Before electricity, organs (and organists) relied on the strength and stamina of poor sods who puffed and pushed and pumped away behind the mammoth mechanisms of pipe organs. Patient and long-suffering by necessity, these characters could occasionally get stroppy—and it was a relief all round when electric blowers took over.
In his series of musings about the organ and the world beyond, David Bridgeman-Sutton wrote three articles about the pre-electric world of organ music-making. The first of these has just reappeared in our new section, “The David Bridgeman-Sutton Archive”.
