RFH Organ Restoration

[MrGongGong]

Some of you might be interested in this ?

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/southbank-centre-unveils-fully-restored-royal-festival-hall-organ

Long overdue and looking forward to hearing it again ........ and a case of fine wine should be sent to William McVicker IMV

[ardcarp]

Is that a restoration of the complete instrument? The last thing I heard was that only part of it could be afforded. But my info is probably out of date.

[OldTechie]

Yes, the whole instrument is going back in. From a publicity email received a couple of weeks ago:

"With the support of 60,000 people contributing £1.35 million in addition to a £950,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund we have completed the Pull Out All The Stops fundraising campaign to restore the Royal Festival Hall's iconic organ.

"The final £100,000 was raised through the epic Pull Out All The Stops Bike Ride, with Southbank Centre Chairman, Rick Haythornthwaite, and a team of cyclists completing a 300-mile sponsored ride from Durham to London in just under 24 hours on Sunday 21 July 2013.

"The final third of the organ is now being reinstalled in the Royal Festival Hall auditorium by Harrison & Harrison who originally designed and built the instrument in 1954. The work will be completed by the end of the summer and after months of careful voicing the full organ will be playable again for the wonderful Pull Out All The Stops Festival starting on 18 March 2014."

[mercia]

I hope one or two of those concerts make it to Radio 3 (otherwise I won't be hearing the organ). I used to rush up to London on the train after school to hear some of those regular Wednesday evening recitals of old (weren't they at the eccentric time of 5:55pm ?) - somewhere I have an LP of Ralph Downes playing a recital of Bach on it.

there seems to be a series of Southbank videos about the work

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF9DDC237FFECAEDB

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssCQtaATdng

[Wolsey]

I used to rush up to London on the train after school to hear some of those regular Wednesday evening recitals of old (weren't they at the eccentric time of 5:55pm ?)

Times change, but 5.55pm hardly seemed eccentric then. In the 50s and 60s, there was a very strong '9 to 5' pattern of work, and on the assumption that such office workers formed a significant part of the audience, they could get to the RFH from their office, etc in reasonable time to hear the recital before journeying home. It is good though that in the 21st century, an organ recital in the capital's main concert hall can take its place as the evening's musical event. Hitherto, the 5.55 recitals (which I, too, rushed by train after school to attend) had to be despatched before the evening's 'main' (or 'real') musical performance at 7.30pm.

[Vile Consort]

Times change, but 5.55pm hardly seemed eccentric then. In the 50s and 60s, there was a very strong '9 to 5' pattern of work, and on the assumption that such office workers formed a significant part of the audience, they could get to the RFH from their office, etc in reasonable time to hear the recital before journeying home. It is good though that in the 21st century, an organ recital in the capital's main concert hall can take its place as the evening's musical event. Hitherto, the 5.55 recitals (which I, too, rushed by train after school to attend) had to be despatched before the evening's 'main' (or 'real') musical performance at 7.30pm.

I think the eccentricity is in it being at 5.55 rather than 6.00, not in it being at 6 ish rather than 7.30.