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Subject:
From:
"Ken W. List" <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Mon, 16 May 2005 09:07:56 -0400
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DEAR LIST:

Drobertelms wrote:

> "After I deleted all the html junk from Ken's post I could read his
> message.
> There are two reasons, Ken.
> 1. They are in concert halls and not churches which is what my remark
> was all about.
> 2. Sydney, like some cities in certain other countries, MUST have the
> biggest!"


My rather intentionally nasty jab was not aimed at the fact that the
organs were in churches, but rather at the fact that Mr. Elms has
declared that huge instruments are a waste of money.  It strikes me that
if this is so, then the location of the huge organs has nothing at to do
with the alleged wastefulness - and my examples in Mr. Elms' homeland
are but a few which would qualify, were one to agree with Mr. Elms'
contention.

Throughout organ history there have been monumental organs built, for
whatever reasons, which far exceeded the realistic size they needed to
be to do the jobs they had to do.  It goes right along with all other
kinds of monument building, of the greed for land, of the need for
domination of other peoples -- and in some cases, the honest desire of
the perpetrators of such huge instruments to have something marvellous
and wondrous; and it strikes me that the money was far better spent in
such a pursuit than in a great many other applications which would have
brought no pleasure and much unhappiness to mankind.

I dare say that Mr. Elms' church is not the only one in the world into
which a five manual organ would not fit (I have two of them in my little
parish church, but that's neither here nor there.) but the 'striving for
the biggest' is not limited to churches, to the United States, or to the
world of organs.  It is a product of human nature, and sometimes it
gives us simple mortals some really wonderful things to marvel at.

I grieve that Mr. Elms had to resort to his html eradicater to read my
nasty post; but I assure him that I did not give this to him; it was a
present without charge from some mystical force in the Universe -
perhaps the same one that makes us build huge organs.

KL

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