Organ
In 1928, to create the city's first dedicated concert venue, a Harrison and Harrison organ was built. A concert instrument, as opposed to a cathedral specification, it has been used for choral and orchestral concerts as well as organ recitals. It has 4,274 pipes, with a number of unique stops and has been described as "A Rolls-Royce" of organs.
The organ is currently in a poor state of repair, although as a result of its neglect, the instrument is probably the last and largest example of a Harrison tubular-pneumatic action (most other large organs were converted to electro-pneumatic action after World War II). The organ is also unusual in that it is unaltered, as most comparable organs have been modified, added-to or revoiced.
The British Institute of Organ Studies awarded it a Grade 1 Historic Organ Certificate in 2003, and it is classified as part of the hall's Grade II status.
Read more about this topic: Newcastle City Hall
Famous quotes containing the word organ:
“Nature is so perfect that the Trinity couldn’t have fashioned her any more perfect. She is an organ on which our Lord plays and the devil works the bellows.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“The only power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
“What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)