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 The Grand Organ

 The Grand Organ of Westminster Cathedral is considered by many to be the greatest achievement and crowning glory of Henry Willis III, one of England’s finest organ builders.


The Cathedral's Grand Organ.
The earliest scheme for a new organ was proposed by T C Lewis in 1910 to a specification drawn up by Richard Runciman Terry, the first Master of Music. This proposal was for a large organ in several parts divided between the Apse and Tribunes. Largely for financial reasons, only the Choir Organ in the Apse was ever built. It was another ten years before Cardinal Bourne approached John Courage asking him to be the adviser on a new scheme for the Grand Organ.

John Courage was an inspired choice; he had devised the specification for Southwark Anglican Cathedral, had served an apprenticeship with Lewis & Co, and was well acquainted with well-known international organists including Louis Vierne, Guy Weitz and Marcel Dupré. The latter spent part of 1920 with Courage and had a great deal of influence on his ideas about the new organ. In particular, it was Dupré who insisted that the instrument should be at the west end as is common on the continent, rather than where Bentley, the Cathedral Architect, had intended it to be, in a position more typical of the English Cathedrals.


Interior of the Grand Organ.
The first stage of the Grand Organ (only 33 stops) was inaugurated by Dupré in 1922. Over the next ten years, Dupré and others, including Reginald Goss-Custard, Edwin Lemare, Joseph Bonnet and Guy Weitz to name but a few, gave recitals which provided funds towards the gradual augmentation of the specification. In 1924 Louis Vierne gave a recital during which Henry Willis brought him a theme to improvise on. Willis was rather taken aback to discover that Vierne was practically blind, and his nervousness as he hummed what he had written - the chimes of the clock at the Houses of Parliament - caused him to put the tune the wrong way round! Vierne used this improvisation as the basis for his famous Carillon de Westminster, dedicating it ‘à mon ami Henri Willis, facteur d’orgues à Londres’. In the same year, Marcel Dupré gave the première of his own Symphonie-Passion, for which the Pedal 32-foot Contra Bombarde was added.

By 1932, work was completed, the specification now 11 stops larger than had originally been intended. Recitals were well attended, particularly those of Dupré, and continued until the outbreak of war in 1939. They resumed in 1946 with names such as Léonce de Saint-Martin, Fernando Germani, Jeanne Demessieux, and again, Marcel Dupré, whose tremendous association with the organ continued to flourish. In the early 1960s, Nicolas Kynaston restored the tradition of recitals after a lapse of some years, inviting many famous names to play, among them Germani, Ralph Downes, Jean Langlais, George Thalben-Ball, Pierre Cochereau and Jean Guillou. However the organ was in a state of severe deterioration; the action had become noisy, and maintenance had been seriously compromised ever since the addition of a large electric console at the Apse to control both the Apse and the Grand Organs in 1926. This required the provision of bulky electro-pneumatic conversion actions in an environment where space was already at a premium.

After a complete restoration, the organ was reopened in 1985 by David Hill, who was then Master of Music. The pipework was cleaned having lain for years under a thick blanket of dust and soot from candles and incense, and extensive revoicing was carried out where necessary. An eight-level solid-state capture system was installed, and the action was overhauled. Last year these improvements were continued with another overhaul of the action and with the installation of a 256-level capture system with a cross-channel advancer making registration changes much easier. The 1996 work also enables much fuller and more comprehensive use of the Grand Organ from the Apse console.

In recent years Westminster Cathedral has continued to build on its reputation as a central focus of the continental organ tradition, drawing some of the greatest names from every corner of Europe.

Charles Cole


Specification of the Grand Organ


Organ pipes galore!

The Grand Organ was built by Henry Willis & Sons between 1922 and 1932, in the West Gallery of the Cathedral. In 1984 it was completely overhauled and restored by Harrison and Harrison. Improvements in the mechanical layout were made, and these included conversion of the pneumatic actions to an electro-pneumatic system. Early in 1996, Harrison and Harrison cleaned and overhauled the instument, revoicing selected stops to their pre-1984 state and adding a sequencer to control the general pistons. The main console is in the centre of the organ gallery. The specification is as follows:

Pedal Organ
1. Double Open Bass (from 2) 32
2. Open Bass 16
3. Open Diapason 16
4. Contra Bass 16
5. Sub Bass 16
6. Dulciana (from 19) 16
7. Violon (from 50) 16
8. Octave (from 2) 8
9. Principal (from 3) 8
10. Flute (from 5) 8
11. Super Octave (from 3) 4
12. Seventeenth * New 31/5
13. Nineteenth * in 22/3
14. Twenty-second * 1984 2
15. Contra Bombarde (from 16) 32
16. Bombarde 16
17. Trombone 16
18. Octave Trombone (from 17) 8

Choir Organ (Enclosed)
19. Contra Dulciana 16
20. Open Diapason 8
21. Viola 8
22. Sylvestrina 8
23. Cor de Nuit 8
24. Cor de Nuit Célestes 8
25. Gemshorn 4
26. Nason Flute 4
27. Nazard 22/3
28. Octavin 2
29. Tierce 13/5
30. Trompette 8
I. Tremulant
II. Octave
III. Sub-Octave
IV. Unison Off

Great Organ First Division
31. Double 16
32. Open Diapason No. 1 8
33. Open Diapason No. 2 8
34. Octave 4
35. Octave Quint 22/3
36. Super Octave 2
37. Grand Chorus 15 19 22 26 29 V
38. Double Trumpet 16
39. Trumpet 8
40. Clarion 4

Second Division
41. Bourdon 16
42. Open Diapason No. 3 8
43. Flute Harmonique 8
44. Quint 51/3
45. Principal 4
46. Flute Couverte 4
47. Tenth 31/5
48. Twelfth 22/3
49. Fifteenth 2

Swell Organ
50. Violon 16
51. Geigen Diapason 8
52. Rohrflöte 8
53. Echo Viole 8
54. Violes Célestes 8
55. Octave Geigen 4
56. Suabe Flute 4
57. Twelfth 22/3
58. Fifteenth 2
59. Harmonics 17 19 22 III
60. Oboe 8
61. Vox Humana 8
V. Tremulant
62. Waldhorn 16
63. Trumpet 8
64. Clarion 4
VI. Octave
VII. Sub-Octave
VIII. Unison Off

Solo Organ
(65-77 Enclosed)
65. Quintaton 16
66. Violoncello 8
67. Violoncello Célestes 8
68. Salicional 8
69. Unda Maris 8
70. Tibia 8
71. Concert Flute 4
72. Piccolo Harmonique 2
73. Cor Anglais 16
74. Orchestral Oboe 8
75. Corno di Bassetto 8
IX. Tremulant
76. French Horn 8
77. Orchestral Trumpet 8
78. Tuba Magna 8
X. Octave
XI. Sub-Octave
XII. Unison Off


Couplers
XIII. Choir to Pedal
XIV. Great to Pedal
XV. Swell to Pedal
XVI. Solo to Pedal
XVII. Swell to Choir
XVIII. Solo to Choir
XIX. Choir to Great
XX. Swell to Great
XXI. Solo to Great
XXII. Solo to Swell
XXIII. Great Reeds on Solo
XXIV. Great second division on Choir
XXV. Great and Pedal combinations coupled
XXVI. Generals on Swell foot pistons
(XXII, XXIV and XXVI were added in 1984)

Accessories
Eight foot pistons to the Pedal Organ
Eight pistons to the Choir Organ
Eight pistons to the Great Organ
Eight pistons to the Swell Organ (duplicated by foot pistons)
Eight pistons to Solo Organ
Eight general pistons and general cancel
256 levels of memory for general pistons and eight levels for divisional pistons
Reversible foot pistons: XIV, XV, XX
Reversible pistons: XIII-XXII
FF and FFF blind reversible pistons
Apse console general cancel
Balanced expression pedals to the Choir, Swell and Solo Organs



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