Cathedral Piped Organs

      It is thought the first piped organs appeared in European churches in the late 10th century and were common in cathedrals in England by the end of the 13th century.          

     The earliest mention of a cathedral organ in Lichfield is in 1482 when a ‘great organ’ was placed on the choir screen in the cathedral.[1] A fee to an organist and bellows-blower was recorded in the 1580s.[2] Visitors in 1634 noted the organs and voices were deep and sweet, but in 1635 two organs were described as  ‘much defective’ and in need of repair. It was suggested the organs should be combined to make one chair-organ. A new organ with 12 stops was ordered in 1636,[3] but was destroyed soon after in the Civil War. The wooden pipes were burned.[4]

            With the post-war restoration of the cathedral a new organ was installed.[5] An organ was used in 1663 since an inquiry asked what the organist played. It is thought this is the chamber organ that currently resides in the south transept. A restoration showed only the 12 lowest pipes were original. In 1677 a little organ was repaired. 

Chamber Organ known as the ‘wardrobe’.

Chamber organ before restoration

             In 1732, the organ was said to be out of repair. In 1740, the Warwick-based German organ builder Thomas Schwarbrick provided Lichfield with a new or fully restored main organ, which survived until 1789.

            In 1789, James Wyatt removed the stone screen between the choir and the Lady Chapel and used the stone to build a screen between the crossing and the choir. A new organ[6] was placed on top of the stone wall and was first played in November 1790.. It occupied the first choir bay, an estimated area of 9 m x 6 m (30 feet wide and 20 feet long).[7] Access to the loft was by a staircase built into the stone screen. At least 12 canopies from the old high altar reredos were incorporated into the stone screen. A glazed screen was then added in 1801[8] to the back of the organ case which reached upwards to the roof. The organist was now separated from the nave by a window. All this was part of draught-proofing an inner church.

 

Part of a plate showing the stone wall, organ and glass screen. From Britton, 1820.[9]

             With Scott’s restoration of the cathedral the stone wall and organ were taken down in 1858. A new organ[10] was bought by Josiah Spode[11] and it was played in 1861. The new organ, the foundation of the current organ, was innovative for its size and having an independent pedal chorus.[12] The organ was located in St Stephen’s Chapel in the north transept.[13]

Organ in St Stephen's Chapel

    In 1884, the organ[14] was enlarged and rebuilt. It was given tubular pneumatic action, adding a Solo division, much of the pipework was replaced and the console moved into the north choir aisle, thereby improving the siting of the organist.[15]

In 1907–8, the organ was placed in a loft above the north choir aisle and a new console was added.[16] Further rebuilding occurred in 1974 such that it now had 66 speaking stops and 4064 pipes.[17] The instrument’s tonal palette was broadened.

Rebuild in 2000[18] saw the addition of the nave organ (almost 1000 new pipes) so that it now had 82 speaking stops and 5038 pipes. The nave section can be used independently of the choir section. After much debate, the organ was left at its original Old Philharmonic pitch, meaning that it sounds very sharp against modern-day concert pitch. A past organist wrote the organ is not the most famous in the country, but it is one of the most delightful of English organs to play and to hear.[19]

The cathedral also owns an electronic organ with fixed speakers and a moveable console.

Notable organists of Lichfield Cathedral include the 17th-century composer Michael East and the musical educator and choral conductor William Henry Harris who conducted at the coronations of both George VI and Elizabeth II. 

[1] Presented by Dean Haywood. See Lichfield Cathedral Library MS. Lichfield 4, f. 31. Also M. Greenslade, 'Lichfield: The Cathedral'. In: A history of the County of Stafford: Volume 14, Lichfield.. (London: 1990) 47--57, note 129.

[2] M. W. Greenslade and R. B. Pugh (eds.) 'House of secular canons - Lichfield cathedral: From the Reformation to the 20th century’, in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 3, (London, 1970), 166–199.

[3] Ordered from Robert Dallam.

[4] J. Jackson, History of the City and Cathedral of Lichfield. (London: 1805), 204. There is mention of two organs lost in the Civil War, 83.

[5] It has been written the organ was built by Bernhard Schmidt but restoration showed parts predate his workshop. He probably enlarged the organ in 1680. It has three stops.

[6] Built by Samuel Green. The organ case was designed by James Wyatt in a Gothic style.

[7] R. Prentis, A view from the old organ lofts. Unpub. paper in the cathedral library.

[8] T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of the church and city of Lichfield. (London: 1806), 90, stated this was done in 1801.

[9] J. Britton, The history and antiquities of the See and cathedral church of Lichfield.( London: 1820), Plate 8.

[10] Built by George Holdich. It was called ‘Holdich’s Magnum Opus’.

[11] He also paid for the old organ and placed this in Armitage church, where he was the organist.

[12] M. Rawles, The pipe-organs of Lichfield Cathedral: a very brief history. (2015). From a website at www.cathedralchoir.org.uk no longer accessible, but this article can still be downloaded.

[13] Which meant communication between the organist and the choir was not easy.

[14] Work done by William Hill and Sons.

[15] See note 11.

[16] This necessitated removing a window.

[17] Work done by Hill, Norman and Beard under the direction of Richard Greening.

[18] By Harrison and Harrison of Durham.

[19] R. Greening, The Organs of Lichfield Cathedral. (Lichfield: 1974). A publication of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral.

Singing Windows?

             The west front of Wells, Salisbury and Lichfield Cathedrals[1] have statues with openings behind them. Behind these openings are passageways in which it is contended choristers, and maybe trumpeters, sang and played so that worshippers outside could hear and be welcomed on Palm Sunday.

 

Lichfield with ten slit windows, each now with glass.

Singing window gallery

 

Wells has four groups of three round holes plus two narrow slits in the middle. All are now glazed.

 

Salisbury has nine small quatrefoil windows almost hidden behind the sculptures. All have been filled in with cement.

     Ascending the spiral staircase in the north-west tower at Lichfield leads to a doorway below the level of the triforium. This opens with four steps leading down into a passageway built into the wall, 1.8 m high (6 feet) and 0.6 m wide (2 feet). The passageway is now blocked at the south-west tower. The chamber is lit by ten slit windows, spread across the front, each 500 mm high (20 inches) and 75 mm wide (3 inches). Higher up the staircases, above the triforium and level with the sill of the west window, is a second passageway.[2] Having two passageways, also seen at Wells and possibly at one time at Salisbury, is inexplicable.

            The lower passageway has been equated with the ‘trumpet openings’ at Wells Cathedral and thought to be for broadcasting responses and perhaps music outwards to processing worshippers standing below on Palm Sunday. It is a re-enactment of the entry into Jerusalem.[3] The liturgy[4] specified seven choristers were to be ‘elevated’ and to sing ‘Gloria, laus et honor’[5] as the congregation approached the west front of the cathedral, having processed both inside and around the outside of the cathedral taking in the cloister and the lay cemetery. 

The company of angels is praising you on high;
and we with all creation in chorus make reply.
The people of the Hebrews with palms before you went;
our praise and prayer and anthems before you we present.               

(A version of ‘All Glory Laud and Honour’)

At York the same liturgy was used with the choristers elevated on a temporary platform raised on the front of the Minster.[6] At Wells the openings are at different heights from the floor suggesting it accommodated two heights of choristers. The hidden voices would appear as if coming from the angels sculptured on the front and perhaps this is the reason for the ‘singing windows’. At Salisbury, (according to N. Orme, Going to church in Medieval England, (New Haven and London: 2022), 274–5) a procession started in the choir with the carried cross, candle holders, incense bearer, someone holding the relics, the holy sacrament inside a pyx, clerks with palm branches, clergy and then the laity. They left the church, and in the churchyard heard the Gospel of Luke describing Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. They re-entered the cathedral with the choristers singing Gloria, laus, et honor. In a description of the procession, 1542, it stated the Gospel was read beside a Palm Cross. After the hymn was sung the cathedral doors were opened only when the priest banged on the door with the foot of the processional cross. Another account has people being given palms which were taken home and attached to their house-door believing this would drive away the Devil.

     Passages, both internal and external, exist elsewhere,[7] but the majority, especially northern churches, do not appear to be churches that used the Sarum liturgy prepared around 1210. Consequently, singing from the gallery has been questioned.[8] Furthermore, the procession relied on the particular layout of the cathedral and since this varied, it cannot be assumed the procession stopped at the west door at the right time in the Missal. Mahrt thought the opposite and worked out the Gloria would be sung at Wells just as the procession reached the west door.[9] Another objection is it would have made the procession ‘dither under the west front’.[10] Finally, the construction of a passageway and openings for one service seems extravagant. Especially since the voices would sound muffled and echoey when compared with being in an open space.   If singing windows are mythical, it raises the question why build two passageways with openings? If they are for some kind of maintenance, why make them so small?

Explaining the purpose and function of the singing windows at Lichfield depends on linking them with the Sarum liturgy used at Wells and Salisbury Cathedrals. If it was used, it strongly suggests the original façade of the west front, that is pre-Civil War, had angels in the arcades where the slit windows occur. The procession was entering the New Jerusalem with heavenly angels singing. It also links with Chad’s death when ‘the song of joyful voices were heard descending from heaven’[11] and that opens a new context for the use of the windows on March 2 and a figure of ascendent Chad surrounded by singing angels.

[1] These are the only medieval cathedrals without any Norman architecture. Lichfield differed from the other two in having its frontal twin towers in line with the nave aisles so the west half of the cathedral is a rectangle. At Wells and Salisbury, the towers project out on the sides of the west end.

[2] J. P. McAleer, The West Front of Lichfield Cathedral: A hidden liturgical function. Friends of Lichfield Cathedral 52 Annual Report. (1989), 26–9.

[3] P. Z. Blum, ‘Liturgical influences on the design of the West End at Wells and Salisbury’. Gesta (1986), 25, 1, 145–150.

[4] It was a reformed liturgy first used at  Sarum cathedral during Bishop Osmund's prelacy. 1087-1099. It was commonly used throughout southern England and most likely included Lichfield.

[5] It is possibly a 9th-century hymn and a modern translation is the hymn ‘All Glory, Laud and Honour’.

[6] H. Gittos and S. Hamilton (eds) Understanding Medieval Liturgy. Essays in interpretation. (London and New York: 2017), 228.

[7] Examples include Lindisfarne Priory, Rochester, Colchester, Arbroath, Holyrood, St Andrew, Kelso and Elgin. See note 2. Kilkenny has been since added.

[8] C. Hohler, The Palm Sunday procession and the west front of Salisbury Cathedral. Private letter written early 1990s and considered by M. S. Andås, Ø. Ekroll, A. Haug and N. Holger (eds.), ‘Architectural and ritual constructions. The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim in a European Context’. Ritus et Artes (Turnout, Brepols: 2007), 3, 279–284.

[9] W. P. Mahrt, Review of Façade as Spectacle: Ritual and ideology at Wells Cathedral. (Leiden and Boston: 2004).

[10] M. Spurrell, ‘The procession of Palms and west-front galleries’, The Downside Review. (2001), 415, 136–7.

[11] Historia Ecclesiastica Book 4, chapter 3. J. McClure and R. Collins, Bede: The ecclesiastical history of the English People. (Oxford: 2008), 176.