In all the discussion of the Princess of Diana's funeral, nobody has said
anything about the organ in Westminster Abbey.  The current instrument was
originally built by Harrison & Harrison of Durham in 1937 and is known as
the Coronation Organ.  This is because Durham was on the London & North
Eastern Railway and the organ was built the same year that the "Coronation"
streamlined train was introduced on that railway -:)  It was Arthur
Harrison's last organ; indeed he stayed up doing the tonal finishing until 2
a.m. on the day when he went into hospital for a cancer operation and died
during the operation.  The four-manual instrument was first used at the
Coronation of King George VI.  The two beautiful cases date from the
previous five-manual Hill organ and were designed by Victorian architect J.
L. Pearson, best known as the architect of Truro Cathedral.  The casework
was decorated in an attractive polychrone scheme by Stephen Dykes-Bower,
whose brother John Dykes-Bower was organist of St. Paul's Cathedral.  In
1989 the original builders, Harrison & Harrison of Durham, rebuilt the organ
and added a fifth Bombarde manual.  The stoplist may be seen at
<http://lehuray.cis.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/npor_details/N00646>  I have not seen
the instrument since it was rebuilt, but a friend of mine (a member of this
list) who has reports that the fifth manual is very nicely done but seems to
bear little relation to the tonal concept of the rest of the instrument and
that it is difficult to see what purpose it serves.  He predicts that it
will be removed the next time the organ is rebuilt.  I predict that it will
not be used at the funeral of the Princess of Wales, since (ever since
Sunday, October 17, 1790 when His Late Majesty King George III, of Blessed
Memory, demanded that royal organbuilder Samuel Green remove the Trombone or
Bass Trumpet from the organ at St. George's Chapel, Windsor) the Royal
Family have always been fairly consistent in their dislike of partyhorns and
other loud noises on organs.
 
John