Organs
The real joy of course is to play the best of the large pipe organs. In Freemasons' Hall in Covent Garden we have a magnificent instrument, build in 1933 by Henry Willis and restored and enlarged in 2014 by Harrison and Harrison. It rivals the finest cathedral organs. I have been fortunate to be a senior organist during this period and have played the wonderful Willis organ five or six times each year. Some ceremonies are so popular that 2,500 people arrive and latecomers are directed to a smaller temple where the ceremony is relayed by CCTV.
​
The picture on the left is of an Edwardian organ built by Hill, Norman and Beard for Trinity Church, Penarth in 1908. It still works well and has a huge specification.
Here's an organ with the key colours reversed. All the black notes are white and vice versa. This is considered to be very desirable by some players, especially ancient harpsichord players. Its not just the keys being the wrong way round, I'm actually facing the west of the church with my back to the bride, groom and clerics. Nevertheless it made a fine sound and it was a delight to be invited to play for the wedding of a friend in the Black Forest.
You can probably get into a strange car and quite quickly find the wipers, the cigar lighter and the rear fog lights. Most cars are intuitively similar. This is not the case with organs. Every organ is very different from the one you played last time and the trick of the trade is to find something loud and something quiet within the 5 minutes that precede any rehearsal or ceremony. (Often I'm in a strange town).
You may be surprised to know that modern digital organs are far more confusing to play that cathedral organs. Firstly they will have an illuminated layout that confuses us all with their sambas, rumbas and wawa sounds that are the love of disco and club organists. These are strongly resented by Masonic Directors of our Ceremonies who return an icy stare at any organist who accidentally touches those buttons.
​
Pipe organs are easier to play because the variety and volume of sounds are more controllable, although they have got themselves a bad press by having several keyboards, of which one is oversized and intended for the feet. How you play with one hand on each keyboard while keeping the feet moving on the grumbling lower registers of the pedal board is a bit like trying to make perfectly smooth circles on your abdomen while rhythmically tapping your head.
Size matters
Many Masonic buildings date from the Victorian and Edwardian era when every town and village had a chapel and a church with an organ. Some were short of money to build an organ big enough to lead a large group of singers, nevertheless these instruments generally worked well for 100 years or so.
​
The advent of the electronic organ in the 1930s gave rise to the growth in organs trying to emulate the churchy sound - but they really were dreadful and it took many years for digital technology to be developed. Nowadays it is possible to build a digital organ of cathedral proportions and many people think they are listening to a pipe organ whereas it is a collection of microchips, tweeters, woofers and synthetic reverberations.
There is no doubt a big crowd and a good organ inspires the organist to bring the ceremony alive. That, of course, is the occasion I most enjoy, but in between these major events I'm pedalling away in much smaller places.
You do get some organs that look splendid when you open the lid like this one in Bridgend. Unfortunately the sound is not very inspiring. The two speakers are in front of the players knees and this simply does not speak out adequately to the room which holds about 100 people.
​
Specifying new organs
All too often an organ arrives in Masonic premises because a treasurer or secretary had been very happy to receive a free gift from a family. These are selected by cost (or absence of costs) rather than by suitability.
​
Over the years I've been asked to decide which instrument a Masonic Centre should buy. This involves considering the size of the building and its primary purpose. If it is for ordinary meetings and is unlikely to be used for large scale ceremonies, then the next question is who will play it. There is little justification in having an extensive specification if a range of local organists will use it for an ordinary ceremony. A big specificaton leads to unnecessary complications, possible confusion and higher costs.
​
Of the eight for which I've specified and overseen the delivery and installation, seven were small but ideal. The rather more interesting was the organ at Mark Masons' Hall in St. James's, London. We had this built specifically for our purpose and the broad aim was for a full cathedral sound overlaid with majestic ceremonial reeds for the fanfares required during important ceremonies.
​
Knowing that space would be limited and the difficulty of raising the funds there was no question of specifying a pipe organ. Digital technology had come on in the leaps and bounds recently, so I visited the major suppliers and acquainted myself with what was possible. Most UK suppliers acted as agents for manufacturers who built the organs abroad but who would tailor their offerings to suit the auditorium. One or two had all the resources to build what we might need from scratch. I particularly liked Wyverne because their voicer understood our needs and was willing to create the palette of sounds I preferred.
The MMH Grand Temple is a long low auditorium that can seat about 400 men in suits, so there was little natural resonance when full. Consequently we would need to add a little reverberation to enliven the sound.
​
Most digital organs have two channels, left and right. We had the luxury of being able to build twelve channels. That gave us separate amplifiers and speakers for flute sounds, diapasons, small reeds and the mighty ceremonial reeds. The building has two chambers in the west of the Grand Temple, one on the north and one on the south side, concealed behind grills. These were big enough to accommodate the speaker arrays, the amplifiers for twelve channels and the computer that controlled all this.
​
As soon as it was up and running the voicer met me and we listened to each sound in turn. These had been sourced from recordings of many different cathedral organs. The permutations were enormous, but I remember we changed a deep and resonant trombone sound from the Norwich Cathedral organ to the Truro Cathedral organ as that balanced perfectly with the other combinations that would be played with that bass sound. There were several other swaps, and that ability to fine tune our specification was what had attracted me to the firm in the first place.
​
After a period of settling down we commissioned the inaugural recital by the American virtuoso organist Carlo Curly. It was a stunning recital in the hands of an expert and a large gathering of Freemasons and friends attended, and cracked some bottles of bubbly to mark the occasion. Carlo Curly said that it was the best digital organ in central London at that time.
​
Apart from eight organs, I've also sourced seven digital pianos for use in various dining halls of Masonic premises. The main requirement is that they should be robust and easy to move, yet produce enough volume to accompany 100 Freemasons singing lustily after a few beers.
​