organ134
organ 134
August 2013
3 manuals
41 speaking stops
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St Martin
Roath, Cardiff
Builders:
John Compton, 1955
Roger Taylor, 2008
Weblinks:
St Martin in Roath, Cardiff
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Organ of the Month archive
(contains over 100 organs)
This was another organ visited by BOA members during last year's "organ crawl" to South Wales.
The church acquired a two-manual instrument by Phipps of Oxford soon after it opened (in 1901) but this, together with the church itself, was destroyed by enemy action in February 1941. The church was rebuilt in the 1950s, when the nucleus of an organ originally by Wm Hill (for Richmond College, London) was rebuilt here and extended by the John Compton Organ Co Ltd.
Compton's practice of "extension", ie producing stops at several different pitches from a single (extended) rank of pipes, is much in evidence here with the Choir Organ suffering (or benefiting, depending on your point of view) from no less than six stops being formed from a single rank of pipes!
The latest work has involved tonal changes, including addition of a Trumpet rank playable from Choir, Gt and Pedal (the latter at 16ft pitch), and culminated (in 2008) in the provision of a new console, all by Roger D Taylor of Bristol.
You can listen to a short improvisation on this organ, by following this link to (August 13's) Music of the Month