I said:
> >Of course, some of us would rather spend our time on the music, instead of
> > having to
> >constantly concentrate on the mechanics of pushing pistons and stops. :-)

Allan Ontko replied:
> One of the skills needed to play an organ in this day and age is that of
> registration.  Registration is not just the setting up of stops before one
> plays a piece and then the cancelling thereof after the conclusion of the
> piece.  Registration is the use of stops, pistons, mechanicals, devices,
> etc. to mold the sound of the organ to the effects inherent in the music.
[Stuff deleted...]

My reply:
Please! I happen to be an organist of enough years experience to know what
registration is about, for _any_ period and _any_ style of music on _any_ organ.
 I
have pushed enough of my share of pistons and crescendo pedals to know that it
 is
all too easy for an organist to pay too much attention to the mechanics and
 forget
the music.

What is particularly annoying for me is those people who would destroy the music
through uncharacteristic and unstylistic registration, _because_ they have the
mechanics to do so.

Simply put, you do not change registration on every phrase in a Bach piece (pace
Virgil, and Biggs never did that), just as you would not play "Chattanooga
Choo-Choo" on a theatre organ on one registration and one dynamic.