The Marcussen, the Heart of the Chapel

BY DAVID WILLIAMS

THE HEART OF THE CHAPEL – AFTER 25 YEARS THE MARCUSSEN PLAYS ON

On the day after the fire, Sunday, around 4pm, a fire officer told me that the enormous pile of debris the organ had created was not yet safe, it was still burning. It would have burnt well, all that wood, leather and pipework melting away. The gaping roof and crumbling walls stood silent after the frenzy of the previous day when the whole school had watched from the safe distance of The Head.

A new Chapel needed a new organ and the organ builder would require a ‘brief’ from the committee formed for this task. The primary use of the organ was to accompany School congregational singing in services six times a week, using hymns, liturgy, and settings largely drawn from the Anglican tradition. This tradition at Tonbridge included the playing to the school of voluntaries before and after every service, which meant that many boys listened to as much as eighty minutes of good organ music a week. In addition, the organ should be a fine teaching instrument, and it would also be used for recitals throughout the year. All the builders considered that the deliberately eclectic stop list, even when reduced in size – and possibly all the more when reduced – would produce an organ with the weight, clarity, and blend to serve the School’s principle purposes. Among other stops, they noted, the inclusion of two Tuba stops which would contribute to the electrifying effect which a school organ can have when the School are singing at full throttle.

However, in order to give potential builders a good idea of the size and scale of the future organ a ‘specification’ was necessary. In other words: What pipes? How many? What variety and what combinations are possible within the constraints of space and cost?

This specification is vital. It is like a recipe for the sound. Each ‘stop’ gives the player access to a set of pipes which can be chosen by their pitch and type. For example a Trumpet stop will produce a reedy sound; three of them

THE MARCUSSEN

This specification is vital. It is like a recipe for the sound. Each ‘stop’ gives the player access to a set of pipes which can be chosen by their pitch and type

at different pitches will produce three octaves, tripling the pitch range and the volume at the same time. The pitch of pipes can allow the player effectively to play many pipes just by playing one key, such is the magic of organ playing! An initial specification was put to the organ builders as a basis for consideration, perhaps in the way a client buying a house might establish how many rooms within a certain space might be required, an outline shape, a concept. ‘Stop’ names, as one organ expert pointed out, mean a little rather than a lot. For example, a Principal could be given other more familiar names in this country, and its equivalent would be Diapason. We call ‘reeds’ all sorts of names and the general tone, or builders’ recommendations might change a Trumpet to a Trompette, a Bassoon to a Fagot, or a very deep reedy pedal note anything from a Bombarde or even more spectacularly, an Ophicleide.

John Cullen and the project’s eminent consultant Simon Preston wasted no time in drawing up that specification as a basis for discussion and it was with that document that John and I went first to Germany, to Bonn, to see the distinguished organ builder Klais. This was very soon after the fire and, while no deals were done nor concluded, it was the first rich experience of discovery and research which put Klais at the top of the list for so long.

John Cullen’s notes made on that short trip are revealing. Significantly he points out that at Saulgau we experienced an instrument of ‘… immense clarity. The tone of each stop is very distinctive…total integration of pipes…we felt that whereas on an English Organ we would draw attention to the particularly fine characteristics of a few stops, perhaps, on this organ, practically every stop would fall into this category. What an experience! The ‘buzz’ words of our trip were consistent, clarity, finesse, clear, exciting, distinctive, beauty and so on. While this early discovery and educational experience was not quite official, it did, nonetheless prove to be a powerful force in Klais’s favour all through the long and short list process.

As time went by the research element became a great joy and certainly an exciting prospect as we neared the next visits. Builders were approached and invited to offer tenders for the project and in August 1991 we saw the ideas from Mander (UK), Walker (UK), Klais (Germany), and Rieger (Austria). It was quite easy to visit the UK builders’ work so the list of church, chapel and cathedrals bulked up – Mander: Winchester College, Chichester Cathedral, St Andrew’s, Holborn; Walker: City of London School; St Martin-in-the-Fields, London; Rieger: St Marylebone Parish Church. John Cullen and I had seen, heard and played four organs on our Germany trip and later at St John’s, Smith Square, London.

In March 1992 the recommendation was for Klais. However, by December of that year the cost of a Klais had risen a great deal so it was agreed that ‘no decision should be taken at that time, but that tenders should be sought from four other organ-builders with a view to a final decision, on a broader base of information’.

We then invited tenders from Fisk (USA), Holtkamp (USA), Kenneth Jones (Ireland) and Marcussen (Denmark) – these were on recommendation from our consultant Simon Preston who was very familiar with the work of these builders. In the Easter holiday 1993, Martin Hammond and I visited Marcussen in Denmark and Holtkamp in the USA. Like all our visits to these impressive instruments, often in spectacular buildings, our times were most enjoyable; while important work was our intent, there was plenty of interesting and agreeable hospitality too!

The three Danish organs were brilliant and impressive although the player’s console in each case would need rethinking for the necessary familiar layout an English instrument would need. The wonderful trip to the USA began in NYC to see a Holtkamp and the amazing nearly completed Mander; the following day, with three flights, took us to the equally fascinating and ample organ at Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama. That day was all over by about 5pm and we flew to the builder’s base in Cleveland that evening and saw a splendid instrument in the Cleveland Museum of Modern Art the following day.

After various considerations of each builder’s best qualities the final elegant statement was left to Martin Hammond in his final organ committee report: …we are in no doubt that Marcussen are to be preferred as builders of the new Tonbridge organ, despite the greater cost. Marcussen have an outstanding reputation for building organs if consistently superb quality, and they are held in universal esteem.

We felt that our research had been justified and that the personal comparisons of several other builders and their instruments had equipped us with the authority to make such a choice. Marcussen’s outstanding work at Tonbridge continues to be enjoyed by boys, staff and visitors to Chapel services and recitals. The Marcussen name was also noticed by the organ community, as clubs and societies began requesting viewings and talks. After Simon Preston’s inaugural recitals, there followed many recitals by other well-known organists like Gillian Weir, Wayne Marshall, Thomas Trotter, Peter Hurford and by Tonbridge’s own organists. It was Peter Hurford who declared to Martin Hammond after his preparation for his recital: ‘ I have not played a finer instrument in this country ●

David Williams (CR 1982 to Present)