There’s one musical instrument that is permanently at the back of the stage of the Usher Hall - its organ. It cost £4,000 when it was built specially for the Usher Hall in 1914 and was restored in 2003. At its restoration the console was moved from the side of the stage up and in front of the organ pipes.
The Usher Hall is run by Edinburgh Council and the City Organist is John Kitchen, a well known and much loved figure in Edinburgh’s music world. He is a Senior Lecturer in Edinburgh University’s Music Department and Director of Music at Old St Paul’s Church.
Get Organised is the opportunity to hear John Kitchen play the organ. For fifty minutes over a weekday lunchtime, and in groups of three weeks at a time, as many as three hundred organ music lovers pay £3 at the door to sit in the stalls.
John Kitchen’s programme on 24 January 2012 was organ music for dancing - starting with works written in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. He went on to play Boccerini’s Celebrated Minuet and Hornpipe from Handel’s Water Music.
Interspersed with the music is a pithy commentary from Mr Kitchen - down to earth and amusing and yet illustrative of the point he is making. It certainly adds to the fun, and he has a considerable following of fans.
He went on to play a Waltz by Johann Strauss Jr and a Polka by his younger brother Eduard Strauss - familiar to listeners to the New Year’s Day concert from Vienna. Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer, a Ragtime Two Step, would not normally be thought of an organ piece, ‘but why not’ said John Kitchen.
Just before we ended we were asked to accompany the organ with Happy Birthday to Helen Robertson, a regular at Get Organised, for her forthcoming 90th birthday. Then we were clapping away to Offenbach’s The Can-Can from Orpheus in the Underworld.
Immediately after the recital over a hundred of the audience made their way to the choir seating behind the stage and under the organ’s console where, for half an hour, John Kitchen explained and demonstrated what it takes to play an organ. He gave us a fascinating insight into the special features of the Usher Hall instrument. It was news to some of us that no two organs are the same and, as John Kitchen put it, ‘that’s the fun of being an organist’.
Not many of us remember the cinema organ of old that rose up to play and down again afterwards. But among the Usher Hall audience there must be many organ music lovers whose enthusiasm goes back to their church going days, for whom Get Organised is a real treat. Long may it continue!
Event: Tuesday 24 January 2012 at 1.10pm
A few months ago I reviewed the book The Organs of Edinburgh