From Jonathan Hope, Assistant Director of Music at Gloucester Cathedral
Here at Gloucester, we are looking forward to the installation and unveiling of the new Cathedral Organ – if all goes well, it will be heard for the first time at Easter 2026. Our friends at Nicholson & Co. Ltd, who have looked after the Cathedral’s organs for over a quarter of a century, are making huge progress, and things are quickly taking shape. A copy of the specification, if you are interested in seeing the instrument on paper, can be found at Nicholson’s website: www.nicholsonorgans.co.uk.
The overall purpose of our imminent instrument can be split into three: as a liturgical instrument, a concert instrument and an instrument to inspire future generations of musicians.
The Liturgical Instrument
The most important use of any church organ is to enhance the worship, be it accompanying the Cathedral’s choirs, leading congregational hymnody or anything else required for the ‘Opus Dei’. It needs to be able to accompany both the smallest chorister singing a 17th-century verse anthem and a congregation of a thousand giving it large at Christmas.
At Gloucester, we have five resident choirs and several ‘affiliated’ choirs, such as Gloucester Choral Society and the Saint Cecilia Singers. Our wide range of choirs encompasses both adults and children, and each choir has its own unique character – the Cathedral Organ needs to be equally equipped to accompany all these choirs, with their individual sounds. Therefore, we have been careful to ensure that the new specification accommodates the ability to play a true, delicate pianissimo or a thrilling fortissimo where either is appropriate – and, crucially, every single level of dynamic in between. It will add a kaleidoscope of colour to the worship, with a plethora of enclosed orchestral reeds and two sets of strings in the Swell. The choirs will hugely benefit from having more of a variety of those soft colours, as well as the louder colours such as the new 32-foot Bombardon or the new Tuba Mirabilis, both of which will add hugely to the grander occasions in the Cathedral’s calendar.
The Concert Instrument
The organ will be an exciting concert instrument, which is an immensely important thing in a Three Choirs Cathedral. As well as our own Cathedral Organ Concert Series, which will take on a new lease of life because of the new instrument, the Cathedral Organ at Gloucester has to function in several ways at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival, as it will soon have to for the 2026 Festival and every three years after that. A large part of the organ’s job at TCF, as well as accompanying the Festival’s services, is to sit under the Festival’s resident orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra (and other orchestras from time to time). Composers, particularly once you hit the 19th century, added the organ to the orchestral line-up for its depth of pitch – indeed, most Elgar or Vaughan Williams organ parts regularly call for 32-foot pitch to sit under the double basses and the low brass. With a double-dynamic 32’ polyphone, and many more deeply-pitched stops than the previous Cathedral Organ, the new instrument will perform this aspect of its duty with a new freedom, serving the music of the Festival more authentically and dramatically.
Looking to the future
The city of Gloucester is hugely diverse, and together with the rest of the county of Gloucestershire, there is an array of different traditions and people in different socio-economic situations. We have a duty to offer all of them every opportunity we can, and you will, no doubt, soon hear about our forthcoming Singing Academy and our new Organ Academy. The naysayers will say that the world has changed and people, young or old, are less interested in what we are offering. I say: that claim is totally defeatist and largely inaccurate. In 11 years working here, relationships with all kinds of people in the county have developed – people from a variety of contrasting backgrounds. There is, in our part of the country, a huge appetite for music and a lot of opportunity for us to spread the word.
Therefore, the new instrument will be not just an instrument for the Cathedral, but for the City of Gloucester and the County of Gloucestershire. It is not simply our ‘new toy’ – it is the heartbeat of the Cathedral’s worshipping life and its other musicmaking ventures, and it will be accessible to all. Through our Academies and all they will offer, we will provide opportunities for young or old alike, from all backgrounds and for all people, regardless of their individual means. For most people who haven’t grown up in a musical environment, it’s not the lack of interest that is the problem – it is the lack of opportunity. The new instrument will be ‘instrumental’ in our work to rectify this.
Please contact us via www.gloucestercathedral.org.uk if you would like to help us fulfil our ambitions for the communities we serve.
by Jonathan Hope
Assistant Director of Music, Gloucester Cathedral
