The Organ of Exeter College

Since its completion by Gilbert Scott in 1860, Exeter College Chapel has been home to two organs. The first, built for the new Chapel by William Hill, was a two manual instrument. The same company, then Hill & Son, enlarged it to three manuals in 1891/2. The organ continued to serve the Chapel for another hundred years, undergoing a second enlargement in 1965. It was finally removed from service in 1991.

The present organ, by J. W. Walker & Son Ltd., was completed in 1994, with David Sanger (later President of the Royal College of Organists) as the consultant. It retains the façade pipes from the Hill instrument, but the tonal design is French Romantic, in harmony with the Chapel’s aesthetic. It is the only instrument in either Oxford or Cambridge to be designed in the style of the great French organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. It uses mechanical key action, and electric stop and combination action. The organ possesses a terraced console and the French playing aids ventils and tirasses, which can be used in place of conventional pistons and couplers. The inaugaral recital was given by Olivier Latry, titulaire des grandes-orgues de Nôtre-Dame de Paris, who is said to have described it as “An English organ speaking with a French accent”. Indeed, the organ aquits itself equally well in Howells, Stanford, Bach and Mendelssohn as in the music of Vierne, Duruflé, Langlais and Franck to which it is naturally suited. The organ was fully re-conditioned in 2007. Hear the Organ in a recording* of Tournemire’s Te Deum, superbly played by Philip Aspden.

Specification of 1994 Organ by J.W. Walker & Sons