Nick Appleton's Webpage and Electronic Organ Resource Site

St Stephen's Anglican, Penrith

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Courtesy of Bob Collins

Preface

This is my first attempt at creating a virtual sample compatible with Hauptwerk/MyOrgan software. I choose the organ at St Stephen's Anglican because I very much like it's sound and because I've been attending their congregation for the past few months whilst being away from my regular congregation at Drummoyne Presbyterian. The organ will be posted on the Internet for free once it is complete, which may be a few weeks away considering how long it is taking for me to process the samples.

View of the facade.

History

The organ at St Stephen's in Penrith is Charles Jackson's second organ. It was built originally in 1874 for St Luke's Anglican on Sussex Street, Sydney. The organ was sold to St Stephen's Anglican for 70 Pounds and was upgraded and installed in its new location in 1906 by George Fincham and Son. The upgrades consisted of a 4 rank swell and a bourdon to the pedal making the specification what it is today.

Organ Specification

The organ's compass is 56/30

View of the manuals, pedalboard and balanced swell pedal

GREAT	SWELL	PEDAL	COUPLERS
Bourdon 16'	Gedact 8'	Bourdon 16'	Great to Pedal
Open Diapason 8'	Gamba 8' A	Violon 16'	Swell to Pedal
Stopped Diapason 8'	Octave 4'		Swell to Great
Dulciana 8' B	Oboe 8'
Flute 4'
Principal 4'
Twelth 3'
Fifteenth 2'

A: First octave of the Gamba rank borrows notes from the Gedeckt
B: First octave of the Dulciana rank borrows notes from the Stopped Diapson

View of the stop jambs

Diary

Saturday 2nd December 2006: I've put section of my web page on the Internet. Today was spent processing samples for the Principal, Oboe and Fifteenth ranks. I had already processed the manual Bourdon and Open Diapason, but will re-do them later as I wasn't satisfied with the result and learnt some better noise reduction techniques while I was processing other samples. At about 9pm tonight I had all the major ranks of the diapason chorus to a point that I could actually play with them and I was very satisified with the result. I was concerned that my microphone was going to roll-off in the highs but the 2' rank prooved this wrong, the sound was fantastic and I hope to put some samples up fairly soon.

On a side note: please email me if there is additional information I may have forgotten to put online. I will get some photos on the site hopefully next week.

References

Author Unknown, 'St Stephen's Anglican Church', The Organ Society of Sydney, http://www.sydneyorgan.com/StStepehensPenrith.html, [accessed 2 December 2006]