Those readers digest recordings were at the time (and still are in my opinion) the best recordings made of the Tower Ballroom Wurlitzer. They are still very highly regarded by many. It sounds absolutely magnificent in them, and the room is captured wonderfully. As good as Reg Dixon is on those recordings, I only wish the same recording technology was around in the late 1930s to hear him at his absolute peak.

I used to listen to the Reader’s Digest (mostly jazz/easy listening) at my grandmother’s. My pipe organ impressions came from theatre matinees, with “The Mighty Wurlitzer”, 4-manuals, left and right front lofts (with full percussion). A high school friend was a theatre organ prodigy and let me tour the lofts while he practiced. The organ records in our Public Library were Virgil Fox and E. Power Biggs. I liked Fox’s sensitivity to the music and Biggs’ “Heavy Organ” performance pieces.

Ah Riverside Church. I went to college down the street and when I got married my wedding was there. So… I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to specify a magnificent program of organ music played by the chief organist at the time, Frederick Swann. I chose to have all Bach music. It was glorious.

It's always had some fame, when it was built it was the largest musical instrument ever constructed, back in 1850 or so. That title now belongs to the organ at Atlantic City's boardwalk hall, which is more than three times the size of the Royal Albert Hall organ.

Hats off to Anna for being a positive influence in classical culture media, but there are PLENTY of other great organists, like Richard Hills here, who have played this instrument. My favourite is Wayne Marshall and Olivier Latry taking turns on it in a Prom. That’s virtuoso work!

The organ was famous for over 150 years before Anna Lapwood.

Er… I think it’s the RAH organ that has made Anna Lapwood famous, actually. And although a much-loved instrument, it was more notorious than famous before its Mander rebuild - never being quite in tune, or having enough wind… It still made a glorious racket though! There’s a comment below about the nameplate: despite what BBC announcers tell us about this being a ‘Father Willis’, to anyone with eyes and ears the instrument is the classic inter-war Harrison brought to its logical conclusion. And that’s why Mander left the nameplate in situ.

But not AS famous.......

The Albert Hall organ also has a 64 foot stop in the pedal division, something that you feel rather than hear.

​@@hb1338 It's a derived stop, it is not a genuine 64' stop.

A Kontakt sample library has just been released of this organ so you can play it in the comfort of your home: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o81ypq6h382wpHU.html

I’d love to be there when you play this organ!

@@Musician-Lee Let's hear 'Little Arrows' on it! 🤣 (Ahem, shows my age...)

Same here regarding linguistic aspect, and I’m in the US!

​@@newtboysRichard Hills went to school at King's School Rochester, founded AD 604, second oldest school in the world, now over 1,400 years old.

Practise practice and more practise

Heard him play in Chattanooga, Tennessee a couple years ago. Fun, funny, brilliant!

All good questions! I can answer (poorly) a couple: roughly half the pipes are wood so might move a little with change in humidity and temperature but not normally thought to cause problems. The metal pipes are largely lead with small amounts of tin, copper or antimony, so they are very inert to corrosion. All large organs like this are tuned several times a year though. As for the acoustics, I believe the seats are designed to have an "equivalent absorption area" (basically the area of a perfect absorber reflecting zero energy that is equivalent to the thing you're measuring) roughly the same whether they're empty or full.

@@chrisburn7178 Chris, Thanks so much for your answers, the metal makes perfect sense as that "recipe" has been available before the early design of the pipe organ. I would never have thought of the pipe being an alloy like that. Since viewing the video, I have reorganized my organ music library and added several new albums and organist to my " Santa" list :-) Thanks so much again Happy Holidays

The seating at the Albert Hall is mostly around the periphery of an oval so the sound absorption of the audience is very low. The arena floor (normally seats, but standing area during the Proms concerts) is a long way below the organ and also the stage, so there is little acoustic absorption there. Tip: the best place to hear the "Voice of Jupiter" is (IMO) the gallery, which runs around the top of the auditorium and is at a similar height to the organ case. I have memories of standing there for a Proms performance of the Saint-Saens organ symphony in the 1980s.

I'm an organist who has dabbled a smidgen in organ building, but live in the US and therefore don't have any experience with RAH's instrument. I started piano in first grade, and started organ lessons in high school; I decided to major in organ for undergraduate and a master's degree. Piano lessons are highly-recommended first, as that will help teach technique, some music theory, musicality, etc., then when you switch over to organ, much of that knowledge can now be utilized on organ. Yes, it's a lot of brain power, and it is the hardest instrument to learn and play, but it's so worth it! Many composers for the organ were/are organists themselves, and therefore know what works and what doesn't. Things like arpeggios that usually work great on piano are not as playable on the organ because of how sound is made, and the arpeggiated line may sound disjointed. On the other hand, the organ is made for long, sustained sound, and many pieces take advantage of that. Using multiple manuals/keyboards in a short span of time is another feature that organ composers can use. Organ builders use a variety of skills to build an instrument. Woodworking, electrical engineering (even for mechanical-action instruments), knowledge of levers and physics, and an eye for design and aesthetics all play a role, as well as being acousticians and usually performing musicians themselves. As practically every pipe organ is custom-made, it generally takes months or a year-or-two to build one from scratch; installing an instrument in its final venue also takes quite a while to accomplish. Pipes are either hand-made in-house or ordered from a pipe-making company. In addition to making new instruments or refurbishing older ones for new homes, organ shop employees are also tuners and maintenance people for instruments of all shapes in the area.

In a sense, yes. Electropneumatic instruments don't have that problem as much. But yes, if you draw every, single, stop on, including all the celestes, it will deplete the air in the wind chest and the blower can't provide enough air in real-time. The pitch of the entire instrument will then go flat. So, the famous phrase, "pulling out all the stops" isn't actually done by us organists on anything more than about 20 stops, because it's usually just not needed and the tuning is at risk of falling.

Hymn tune for the hymn 'Thine be the Glory', the tune was composed by George Friedrich Handel. Here it is sung at King's College Cambridge: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gZegoLGU37Opm2w.html

Also known as the main theme from Handel's Judas Maccabeus

We did use an array of mics for the organ, but some stops (particularly those in the Choir and Orchestral division) are almost imperceptible when played solo - if not quieter in person than comes across in this video. It was a challenge to balance the audio from such a dynamic instrument. I hope you enjoyed the demonstration nonetheless!

@@RoyalAlbertHallOrgan there was a 64 foot acoustic bass stop that he forgot to show

The main theme from Handel's Judas Maccabeus

Probably to expand the memory levels. A guest organist can bring a disc in to save all their settings on without having to override any of the built-in memory levels.

Pipe organs have been around since Roman times, we've known how to build them for a very long time. Though they have undergone changes since then and become more complex and refined, the principal (excuse the pun) is still the same. No electronic speakers or recordings etc can produce the experience of hearing a pipe organ, be it classical or theatre, in the room.

See, the Conquering Hero Comes by George Frideric Handel

It did begin life as a Willis organ, but it was rebuilt and greatly rescaled by Harrison in the 1920's? to the point it somewhat "became" a Harrison organ, not only in sound, but in mechanics. You'll note the classic Harrison console designs. Further additions and modifications by Harrison have made it more of a Harrison as well.

The latest rebuilt was by Mander Organs in 2004. Consideration was given to returning to the Father Willis specifications but the organ had been modified so much that such a return was impractical. In reality it is now a Mander organ.

@@drbobdrake Well then, put a Mander nameplate on it, together with the original Willis one. I find the Harrison nameplate quite annoying. Anyway, it sounds terrific!

Klais has the organ restored

Sounded just fine to me, perhaps your speaker system wasn't up to the task?

It's the main theme from Handel's Judas Maccabeus, but there may have been an altered chord or two in there.