ORGAN OF THE MONTH 26: August 2004
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Worcestershire house organ |
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Click on the thumbnail to obtain a full-size image |
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This certainly takes the prize for the smallest organ yet featured in our Organ of the Month series. It has just four speaking stops and is a G D & B house organ.
The firm of Grant, Degens & Bradbeer became famous in the 1960s (some would say infamous) for its radical departure from the established British organ-building tradition of the previous hundred years. In new organs for prestigious locations, eg New College, Oxford (1969), they introduced such exotic stops as None 8/9ft and Tient II (11/7 + 16/19ft).
This house organ was built in 1972 for Anthony Burns-Cox, then sub-organist of Llandaff Cathedral, who sold it to BOA member John Tesh in 1991. It measures 215cm high and 185cm wide (approx 7ft x 6ft). The depth, including the (full) pedal clavier is only 125cm (about 4ft). This compact size of the case, designed by John Bailey, was made possible by the use of a common, stopped bottom octave for both the 8ft stops, and by the use of a fractional length reed (a Sordun 16ft) as the only independent pedal stop.