Me playing the organ at All Saint's Anglican and Methodist Joint Church in the village of Dagnall near Dunstable, Buckinghamshire.
The organ came here second hand in around 1984 and is a superb example of a late 1960s Compton 357 model complete with rotofon speaker which is situated at the rear of the church over the entrance. The specification reads:
PEDAL
Contra Bass 16'
Bourdon 16'
Echo Bass 16'
Octave 8'
Flute 8'
Harmonics IV
Trombone 16'
Trumpet 8'
GREAT
Double Diapason 16'
Diapason 8'
Harmonic Flute 8'
Gemshorn 8'
Octave 4'
Twelfth 2.2/3'
Fifteenth 2'
Tromba 8'
SWELL
Bourdon 16'
Geigen Diapason 8'
Stopped Diapason 8'
Salicional 8'
Principal 4'
Stopped Flute 4'
Flautina 2'
Sesquiltera II
Mixture III
Contra Oboe 16'
Cornopean 8'
Clarinet 8'
GENERAL
Vibrato
Rotofon Celeste
Reverberation
ACCESSORIES
1 balanced expression pedal - great and pedal
1 balanced expression pedal - swell
Rotofon on/off switch
For this first video im playing the hymn 'O God, what offering shall I give' to the tune 'Pater Omnium'. This particular hymn is special to me as it was one of the first tunes I heard played on a Compton electrone organ at the age of 15 at Kingswinford Methodist Church near Dudley, West Midlands.
At the end of this video I have included a shot of the rotofon speaker where the 'windmill' holding the 4 treble speakers inside can be seen rotating thanks to sunlight threw the window.
These organs are fast becoming extinct with many churches replacing them with digital instruments etc. Modern technology is indeed appealing with its realistic sampled sounds but history is being lost as a result. Opportunities should be taken to see that these unique instruments are preserved for future generations to experience how technology worked in the pre digital era.
Many thanks to Dorothy Green and John Ralphs at All Saints for giving me this wonderful opportunity to play this excellent Compton organ.
NOTE: this is purely my interest in order to make sure that these fine organs are archived forever and I do not make any monetary profit by this video being on dailymotion.
For more information on the John Compton Organ Company Ltd and to see me play other Compton organs, please click on the following link for my site dedicated to the John Compton Organ Company Ltd:
http://comptonorgans.yolasite.com/
