BIRMINGHAM ORGANISTS' ASSOCIATION
 

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ORGAN OF THE MONTH 26: August 2004

Specification

This certainly takes the prize for the smallest organ yet featured in our Organ of the Month series.  It has just four speaking stops and is a G D & B house organ.

The firm of Grant, Degens & Bradbeer became famous in the 1960s (some would say infamous) for its radical departure from the established British organ-building tradition of the previous hundred years.  In new organs for prestigious locations, eg New College, Oxford (1969), they introduced such exotic stops as None ⁸/9ft and Tient II (1¹/7 + ¹⁶/19ft). 

This house organ was built in 1972 for Anthony Burns-Cox, then sub-organist of Llandaff Cathedral, who sold it to BOA member John Tesh in 1991.  It measures 215cm high and 185cm wide (approx 7ft x 6ft).  The depth, including the (full) pedal clavier is only 125cm (about 4ft).  This compact size of the case, designed by John Bailey, was made possible by the use of a common, stopped bottom octave for both the 8ft stops, and by the use of a fractional length reed (a Sordun 16ft) as the only independent pedal stop.

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Last modified: August 01, 2004