The Organ in Holy Trinity Church
Coates church has a Patent Casson Positive Organ, Pattern 64, which was installed in 1906
It is still occasionally used for accompanying services although there is also an electric piano in the church.
More organ pages on this site
Paying for the Organ Photographs and organ detail
Coates Organists Videos of the organ
It is still occasionally used for accompanying services although there is also an electric piano in the church.
More organ pages on this site
Paying for the Organ Photographs and organ detail
Coates Organists Videos of the organ
There is report of the dedication service (which was on Wednesday 26th December 1906) in the Peterborough Advertiser of December 29th 1906.
“There was a crowded congregation for the service which was conducted by the Rector, Rev. T. Duckett. He was assisted by Rev. Thompson, of St. Andrew's, Whittlesey, who read the Lessons, and the Rev. Hardy Wood (Rural Dean), of Benwick, who preached an excellent sermon.”
There was a recital on the organ as part of the service which,
“gave the congregation a taste of the sterling qualities and sweet tone of the organ, … It is of the Positive type, and although not fitted with pedals and a second manual, yet by a clever arrangement of the stops, it possesses all the properties of an organ so built. It has a very small keyboard, eleven stops, foot and hand blower and swell, and is also fitted with a patent transposer, by which the pitch of a tone may be raised or lowered to suit the voice. Two of the stops, the Melodic Viol and the Double Base (sic), are special patent stops of the builders, the former bringing out the melody of any piece with striking clearness and the latter acting in like manner upon the bass.”
The instrument cost about £160, of which nearly £120 had already been subscribed. It was hoped that the remainder would be obtained by means of concerts, etc., during the winter months. This translates into £16,984 in today’s money which seems a huge amount for a small parish. (Click HERE to see how I arrived at this figure)
The above description of the organ matches well with one I found on line, upon which what follows is based.
Thomas Casson (1842-1910), a banker from Denbigh in Wales turned organ builder. Casson's instruments, supplied by a network of local dealers, were ideal for the small church. They were cheap, but sturdily built, little mechanical action organs intended for the pianist who had strayed onto the organ.
Constructed from quality, durable materials, they offered not only a small one manual tracker organ at a fair price, but also a number of interesting pneumatic features that rendered the instrument capable of achieving things only a much larger instrument was capable of doing. Thus, for example, there was often a Melodic Bass, which duplicated the lowest note played on a 16ft Bourdon stop, thereby achieving the effect of a Pedal department in 4-part accompaniment of hymns and anthems.
There was sometimes also a pneumatic coupler playing the top note only on certain stops (often a "Melodic Viol"), thereby supplying solo effects normally found only on a two-manual organ. Sometimes the manual was divided and the stops could be drawn in halves to achieve a similar effect (The Coates model has Gedeckt Bass and Gedeckt treble as well as Dulcet Treble and Dulcet Bass.)
Many of the instruments had transposing devices: the organist simply moved the keyboard a note or two up or down; a portion of the keyboard curiously disappeared into the casework. The instruments also had foot-powered feeders like a harmonium so that the organist could easily blow the organ him or herself, useful in remote churches without electricity.
“There was a crowded congregation for the service which was conducted by the Rector, Rev. T. Duckett. He was assisted by Rev. Thompson, of St. Andrew's, Whittlesey, who read the Lessons, and the Rev. Hardy Wood (Rural Dean), of Benwick, who preached an excellent sermon.”
There was a recital on the organ as part of the service which,
“gave the congregation a taste of the sterling qualities and sweet tone of the organ, … It is of the Positive type, and although not fitted with pedals and a second manual, yet by a clever arrangement of the stops, it possesses all the properties of an organ so built. It has a very small keyboard, eleven stops, foot and hand blower and swell, and is also fitted with a patent transposer, by which the pitch of a tone may be raised or lowered to suit the voice. Two of the stops, the Melodic Viol and the Double Base (sic), are special patent stops of the builders, the former bringing out the melody of any piece with striking clearness and the latter acting in like manner upon the bass.”
The instrument cost about £160, of which nearly £120 had already been subscribed. It was hoped that the remainder would be obtained by means of concerts, etc., during the winter months. This translates into £16,984 in today’s money which seems a huge amount for a small parish. (Click HERE to see how I arrived at this figure)
The above description of the organ matches well with one I found on line, upon which what follows is based.
Thomas Casson (1842-1910), a banker from Denbigh in Wales turned organ builder. Casson's instruments, supplied by a network of local dealers, were ideal for the small church. They were cheap, but sturdily built, little mechanical action organs intended for the pianist who had strayed onto the organ.
Constructed from quality, durable materials, they offered not only a small one manual tracker organ at a fair price, but also a number of interesting pneumatic features that rendered the instrument capable of achieving things only a much larger instrument was capable of doing. Thus, for example, there was often a Melodic Bass, which duplicated the lowest note played on a 16ft Bourdon stop, thereby achieving the effect of a Pedal department in 4-part accompaniment of hymns and anthems.
There was sometimes also a pneumatic coupler playing the top note only on certain stops (often a "Melodic Viol"), thereby supplying solo effects normally found only on a two-manual organ. Sometimes the manual was divided and the stops could be drawn in halves to achieve a similar effect (The Coates model has Gedeckt Bass and Gedeckt treble as well as Dulcet Treble and Dulcet Bass.)
Many of the instruments had transposing devices: the organist simply moved the keyboard a note or two up or down; a portion of the keyboard curiously disappeared into the casework. The instruments also had foot-powered feeders like a harmonium so that the organist could easily blow the organ him or herself, useful in remote churches without electricity.