Great and Swell Complete

This week we got the swell completed, including getting both sets of shades operating. Chuck and Mark got the pipes tuned up and did some regulating as well. There are four 8' reeds: Oboe, Waldhorn, Cornopean and Vox Humana. The oboe is particularly fine, broad enough for a chorus reed, and transparent enough to serve (at 4') for a clarion. The Cornopean, on many instruments seeming a dull trumpet, is fiery - especially so next to the warm and tastefully woolly Waldhorn. The strings are amazing - independent 8' and 4' each with a celeste - and (hold onto your sox) a String Mixture derived from the 8' (Salicional). Despite the great Audsley's endorsement of such things, I was a honestly a little skeptical of derived mixtures, but it sounds great and is just right as a crown on the string chorus. Throw in the Vox, get the trem going and shut the inner shades and now you're cookin (though maybe not for your average Sunday Mass!!) We will also have a derived mixture on the Great, from the Dulciana, and I'm quite interested to hear that. I'll talk about the Swell flutes including the fabulous 4' Harmonic Fl. in a later installment.

As for the Great, the swell shades for the enclosed Great were installed - they are 8' tall and 16' wide! The louvres are 2 3/4 inches thick. Today we loaded in the remaining pipes for the Great but weren't able to hear them - work on the main windline from the blower prevented us from turning on the wind. I had the privilege standing on the ladder passing the pipes up. 


Let me remark briefly about the regulating: the pipework from A. R. Schopp is remarkably fine, consistent from top to bottom and very well voiced already. Tonal finishing will be a joy!


Here are some photos. You'll see our statuary is now all in.

Mary William Baine working in the enclosed Great
in front of the Trombone and Violone pipes.
Several of the 1st Open Diapason pipes are to her left.



The 2nd Diapason and the Octave on the Great.



Looking into the enclosed Great. The wooden pipes
on the right are from the Major Bass. Behind the
shades are pipes of the First Open Diapason.

Pipes in the enclosed Great.

The bottom notes of the Violone - note the beards,
wooden cylinders painted black, in front of the mouths.

In the Swell, the Vox Humana, with the Oboe
to the left and the Salicional to the right.

The 4' Harmonic Flute in the Swell. Note the holes drilled in the
pipes to make them overblow at the octave (hence the name Harmonic).

The Harmonic Flute and the Stopped Diapason (Swell).

More pipes!

Here's me handing a pipe up to Debi Lee.

Our new crucifix group, sculpted by Thomas Marsh.
The noonday light coming through the stained glass
 was too complicated for my cellphone camera to make
 sense of. That's Saint Michael in the background.