Organ masters to set the tone for Royal wedding (From The Northern Echo)

Organ masters to set the tone for Royal wedding

A Durham City company will make sure the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton hits the right note. Mark Tallentire visits organ builders Harrison and Harrison.

ROYAL DATE: Foreman Michael Whitfield with the pipes for Westminster Central Hall

KATE Middleton will walk down the aisle of Westminster Abbey to a pitch perfect welcome, thanks to North-East organ experts.

Craftsmen from renowned organ builders Harrison and Harrison (H&H) are in the abbey, putting the finishing touches to a right royal repair job.

Over two months, parts from the organ’s North side case have been restored in H&H’s workshop in Meadowfield, near Durham City, with the last piece returned to London for re-installation in late February.

H&H managing director Dr Chris Batchelor visited to check progress on Monday, March 7, and the work was due to be completed by the end of the month, ahead of its first major performance: the wedding of Prince William to Miss Middleton on Friday, April 29.

REPAIR WORK: The organ at Westminster Abbey

The project has generated much interest among H&H’s workers, whose predecessors built the organ in 1937 for the coronation of King George VI, immortalised in the box office smash hit film, The King’s Speech.

The firm, established in Rochdale in 1861, was moved to Durham by founder Thomas Harrison in 1872. It quickly gained a reputation for quality of tone and meticulous craftsmanship and a number of Harrison organs from the early years are still in good working order today. However, the firm only began to achieve greater recognition after Thomas Harrison’s sons, Arthur and Harry, took over in 1896.

Harry designed the organs and Arthur was a renowned “voicer” – setting the organs’ sounds.

Between 1904 and 1939, the company built 19 cathedral organs.

Arthur Harrison died in 1936 and his brother retired shortly after the Second World War, leaving the firm in the hands of his son, Cuthbert.

In the post-war period, H&H was at the forefront of a trend to move away from “‘orchestral” organs to more versatile creations, better able to entertain the classical repertoire.

It was in this period that H&H produced one of its most controversial pieces: the four-manual organ for London’s Royal Festival Hall.

The project produced furore. But its result became widely acclaimed and marked a watershed in British organ making.

Mark Venning succeeded Cuthbert Harrison in 1975 and moved the firm from Durham’s Hawthorn Terrace to purpose-built facilities, with everything from offices to equipment allowing staff to cast their own metals, in Meadowfield, in 1996.

Fittingly, the neighbouring St John’s Church contains an unaltered 1882 Harrison organ.

In 1997, H&H built a new organ for a private chapel at Windsor Castle, which had recently been devastated by fire. A letter of thanks and specially cast medal takes pride of place in the firm’s workshop lobby, along with a model explaining how music is made using an organ.

Experts recently finished building a new organ for Bury St Edmunds’ St Edmundsbury Cathedral, which was unveiled by Prince Charles on Friday, March 4.

Other current projects include repairing the organs of London’s Westminster Central Hall and Royal Festival Hall.

At the Royal Festival Hall, the first third of the organ has been refurbished and reinstalled.

A contract has been signed for the remaining work, but supporters are still fundraising to pay for the project.

It is hoped the revamped instrument will be playable by early 2014.

The Westminster Central Hall organ, formerly played by William Lloyd- Webber – father of West End musical composer Andrew and acclaimed cellist Julian – was recently re-installed and wind tested.

Experts are also carrying out work for Lincoln Cathedral.

Recently, Keith Unsworth, 74, who has worked for the company continually since 1952 apart from his two-year National Service from 1957 to 1959 and a five-year period in early retirement from 1998 to 2003, was overjoyed to find his name on a Lincoln Cathedral concussion he was repairing as part of the scheme, dated from 1959.

Projects planned for coming months and years include work for Peterborough Cathedral.

With more than 50 loyal staff, an annual turnover of £2.5m and bookings until 2015, the firm’s future looks bright.

Dr Batchelor, a highlyregarded organist who arrived in February having previously been head of London College of Music, said: “I’ve played a lot of H&H organs and I’ve admired the skill and artistic vision for a long time.

“It’s a firm with fantastic international credentials and, having been in higher education for 15 years, I fancied a change.

“I want to maintain the H&H values, which are very high quality instruments with a real sense of artistic profile.”

The firm will begin celebrating its 150th anniversary in October, with bosses planning workshop tours and a touring exhibition.

Dr Batchelor said in future the firm may look to send more organs to Europe, South America and Asia.

“We want to make sure we have a good flow of work coming in and may move into areas we aren’t currently seen as frontrunners in,” he said.

Miss Middleton may have many things to worry about ahead of her big day.

But, given H&H’s involvement, wedding music need not be one of them.