[Pardon the false start on that last message - hit Send by accident!]
Following the thread of Michael Davidson and Louw Talstra (in which I
agree completely with the latter):
One of the reasons there are no "registrational assists," as in pistons
or combination action, may be as much Flentrop (the Firm) philosophy as
anything (again, with which I agree - you really don't need pistons on a
well-designed organ - but that is another story). In the 60s, when
Flentrop (Dirck himself) built the organ at the concert hall in
Rotterdam, and in a few other instruments at about the same period
(Brandford, Connecticut, for one), he was putting in combination actions
at the requests of the buyers. The eventual design necessities of the
Rotterdam instrument, particularly, were so frustrating for him that he
vowed to never again build a combination action (at least electric - he
might have done mechanical). Same with case design - stick to compact,
integral cases with keydesk in the case.
I don't know if the firm has continued this philosophy after Dirck
Flentrop retired, and I haven't seen details on recent large instruments
to know if they have any kind of combination action.
On pedalboards - again there is absolutely no necessity for a concave,
radiating pedalboard in order to play any of the organ literature.
French pedal boards have always been flat (although some recent ones may
have slightly raised outer keys). That means Widor, Vierne, Messaien,
Dupre, Durufle, Alain played on flat boards. You can even play Sowerby's
Pageant on a flat board. As I remember my organ history, the
English/American-style board was designed to make playing double notes
(3rds, 2nds) with one foot easier (but how often do you really encounter
such), and to make it supposedly easier to jump larger intervals and
play step-wise passages with heel-toe of the same foot. But in my
experience with both kinds of board, it really is a matter of habit.
Once I make the adjustments of "feeling" my way around, I find little
advantage to one style of board over the other.
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