Hi Ken and Everyone,
I was allowed back in the early 1970's free access to the organ by Larry King.
I remember that tonally it was mild and certainly not offensive to my ears.
The action, however, was very difficult to deal with when the manuals were coupled together. The key travel became very shallow and it took a lot of pressure to work them. You can certainly forget about any tactile control of pipe speech ... it wasn't there ... manuals coupled or not.
I was allowed free access because Larry and Jim Sims really had no use for it compared to the experience of playing the new AS.
Since this was about 35 years ago, this info. should shed some more light on the subject (or rumor) of how soon it became "a wreak".
Matt
"Ken W. List" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: In part:
However, rumors that the Schlicker was a virtual wreck a year after its
installation,
also sent privately to me, are quite not the case; a former member of
the Trinity staff
that as recently as 1998 the organ was used in recital, and that one of
the tracker builders
had spent some time "fluffing it up," after which David Higgs played a
program.
The organ did sort of fall on evil days, and I suspect that like a
number of organs I have
experienced in NYC that its local maintenance ( and the fact the the
Schlicker Company
who built it was no longer in existence) was not very good - and
furthermore the gallery
was being slept in by homeless people in the 90's - so who knows what
was going on inside
the case.
As long as I am being a wee bit defensive, another curious set of
comments first of all
presumed that this may have been Schlicker's first tracker organ (more
likely to have been
its seventh or eight, counting both new organs and such rebuilt ones as
the Old North Church
in Boston. These comments went on to criticize the case (which I
understand will be retained)
on the grounds that is was unstylistic and unattractive. Well, that
case - which started
out its life in 1802, was distorted by being enlarged by the Odell
Company in 1870, and the
directive to Schlicker was to use the case as is, not to reduce it to
the original proportions.
SO if the case were all that unattractive, it is hardly Schlicker's fault.
It is a shame that after only 43 years the organ is not playable, but I
am also told that it
really is all clogged up from the 9/11 mess - so that's cleared up.
I am still sad.
---------------------------------
Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story.
Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Note: opinions expressed on PIPORG-L are those of the individual con-
tributors and not necessarily those of the list owners nor of the Uni-
versity at Albany. For a brief summary of list commands, send mail to
[log in to unmask] saying GET LSVCMMDS.TXT or see the web
page at http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/lsvcmmds.html .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
|
