Dear Mr. Kolbinson,

Your very welcome letter reached me today, and very much have I enjoyed reading it. I think the best way to answer your queries is seriative.

Whereas in the pitman chest it is:

The flue pipe MUST be voiced for B supply to allow for the ill-timed pressure rise at 0.001 sec., and while this is all right for flutes, it is all wrong for diapasons and strings. It is also all wrong for chorus reeds whose tongues have to be "_____curved" (with reduced end curve) thus robbing the quality of its __(illegible)__ as characterised by Father Willis's work. After all, we ought to be scientific in our approach to organ building as well as artistic. The acceleration to settling pressure of curve A is fundamental to best speech and tone from diapason pipes. I know, because I've had the unique experience of trying a real Schulze No.1 open 8 ft (that originally in the Charterhouse School Chapel Organ) both on (a) Schulzes' own chest, (b) a slider voicing machine, and (c) on a bar-less chest where it now stands in a West London Church. The tone and speech at (a) was magnificent, and gave that lovely SOFT, purple quality that Mr. E. Schulze produced from his diapason pipes, while on (b) chest it was thin and hard in tone, on (c) chest it was slow in speech and gave a hungry, papery sound, so much for that. I have also tried the effect of transferring an exact replica of the Tyne Dock No 1 open by H.S. Vincent from a barred chest (one which is exactly duplicated Schulzes' tone and intonation) to a barless chest of large dimensions. On this chest the pipes were slow in speech, thin in tone, hard as nails, and about 2/3 of their original power. There they still remain to this day in a RC Church at ________near Windsor, __________the organ builder refused to alter the chest. Again, I heard the effect of a Schulze Tyne Dock No 1 on a barred chest of my own organ after it had been transferred to a large (extra large) pitman chest. The quality was appalling, hard, spikey and lacking in body. (No "resonance", if you get me). I reckon that if I were to send you the pipes of my diapason here and you were to put them in a pitman, you would say "What a rotten set of pipes." On my specially-designed barred chest the stop on 2 5/8" gives as much volume of tone as on 4 ½" on a pitman, to say nothing about the quality. This chest measures 1'6" deep for one rank of pipes down to 4 ft.

The modern Willis reed is not voiced exactly as Fr. Willis voiced it because of the pitman chests now: the tongues have to be modified in curve to allow for slower wind supply from the "pallet" (if you can thus term it.) No one is going to persuade me that the resulting quality is the same, though I say nothing about good or bad. It's different.

But what does TONE matter if it is felt necessary to recurve the pipes more readily controllable at the key? There's the argument on the other side. Yet Harrison & Harrison of Durham still make slider chests and their electro-pneumatic action at Westminster Abbey is good enough for any organist. It means, however, higher prices per stop, O H. of H. get them. (Hounds of Hell) (eg Royal Festival Concert Hall, London, and Colston Hall, Bristol). Personally, I'd sooner have half the number of stops and pipes on barred chests than double the number in barless. Sliders are not essential for all stops, of course.


2. Slider s'board containing more than say 10 or 12 ranks of pipes.

Well, that was common enough in Queen Victoria's reign over here. Christ Church, Spitalfield organ had 16 stops all on one Great soundboard, and numbers of organs had 12 to 15 stops. Ch Ch, Newgate St. Great s'board had 13 stops and I had the revoicing of some of them. (When Dr. Lloyd Webbe was the organist and called me in.) Of course, the pipes below 4 ft pitch were planted off with the exception of stopped wood pipes, but the largest was 4 ft stopped.

The grooves were wide to compensate for limited length, but even so the wind pressure taken at the back end of the s'board dropped by at least one inch at Newgate St. and St. Luke's Chelsea (which has 14 ranks, some of which I revoiced for John Ireland, the then(?) organist.) No wonder the reeds - usually Trumpet 8 ft. and Clarion 4 ft sound so harsh, rarely in tune, being placed at the back of the s'board over the "______________ Cloth."

But old Schnitger knew better. He used un-nicked flue pipes which were able to speak promptly on any pressure from ¾" to 2 ½", so that it did not matter two hoots whether they got their full supply or not!! In fact, they didn't and the wind supply to these large soundboards was very unsteady. Again, the large number of ranks of 1 ft and less in pitch would take very little depth of space in his soundboard.s so that when we read a list of 15 or more ranks we have to allow for a large number of quite small pipes occupying very little room really. Furthermore, the reeds were regals and regals didn't require more than a small input of wind, far less than a diapason 8 ft. I understand that the upperwork pipes were tuned with all stops drawn, to allow for robbings. They certainly had to be so tuned at Newgate St. and Chelsea, as I know. You could not play full Great otherwise even if you excluded the flute stops.

As to the "Bach organ" of 27 ranks on Great, I don't think there were 27 ranks, but that some of these drew in two halves - bass and treble, though I may be wrong. All the same, no slider s'board ought to have more than eight ranks if the wind supply is to be evenly distributed to each rank when all are played simultaneously.

Electric action and reliability factor.

The climate over here is humid, and the hygrometric conditions militate against reliability of magnet contacts where these are operated in mass per key. My cousin at _________ told me that the climatic conditions there are very different from here. Metals are definitely affected by the moist condition of the air in Gt. Britain. I don't know of a single organ over here with electric action that can be left to take care of itself as in Canada and USA.  My own organ has only six electric reversible pistons (a la Compton) and these so far have not had to be serviced. The pneumatics are also quite reliable; but the tracker key action occasionally requires readjustment owing to the "stretching" of the tapped wires when the temperature changes from 70º to 30º! I should never have electric key action here because I know that I should have to waste a lot of time getting the action to work for next Sunday. If only ONE note is off - and it is mostly "off" not "on" that occurs over here - the poor organist is "up agin' it" at Service time. The humid climate even upsets the working of fan blowers over here - both my own blower and that at the neighbouring church have "packed up" for one reason or another and had to be "serviced" (this is because they are in country churches where temperatures vary very suddenly and also hygrometric conditions.) I never recommended a detached electric console unless the builders can guarantee a regular servicing maintenance and the church committee are willing to pay for it.

I have tried to answer your questions, and you may or may not agree with all I have said. That does not matter! It is the interest in the subject that matters. I realise I am not infallible--- glad I am not. With very best wishes and renewed thanks for your generous gift,

Very sincerely,

Noel Bonavia Hunt