Sydney Town Hall Grand Organ

When Sydney's City Council decided to commission the organ, they called on a small group of experts to formulate a process for achieving a transparent and defensible decision on supplier and installer. In this they received generous support and advice from the Melbourne City Council, who had been through a similar process.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13578210 |title=Organ for the Town Hall |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=14,562 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=27 November 1884 |access-date=9 June 2024 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}

As a result, Sydney assembled a committee to compile a set of specifications for a Great Organ, which for power and versatility would be the world's largest and finest, call for tenders for both manufacture and installation, and select the successful tenders. The committee consisted of:

• Montague Younger, chairman. Younger was organist of St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney and arguably Sydney's finest exponent.
• Alexander Rea, secretary. He had been closely involved in the preliminary negotiations.
• Albert Bond, architect with pipe organ experience{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13432223 |title=Decorations of the Pitt Street Church |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=12,795 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=5 April 1879 |access-date=8 June 2024 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}
• William Davidson, organ builder{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article236171260 |title=A New Church Organ |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) |issue=4082 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=27 July 1892 |access-date=8 June 2024 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}
• Charles James Jackson, organ builder{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15891630 |title=Obituary Mr C. J. Jackson |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=25,707 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=27 May 1920 |access-date=7 June 2024 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}
• Harry C. Kent, Pitt Street architect{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article237213175 |title=Opening of New Organ |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) |issue=2776 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=11 June 1888 |access-date=7 June 2024 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}
• Martin Louis Layton, organ builder{{efn|M. L. Layton, formerly of Forster and Andrews{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article211531016 |title=Grand New Organ |newspaper=The Protestant Standard |volume=XV |issue=2 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=21 April 1883 |access-date=8 June 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}} was in partnership with A. K. Layton as Layton Brothers.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article238494674 |title=Advertising |newspaper=The Sydney Daily Telegraph |issue=1174 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=11 April 1883 |access-date=8 June 2024 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}} They later took over C. J. Jackson's business.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13660172 |title=Advertising |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=15,424 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=1 September 1887 |access-date=8 June 2024 |page=1 |via=National Library of Australia}}}}
• Frederick Morley, organist of Bourke Street Wesleyan Church,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article109869278 |title=Organ Recital. |newspaper=Evening News (Sydney) |issue=5261 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=15 March 1884 |access-date=8 June 2024 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}{{efn|Morley was later organist at St John's Church, Darlinghurst. His brother Felix was a distinguished organist in England.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15284886 |title=A Musician's Tour |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=23,025 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=30 October 1911 |access-date=8 June 2024 |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia}}}}
• William Henry Nash, organist for Christ Church St Laurence; designed the organ for St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166796972 |title=St Andrew's Cathedral |newspaper=Sydney Mail |volume=IX |issue=440 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=5 December 1868 |access-date=16 June 2024 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}
• Thomas Sharp MCO, organist of All Saints' Church, Woollahra

Submissions were received from twelve companies, which were assessed on their perceived capacity to fill the contract, personal experience of the companies' products, technical considerations in the submissions, and finally, price. The choice narrowed down to two: Gray and Davison and William Hill and Son. The ultimate selection of Hill and Son may have been a foregone conclusion despite their higher price, as they had supplied and installed instruments for the Town Halls of Adelaide and Melbourne, and also St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney. Several modifications suggested by the company were approved, and a new requirement added: that the organist's console should be situated at ground level, despite the additional expense and complexity.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13635834 |title=The Centennial Hall Organ |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=14,986 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=6 April 1886 |access-date=6 June 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Sharp dissented from the majority decision on the grounds that (1) the Hill organ was too large for the Centennial Hall, and (2) that it would be difficult and expensive to find an organist capable of matching its complexity.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13580405 |title=Sydney Municipal Council |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=14,635 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=20 February 1885 |access-date=8 June 2024 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}} He was never confident of the committee throughout its deliberations.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13734311 |title=The Town Hall Organ |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=15,986 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=18 June 1889 |access-date=8 June 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Negotiations with Hill and Son were conducted by Alexander Rea, who, as leader of a group of organists, drew up the specifications. Belgium's Auguste Wiegand, who would become Sydney's first City Organist, later blamed the group for certain shortcomings in its design, but was contradicted by Hill, who praised the "Corporation of Sydney, ... they left all details in our hands."{{cite web|url=https://ohta.org.au/doc/articles/ampt2.html |author=Robert Ampt |year=1997 |title=City Organists of Sydney |publisher=Organ Historical Trust of Australia |access-date=6 June 2024}}

Rea supervised installation of the instrument and tested the mechanism before the famous organist W. T. Best "opened" the organ in August 1890.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article126590434 |title=A Musical Authority for 48 Years |newspaper=The Sunday Times (Sydney) |issue=1209 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=21 March 1909 |access-date=6 June 2024 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}

When Best returned to England, Rea gave a number of recitals at the Town Hall, and supervised access to the huge instrument until the appointment of Wiegand as City Organist in 1891.

In 1973, the Sydney Council authorized a major restoration program to address the mechanical problems that the organ had begun to experience. Managing the program was Roger H Pogson, whose employees worked for almost 10 years to restore the organ, close to its original form.

Previous to this restoration, the organ had fallen into a state of disrepair; however, tuner of the organ in the 1960s, Ken Martin, a Noad employee, insists that, despite problems, the organ was always playable in some way. There were calls in the preceding decades to either rebuild the organ in a neo-classical style (this was the fashion at the time) or completely remove and replace it with a new instrument. The announcement that the Sydney Opera House being constructed would house a new, large, mechanical-action organ, greatly influenced the decision to restore the Hill and Son Organ.

Sydney Town Hall today holds free organ recitals throughout the year.

The Town Hall organ features 127 stops, distributed over 5 manuals and the pedalboard, as follows:{{Cite web |url=http://www.ohta.org.au/confs/Sydney/SYDNEYTOWNHALL.html |title=Sydney Town Hall |publisher=Organ Historical Trust of Australia |access-date=1 December 2024}}

Image:Sydney_Town_Hall_Organ_Rehearsal.jpg|Rehearsing on the Organ

Image:Sydney_Town_Hall_interior.jpg|The Sydney Town Hall Centennial Hall interior

{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://sydneyorgan.com/ The Organ Music Society of Sydney]

Category:Individual pipe organs

Category:Music in Sydney

Category:1890 establishments in Australia