Interview, Stephen Cleobury on the restored organ of King's College Chapel

Last year, the venerable organ of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, was removed for an extensive renovation. Now restored to its rightful place, it forms the focus of a new album of organ music performed by the Director of Music at King's, Stephen Cleobury. Stephen was kind enough to spare a moment to talk to David about what truly is A Voice Reborn.

How does the repertoire you’ve chosen for this album show off the new capabilities of the renovated organ?

I have sought to show the versatility of the instrument in terms of baroque, classical/romantic and modern repertoire, as well as in French, German and British music. The programme makes the most of both the instrument’s size and the range of subtle colour that it can offer

As your notes point out, the construction of the organ in the 1930s always had at least half an eye on its capacity as an accompanying instrument for the choir rather than as a solo vehicle in its own right. Do you think there are compromises that have to be made between these two roles, or can one instrument fully fulfil both?

I think the organ is magnificent as an accompanying instrument, particularly as, unlike many modern concert organs, it has a large array of quieter stops. The compromise, I feel, is not so much about accompaniment over & against solo repertoire, but that the instrument's eclecticism means that it is not 'authentic' in any one school or period; at the time it reached fundamentally its current state in the mid-1930s, nobody would have worried about that. In that sense, it is 'authentic' to its time.

Although the aim of the project was to renovate the organ rather than rebuild it entirely, there have of course been additions and changes to the specification. Are there any new sonorities or registration choices that you’re particularly pleased to have newly available to you?

There were two new ranks - the pedal principal at 8-ft pitch, something that had been lacking before: this has vastly increased the clarity and power of the pedal chorus – and the replacement 4-ft flute on the great. This can be heard as a solo rank in the slow movement of the Mendelssohn sonata. Remodelling of the swell mixture has much improved that chorus.

Mendelssohn’s profound interest in the organ – both in performing the works of Bach and in writing his own music for the instrument – might come as a surprise to those who know him primarily as a composer of orchestral, choral or solo piano works. Do you think this side of his musical personality has been neglected or overlooked?

For organists, the Mendelssohn sonatas are an important area of repertoire. Naturally, I hope that recordings like this will bring them to a wider audience.

The notes also mention that despite extremely quick work halving the time the restoration would have otherwise taken, the organ was nevertheless out of commission for nine months. How did the music-making in the chapel adapt during this time – did you have a couple of terms of entirely a cappella evensongs?

We had the continuing use of our lovely Klop chamber organ, a kind donor lent us a two-manual and pedal organ which meant that our organ scholars could play most of the Bach they wanted to, and we had a small grand piano by the choir stalls: we were able to do, for example, excerpts from Brahms' Requiem in the composer's own arrangement for piano, four hands. It is true that we did more unaccompanied music than usual, and we had the challenge of singing the psalms a cappella each day – a really good discipline.