Squash 71

CHAPEL 1991-92

In recent editions of The Peterite, the Chapel notes have included a reference to the Community of the Resurrection — the Anglican monastic community at Mirfield. For the past five years, Fr. Barry Orford has spent a week with us during the Easter Term. He came again this year and was, as we have come to expect, a stimulating presence in the School. A particularly enjoyable part of his visit was a day's walking in Swaledale with a group of staff and pupils. Some very good discussions took place that day.

Our links with Mirfield continue to grow. A group again went to join the Community for their Festival Mass on All Saints' Day, and to have supper with the monks afterwards; the Confirmation group again went to Mirfield for an evening shortly before the Confirmation; and the College Cricket team came to St. Peter's for a return match, and this looks like becoming an annual fixture. This year I was asked to go to the College (which the Community runs, training men for the Anglican priesthood) to talk to final year ordinands about School chaplaincy, and out of this came a request for two ordinands to do a two-week residential placement at St. Peter's in September. This request coincided with a similar request from Lincoln Theological College, and we look forward to the three ordinands being with us in September. I hope that the placements will be enjoyable and stimulating for the ordinands and also for the St. Peter's community, as pupils are given the opportunity to meet and talk with three young men who are preparing for the priesthood. A full report on the placements will appear next year.

Our visitors this year have included: Fr. Michael Marsden, from St. Wilfrid's Roman Catholic Church in the city; the Revd. Stuart Taylor, the Director of the Bloxham Project; Sister Catherine, O.H.P.; the Revd. Leon Carberry, from the Minster; and the Revd. Michael Searle, who preached at our Remembrance Service. The Head Master took Chapel in the week leading up to the Remembrance Service, and spoke about some of the poetry of the First World War. David Hughes led a week's Chapel, as did the School's Amnesty International group. Dick Hubbard and I did a week on Science and Religion. This followed up a very interesting address to the Science Society which the Archbishop of York gave in November on The interface of science and religion. This issue has certainly been given a good airing this year.

The new Bishop of Selby preached at Choral Evensong in September and conducted our Confirmation Service in May. Nineteen Peterites were confirmed, five of them being baptised in the Chapel during the Eucharist on the previous Sunday evening.

The Advent Carol Service was again a very beautiful occasion, the first half being by candlelight. The Christmas Carol Service and the Service of Words and Music for Lent were both well supported. I thank Andrew Wright and the musicians for the high standard of their contributions to our worship. The quality of the music in Chapel has been greatly enhanced this year by the new Chapel Organ — an article about which appears elsewhere in the magazine. We spent the Easter Term without an organ (except for a small one-manual instrument loaned to us by Geoffrey Coffin, the organ-builder), and the Chapel singing was led by this instrument and the piano being played in tandem! The Peterite enjoyment of singing carried us through a less than easy term, with Keith Pemberton having constantly to assault the piano!

The Sunday evening voluntary Eucharists have continued to attract a small but dedicated group of staff and pupils. Andrew Moxon has played the piano for us each week — both to accompany the hymns and to play during the administration. I thank him warmly for his helpful and much appreciated contributions to these Services. We again had a Leavers' Eucharist in May, before the U.VI left. We are currently experimenting with a termly Eucharist for the whole School — on major days on the Church's calendar such as Ash Wednesday and Ascension Day. I have been very encouraged by these Eucharists, which have given the whole community the opportunity to experience the central act of Christian worship. The Services have been conducted with ceremony, and I hope that the drama and the ritual have spoken to people in a different way to the inevitably more cerebral nature of normal Chapel.

A study group for senior pupils has met on a few occasions during the year. This is something which I should like to build up in the future, as it is important that opportunities are provided for pupils to explore the Christian faith in a setting which allows them to question and to discuss.

Our charitable giving this year is being given to: York and District against Motor Neurone Disease; the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; and the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind.

The year ended with the Leavers' Service in Chapel. The address was given by John Owen-Barnett. He spoke in his own inimitable style, and his words were much enjoyed and appreciated. At the Commemoration Service in the Minster we welcomed the Bishop of Sherborne, the Rt. Revd. John Kirkham, as our preacher. S. C. Harvex

THE NEW CHAPEL ORGAN

The Chapel pipe organ has been developed only once before in its history. Originally, it comprised just nine stops divided between a single manual (the Great Organ)

and the pedals and was made for the Chapel's opening in 1860 by William Hill, a noted London builder. Though it cannot have been very effective in leading the singing, it was not until 1906 that John Compton was invited to add the second manual (the Swell Organ) which not only doubled the instrument's size but actually proved louder than the original Great section.

A new low voltage electrical switching and transmission system linking the keys and mechanisms beneath the pipes was fitted in 1931 by Summers and Barnes of York and the organ survived in this form with very few alterations until 1991. This constitutes quite a remarkable period of service, especially considering that the mechanisms received very little professional attention during the time and the pipework merely underwent periodic tuning. However, let it also be recorded that such service was not merely coincidental and that Mr. Pemberton's frequent and ingenious interventions rectified many failures and ensured extended life!

As age took its toll in recent years, a rapid deterioration in the instrument's condition occurred both the result of natural decay of materials used in its construction and also through breakdown of the low voltage electrical transmission system. The organ had become quite unreliable and the knowledge that electrical faults had already caused two small fires prompted the Governing Body to consider the organ's future.

Geoffrey Coffin and his six man team from Principal Pipe Organs in York were commissioned to undertake a radical reconstruction and work commenced at the end of October, 1991. A great deal of the original Hill pipework has been retained, though most of the additions made in 1906 were of poor quality and have been discarded. The soundboards on which the pipes stand have either been entirely restored or replaced with new, and new working mechanisms and solid state switching provided throughout for long-term reliability. A new wind system has also been installed and the position of the Great and Swell Organs has been reversed and the pipework brought forward from the chamber into the Chapel to allow better sound projection. Two new organ cases enclose the sections, greatly enhancing the Chapel interior, while the player can judge balance of sound more successfully from a new detached drawstop console made of American oak and placed on the floor of the Chapel adjacent to the choir stalls.

The project was completed in the Summer Term, 1992 and Geoffrey Coffin played the instrument for the first time at morning Chapel on Wednesday, 29th April and gave a short account of the work that had taken place. He played an arrangement of Elgar's Fourth Military March (Pomp and Circumstance) in G and Karg-Elert's Chorale Improvisation 'Now thank we all our God'.

Harry Bramma, Director of the Royal School of Church Music and former organist of Southwark Cathedral, gave the inaugural recital on Friday, 5th June, 1992 and amply demonstrated the instrument's resources in a wide ranging programme of works by German, English and French composers. 1. Sonata in A (first movement) Mendelssohn 2. Chorale Preludes Buxtehude a) 'Nun komm der Heiden Heiland' b) 'Ein feste Burg' 3. Prelude and Fugue in B minor,,,,,,,,,,,J. S. Bach

4. Praeludium Jackson 5. Rhapsody No.3 in C sharp minor Howells 6. Fantasiauon an old English Tune Parry

7. Choral No.3 in A minor Franck 8. Andante cantabile (4th Symphony) Widor 9. Allegro risoluto (2nd Symphony) Vierne

For the technically minded, the reconstructed instrument has the following stoplist.

Great Organ

Bourdon Open Diapason Stopped Diapason Octave Open Flute Super Octave Mixture III Sesquialtera II 2% + Posaune Tremulant Swell to Great 16ft. 8ft. 8ft. 4ft. 4ft. 2ft. 2ft. PAft. 8ft.

Swell Organ

Open Diapason Gedeckt Gamba Voix Celeste Principal Gemshorn Mixture III 1 Contra Fagotto Trumpet Tremulant

Super Octave Unison Off Sub Octave

8ft 8ft 8ft 8ft 4ft 2ft '/3ft 16ft 8ft

Pedal Organ

Open Diapason Bourdon Principal Bass Flute Octave Flute Posaune Great to Pedal Swell to Pedal 16ft. 16ft. 8ft. 8ft. 8ft. 16ft.

Compass of manuals CC-C (61 notes) Compass of pedals CCC-F (30 notes) Bar and slider manual soundboards.

Direct electric action to manuals, pedals and drawstops. Mechanical Swell pedal action. Detached oak drawstop console with full complement of adjustable thumb and toe pistons. The instrument contains 1,360 pipes whose speaking length ranges from 16ft. to Vi inch.