Prof.Chip Ross: Inside The Organ at High Street

Inside The Organ at High Street: Pipes of the "Great" Division

The pipes of the great division of the High Street Organ are played from the lower of the console's two keyboards. There are some 305 pipes altogether for the great division, with the largest 29 used in the organ's casework, shown at the right. In the picture you see, from left to right, 5 pipes from the Spitz Flöte, 5 from the Diapason, 9 more from the Diapason, then 2 more groups of 5 from the Spitz.

The biggest pipe, in the center, plays the note C, two octaves below middle C.

The remaining 93 pipes for those two stops are just behind the 29 visible pipes, hidden from view behind blue curtains. Their location is shown in the schematic diagram below.

(This image was scanned from a photograph which appears in the "Lucy Webber Scrap Book", which documents the rebuilding of the High Street Church following the Fire of 1985)

The picture on the right shows those other Diapason and Spitz pipes as viewed from inside the organ case. In this picture, the sanctuary and front of the organ case are to the left. The tallest pipes in the distance are about 4' high. Note the exponential-like curve traced out by the tops of the rows of pipes.

The great division has just three stops of its own: The fundamental 8' Diapason, the 8' Spitz Flöte, and the Octave Chorus, III. The other great division stops are "borrowed" from the swell division: stop knobs on the great side of the console allow certain stops in the swell division to be played from the great division's keyboard.

In early 1992, two new stops were added to the organ. The colorful Nazard was added to the swell division, and a terrific Octave Chorus was added to the great division. For each key on the great division's keyboard, three pipes play for the Octave Chorus stop, sounding at various high pitches which reinforce the fundamental. And when the great is coupled to itself at the octave, the Octave Chorus makes the whole organ sound brilliant, perfect for accompanying a full congregation on a favorite hymn. The Octave Chorus pipes themselves sit way up high in the case as shown in the schematic diagram above.

The next three pictures are a kind of panoramic view from the top left corner of the organ case: On the left we see into the swell box through partially opened shutters. The middle picture shows almost half of the Octave Chorus's 183 pipes. On the right we're looking out across the sanctuary.

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