Amazing Instruments
We are fortunate at St John's to have two organs: a mechanical-action pipe organ built in the style of the seventeenth-century North German baroque, and a digital organ with three distinct soundfonts, voiced in the English, French Romantic, and German Romantic tradition, using open source software (jOrgan) and sampled sounds from organs around the world.
The pipe organ is particularly suited to the music of Bach, Buxtehude, Sweelinck and their contemporaries, as well as music written in the twentieth century as part of the organ reform movement (e.g., Pepping, Walcha, Schroeder).
The digital organ contains more symphonic sounds, with several celeste ranks, various solo stops, and an extensive pedal division which includes many 32' stops. This organ lends itself well to music of the Romantic and Modern periods, especially the French symphonic school (Widor, Vierne, Franck), as well as nineteenth- and twentieth-century English music requiring colourful solo stops (Whitlock, Willan, etc).
Hymns and choral accompaniments can be played on whichever organ suits them best.
Pipe organ
built by Gabriel Kney, London, Ontario 1977
Mechanical key and stop action
Wind pressure 44-60 mm
Standard couplers by hitch-down pedals
|
Manual I Prinzipal 8' |
Manual II (enclosed) Gedackt 8' |
Pedal Subbass 16' |
The sound of the tracker organ is clear and bright.
The Schalmei 8' has an almost plaintive sound - I Call To Thee, Lord Jesus Christ (J.S. Bach)
The flutes sparkle, with just the right amount of chiff - Unter die Linden grune (J.P. Sweelinck)
The principal chorus is capped with brilliant mixtures - Chaconne in C (Dieterich Buxtehude)
Digital organ
Originally built in 2010 using jOrgan software running in Ubuntu Linux, with soundfonts by the Phoenix Organ Company, Peterborough, Ontario. This console boasts 12 general pistons, 6 pistons per division, and 64 levels of memory. Solo stops are playable through main or antiphonal speakers. The console was rebuilt and refinished in 2014, and the computer and amplifiers were refurbrished by the Pheonix Organ Company in 2025.
Click here to see the digital organ's stoplist.
Each soundfont of the organ is unique, and well suited to the music of its respective tradition. The English sounfont is rich and warm, the French is ethereal with bright firey reeds, and the German is clear and articulate.
The strings celeste have a silvery, other-worldly sound - Benedictus (Max Reger)
The Solo Tuba and Fanfare Trumpet are majestic and bright - Trumpet Tune and March (Jeremiah Clarke)
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