Organ
The London Oratory has a rich organ tradition, its Organists including Ralph Downes (1936–1977), Patrick Russill (1977–99), John McGreal (1999-2011) and Matthew Martin (2011-to date). The organ of 45 stops, 3 manuals and pedals, built by J. W. Walker & Sons Ltd, 1952–54, to the designs of Ralph Downes, was the first church organ in London to be built on neo-classical lines, and is considered one of the finest British organs built since World War II.
Read more about this topic: Brompton Oratory
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)
“But alas! I never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to make promises, that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere ordinary capacity.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“And this mighty master of the organ of language, who knew its every stop and pipe, who could awaken at will the thin silver tones of its slenderest reeds or the solemn cadence of its deepest thunder, who could make it sing like a flute or roar like a cataract, he was born into a country without literature.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)