In general, British organ culture knows very little about this remarkable instrument, even though it is one of the major representatives of what we call the “English sound”. Here’s a look back at an organ featured in a recent issue of Orgues Nouvelles.

The Sydney instrument (127 stops on 5 keyboards) has the distinctive feature of having a pronounced English character, but is versatile enough to play many types of music. Bach sounds wonderful on it, and it is perfect for Romantic music up to Mendelssohn. Widor and Franck sound good. It has all the necessary resources for accompaniment. There are certainly repertoires for which it is not suited, but it nevertheless allows large sections of organ music to be tackled with ease. Taking inspiration from this type of organ, it would probably be possible to design instruments that would stand the test of time, would not need to be rebuilt so often, and would possess both character and versatility.

The Sydney organ has a monumental principal choir with sixteen ranks of mixture on the Great alone. It has reed stops crowned with noble tubas, as well as all kinds of soft reeds and flues offering countless nuances of colour. The mutations are somewhat underrepresented, but the central German organs of Bach’s time did not have many either. In short, it is both a highly versatile instrument and one with its own unique character. If an instrument is beautiful in itself, many types of music sound very good on it.

Henry Lewis’ instruments are known to be perfect for accompaniment, with part of their sound rooted in the German tradition of Schulze. Thomas Hill, the builder of the Sydney Town Hall organ and son of William Hill (1789-1870), took a similar approach. He created a unique and distinctive type of instrument that unifies the two main components of what an eclectic Anglican organ needs: the rigorous plenums for playing Bach and “classical” music, and the range of nuances necessary to accompany Anglican choral music. Schulze, who influenced both of them, built organs in the Central German tradition, which dates back to Silbermann and Hildebrandt. It is amusing to see that this type of organ played by Bach, with mixtures perfect for counterpoint, but also many colours and gambas, could be considered a perfect “English” organ when built by Lewis and Hill. If this organ had been built in a cathedral, it would have been a phenomenal success. The organ in Sydney Town Hall, in terms of scale and aesthetics of the time, is the iconic culmination of the English organ. Built in England in 1890, shipped via the Empire’s merchant fleet and installed on site as a sign of cultural hegemony, it demonstrates the power that England possessed at that time. Emblematically, it even has what was the largest stop at the time, a 64-foot pedal reed. Global Britain indeed!

Audio presentation of the organ by Daniel Moult (in English)