker, in St. John’s Clerkenwell, and lately erected in the Parish church of St. Bartholomew the Great, near Smithfield, will be opened with an anthem in the morning. The said organ has been play’d on by several of the greatest Masters in town [did this include Handel?], and by them allowed to be a very fine Instrument. And Mr. Bridge likewise invites all other gentlemen and Masters of Music to hear or touch the same and he will give his attendance in the said church, from Two o’clock in the afternoon till Five. N.B. The said Mr. Richard Bridge makes Harpsichords and Spinets.

The fate of the Bridge organ is unknown, but it seems to have been replaced sometime between 1855 and 1864 with a second-hand instrument by Russell, reconstructed by R. H. South of Gray’s Inn Road. There followed an extraordinary sequence of events culminating in the Russell organ being, literally, lost. During the first great restoration of the church from 1864 to 1868, the organ was sent to South for what was intended to safe keeping. However, South died during the period and the organ was sold as part of his effects. When once again required by the church, the organ could not be traced.

A small organ by Gray & Davison was therefore bought in 1868. Contemporary photographs show it placed in the arch opposite Rahere’s tomb. This instrument, however, was quite inadequate for the building and it was sold again in 1886.

St Stephen’s, Walbrook contained an organ built by George England in 1765. In 1886, it was sold to St Bartholomew the Great and installed in the church. It then formed the basis of the instrument that was used until, in its final form, it was de-commissioned in 2010 in preparation for a new instrument.

At the time of the great restoration of St. Bartholomew the Great, the architect, Sir Aston Webb, designed a new gallery to receive the organ, the previous gallery having been removed in 1864. The restoration fund did not meet the cost of the organ gallery and repairs; the debt was defrayed from a performance of Parry’s new oratorio Judith in 1889. The new organ case, also designed by Sir Aston Webb, was, however, not completed until 1893; in the interim there was probably a facade of pipes set in a front row of holes, visible from inside the organ today, connected to the Great chest. The organ’s original case of 1765 was left at St. Stephen’s.

At some stage after the installation of the organ in St. Bartholomew’s, some alterations were made to the Swell and Choir departments. On the Swell, the Stopped Diapason gave place to a Vox Angelica 8′ and the Twelfth and Fifteenth were divided. On the Choir, the Stopped Diapason also disappeared together with the Principal and Stopped Flute, to be replaced by a Hohl Flute 8′, Suabe Flute 4′, and Gamba 4′.

C. W. Pearce played upon the organ in 1905 and wrote an account which sheds some light on the tastes of the time. He wrote as follows:

“I found the tone very smooth, even, and church-like in character. The difference of quality between the tone of the two Great Diapasons is not marked, but they blend well. Gray’s No. 2 Diapason is a charming stop. Contrary to my expectation, the Vox Humana on the Choir Organ proved to be a very pleasant sounding stop in so large and resonant a building. I had never before played upon a Vox Humana stop placed outside a swell-box, but the effect was certainly good. “

During the First World War the organ was allowed to fall into disrepair, and in 1919 it was reported that the organ was in so bad a state that no less a sum than £5,000 was required to make it fit for the musical services of the church. However, no work seems to have been done until 1931 when the firm of Henry Speechly & Sons was commissioned to rebuild the organ. Speechly replaced most of the flue pipes in the trebles with new pipes of heavy metal; new reeds were made and voiced on heavy wind pressure by Alfred Palmer, a London trade pipemaker and voicer, and a new Speechly pneumatic action installed.

The opening recital was give by Newell Wallbank, organist of Wakefield Cathedral and father of a later rector of St. Bartholomew the Great.

Very little of the original 1765 pipework survived; in the mixtures there were some lower pipes marked Sesq., which were almost certainly from the 1765 Great Sesquialtera, while a few pipes marked Cor. probably originated in the Swell Cornet from which the Hill Twelfth and Fifteenth were derived.

Over the years, the Speechly pneumatic action deteriorated and became more and more noisy. Paul Steinitz found the organ suitable for Whitsuntide because of the sound of a rushing mighty wind which seemed to be directed at the player! An overhaul and some re-voicing of the reeds was carried out in 1957 by Noel Mander.

The long-awaited rebuild was at last begun on 1st March 1982 by Peter Wells (Organ Builders) Ltd., to a scheme drawn up in consultation with Brian Brockless, the then Director of Music, and was completed in the following year.

The Choir organ was recast along brighter, more classical lines, with five new stops of high quality spotted metal. All the reeds were re-voiced, those of the Choir and Pedal now being on lower wind pressure, and the mixtures were re-pitched with new trebles. The Pedal organ received its own complete choruses, while the Great was given a new Block Flöte 2′ and a re-voicing of several stops. Peter Wells installed a new electro-pneumatic action, solid state transmission and a 5-channel memory piston capture system.

Our old pipe organ came to the end of its useful and reliable life in 2010. By that stage, the wind leaks and various semi-pitched sounds emanating from the instrument were proving very distracting during the choral parts of the service, not least of all to the choir, who had to maintain their tuning against this acoustic background.

Meantime, a growing series of other technical problems with the instrument were making it harder and harder to play. The solution of turning the organ off and on between the items for which is was needed was unsatisfactory, partly because of the very audible leaking wind, leading to a considerable and distracting contrast between the stillness of the church while it was off and the sound of a small gale when it was turned on.

Following a very critical report about the state of the instrument from the Managing Director of the organ builders Harrison & Harrison, the PCC decided to de-commission the pipe organ and replace it for the time being with an electronic instrument made by Viscount Organs, which had previously been the substitute organ at Llandaff Cathedral while a Nicholson pipe organ was being installed there.

The speakers of the Viscount instrument were mainly installed at the west end of each Triforium Gallery, with a sub-woofer to support the lower frequency sounds in the ambulatory behind the grille. The console is east of the north side of the choir stalls in front of the grille, which allows for a considerably easier line of sight and communication between Director of Music and Organist.