Requiem for Church Organs

SponPlague · 19-03-2006, 07:46 PM

Requiem for church organs
By Ruth Gledhill
An EU directive aimed at controlling lead waste is putting the country's historic instruments in peril

THE stops could be pulled for ever on many church organs because of an EU directive designed to control hazardous substances.
The instruments at Salisbury Cathedral, St Paul’s in London, Worcester Cathedral, St Albans Abbey and Birmingham Town Hall are among the first that may be silenced. They are due to be refurbished or rebuilt and will fall foul of the directives, which are aimed at limiting the amount of lead in electrical items.

The regulations permit electrical equipment to have a maximum of 0.1 per cent of their weight as lead. Organ pipes have a lead content of 50 per cent or more and the Department of Trade and Industry has advised organ builders that, in the interests of directive harmony, they must “prepare to comply”. Though pipe organs are essentially mechanical devices, they use electric motors to power the blowers that move air through the pipes.

The great Harrison and Harrison organ at the South Bank, which is now in pieces in Durham as part of the refurbishment of the Royal Festival Hall, is under immediate threat. Under EU Directive 2002 95/EC RoHS and EU Directive 2002 96/EC WEEE, it will technically be illegal to reinstall it.

The Salisbury Cathedral organ, which is in pieces in Durham, where the console is being renovated, is also in danger of contravening the directive. Tim Hone, head of liturgy and music at the cathedral, said: “We were really looking forward to the return of our great Willis Harrison instrument. If this is delayed beyond July, we would could fall foul of the directive. We would have to use a piano in perpetuity.”

The directive, which seeks to minimise the amount of “hazardous waste” that finds its way INTO phpbb_landfill after electrical products are scrapped, would also bring to an end the 1,000-year-old craft of organ building. In Britain there are about 70 companies employing about 800 people, and all their jobs are at risk.

Only straightforward repairs of old instruments, doing nothing to change or modify the organ, would be allowed.

Tony Baldry, the Tory MP for Banbury, is urging the Government to intervene to save the organ. He has tabled an early day motion giving warning that the ban will have “a serious impact on England’s cultural and liturgical life and will mean an end to English organ building”. He is calling on the Government to negotiate with the European Commission to find a way to protect traditional pipe organs.

Lead is used in organ pipes because of its malleability and the distinctive sound it produces. Organists are baffled that they have been caught up in EU red tape because when organs are rebuilt the lead is not thrown away. It is re-used in new or different pipes.

In a letter to organists nationwide, Katherine Venning, the president of the Institute of British Organ Building, said: “There is a very black cloud on the horizon. This is not a safety issue. Pipe makers live to a ripe old age, with no known damage to their health. The use of tin-lead alloy is essential. There is no known substitute that will give equivalent results. Pipe organs last indefinitely, and present no threat to the environment.”

A spokeswoman for the DTI said that the directive did apply to organs and that Britain could not deviate from a “harmonised approach”. She said: “The DTI has been working with the pipe organ industry for some time on this and is fully aware of the issue.”

She said that exemptions from directives could be granted by the EU.

extra ordinary · 19-03-2006, 08:06 PM

I sure love that picture, some organ, bet that is loud.
wish the EU wouId shut up and go away.
places of worship stand firm and fight for your organs right to remain.
how many EU directives are there now ?
there must be some dusty Kafka like aircraft hanger sized hall in Brussels or some such place acting as a document stack - employing 2000 staff each obeying directive 00.001//WR.22 saying they have to have coffee at 3 pm and that anyone found with talking about politics or religion will be reported to european court of human rights.

John Page · 19-03-2006, 10:26 PM

eureferendum blog

Quote:

An accidental ban?

If you search for "EU" on Google "news", you will be offered 54,400 entries (currently), ostensibly a cornucopia of information about our government. But what is striking about the list of stories – or, at least the first hundred or so – is the utter banality, the subjects invoking tedium even in those amongst us who are interested in following the machinations of the "Brussels empire".

This is reflected in the daily newspapers. Never packed with information on the EU, even in quiet periods one would normally expect one or two EU-related stories in a day. Now, days on end go by with no mention. For the average reader, it must be almost as if "Brussels" has ceased to exist.

One exception today is a story in The Times, to which we had been alerted earlier by readers and from other sources, not least from the organ-builders' website, but had decided to hold off until Booker had done it in his column, after gathering more information.

This is the quite bizarre predicament in which the organ-builders of Europe find themselves unintended victims of EU Directives 2002/95/EC (Restrictions on hazardous substances) and 2002/96/EC (Waste electronic and electrical equipment).

You have to struggle through The Times's story to get to the crux of the issue but the essence is that under these joint directives, the use of lead is prohibited in any kind of electrical appliance. Those organs which are fitted with electric blowers fall under the definition of "electrical appliances" and, as organ pipes are, necessarily, a tin-lead alloy (with 50 percent of lead or more), the building or refurbishment of the same becomes illegal.

Predictably, in the shallow way that typifies the contemporary media, The Times concentrates on the consequences of this law, focusing on church instruments, noting that the organs "at Salisbury Cathedral, St Paul's in London, Worcester Cathedral, St Albans Abbey and Birmingham Town Hall" are among the first that may be silenced. They are due to be refurbished or rebuilt and will fall foul of the directives.

The substantive issue, however, is ignored – and it is this that we are researching. Essentially, the point is that both directives, in their inception, never set out to ban organs, in which sense the effect was originally unintended.

Nevertheless, the process of drafting EU law is long drawn-out and the organ-makers were quick to notify the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the commission of the effects of their legislation, if it went through unaltered. Yet, despite this, the drafts were not changed and went through the whole process with the inevitable result.

Somewhere, therefore, the system failed. Quite where, why and how, we have yet to establish, but this is surely an important part of the story, which we intend to explore. After all, apart from the cultural consequences of this ban, in Britain there are about 70 companies employing about 800 people on organ-building and repairs, and all their jobs are at risk.

That we seem to be in a position where our governments, by accident, almost, can ban an important feature of "England's cultural and liturgical life", as even Europhile Tony Baldry MP put it, and completely wipe out a whole industry. This is something of considerable concern to all of us.

19-03-2006, 07:46 PM	#1 (permalink)
SponPlague Uber Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Zurich Posts: 3,178	Requiem for Church Organs - from Saturday's Times Requiem for church organs By Ruth Gledhill An EU directive aimed at controlling lead waste is putting the country's historic instruments in peril THE stops could be pulled for ever on many church organs because of an EU directive designed to control hazardous substances. The instruments at Salisbury Cathedral, St Paul’s in London, Worcester Cathedral, St Albans Abbey and Birmingham Town Hall are among the first that may be silenced. They are due to be refurbished or rebuilt and will fall foul of the directives, which are aimed at limiting the amount of lead in electrical items. The regulations permit electrical equipment to have a maximum of 0.1 per cent of their weight as lead. Organ pipes have a lead content of 50 per cent or more and the Department of Trade and Industry has advised organ builders that, in the interests of directive harmony, they must “prepare to comply”. Though pipe organs are essentially mechanical devices, they use electric motors to power the blowers that move air through the pipes. The great Harrison and Harrison organ at the South Bank, which is now in pieces in Durham as part of the refurbishment of the Royal Festival Hall, is under immediate threat. Under EU Directive 2002 95/EC RoHS and EU Directive 2002 96/EC WEEE, it will technically be illegal to reinstall it. The Salisbury Cathedral organ, which is in pieces in Durham, where the console is being renovated, is also in danger of contravening the directive. Tim Hone, head of liturgy and music at the cathedral, said: “We were really looking forward to the return of our great Willis Harrison instrument. If this is delayed beyond July, we would could fall foul of the directive. We would have to use a piano in perpetuity.” The directive, which seeks to minimise the amount of “hazardous waste” that finds its way INTO phpbb_landfill after electrical products are scrapped, would also bring to an end the 1,000-year-old craft of organ building. In Britain there are about 70 companies employing about 800 people, and all their jobs are at risk. Only straightforward repairs of old instruments, doing nothing to change or modify the organ, would be allowed. Tony Baldry, the Tory MP for Banbury, is urging the Government to intervene to save the organ. He has tabled an early day motion giving warning that the ban will have “a serious impact on England’s cultural and liturgical life and will mean an end to English organ building”. He is calling on the Government to negotiate with the European Commission to find a way to protect traditional pipe organs. Lead is used in organ pipes because of its malleability and the distinctive sound it produces. Organists are baffled that they have been caught up in EU red tape because when organs are rebuilt the lead is not thrown away. It is re-used in new or different pipes. In a letter to organists nationwide, Katherine Venning, the president of the Institute of British Organ Building, said: “There is a very black cloud on the horizon. This is not a safety issue. Pipe makers live to a ripe old age, with no known damage to their health. The use of tin-lead alloy is essential. There is no known substitute that will give equivalent results. Pipe organs last indefinitely, and present no threat to the environment.” A spokeswoman for the DTI said that the directive did apply to organs and that Britain could not deviate from a “harmonised approach”. She said: “The DTI has been working with the pipe organ industry for some time on this and is fully aware of the issue.” She said that exemptions from directives could be granted by the EU.

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19-03-2006, 08:06 PM	#2 (permalink)
extra ordinary Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: south east Posts: 196	I sure love that picture, some organ, bet that is loud. wish the EU wouId shut up and go away. places of worship stand firm and fight for your organs right to remain. how many EU directives are there now ? there must be some dusty Kafka like aircraft hanger sized hall in Brussels or some such place acting as a document stack - employing 2000 staff each obeying directive 00.001//WR.22 saying they have to have coffee at 3 pm and that anyone found with talking about politics or religion will be reported to european court of human rights.