Last week a lifelong friend and I treated ourselves to a concert at the Adelaide Town Hall to hear the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 from the New World. It was a wonderful evening, the solo violinist was Nicola Benedetti and the Orchestra was led by London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's Permanent Guest Conductor, Garry Walker.
At the rear of the stage is the magnificent pipe organ pictured above.
The original organ was built in 1875 and served well for some 100 years before being replaced just 22 years ago with what you see here. It was built by J Walker & Sons in the UK and was the largest pipe organ built in the UK for 100 years. It's installation coincided with some major Town Hall refurbishments and cost A$1.3m to build. It weighs in the vicinity of 25 tonnes and contains 4500 pipes ranging in length from a few millimetres to 5-6 metres, thus providing an enormous diversity of pitch and dynamic range. Its components are made from either wood or metal and the pipes are handmade, using a technique that has not changed in 400 years.
[Courtesy ABC Radio's "Stateline" program]
p.s. We'll have to arrange another night out to hear it in action!
11 comments:
This looks like a magnificent organ! I would love to hear a concert here. Lucky you!!
What an organ!! Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.
Wow, what an amazing organ! I am glad you had a wonderful evening. Cool photo, thanks for sharing.
It sounds like a great concert and that organ looks magnificent. Wish I could hear it!
Music is a delight to the soul ~ hope you had a wonderful time ~ Grand photo ~ (A Creative Harbor) ^_^
I'll bet the sound of that organ would fill the room.
The organ is beautiful. I know you enjoyed the concert.
That organ is glorious!
That's a pretty cool pipe organ! The Mormon church has a similarly attractive pipe organ in their conference centre.
In the old Dutch Reformed churches pipe organs were common -but this is a big (tall) one! Beautiful and thanks for sharing!
Great shot of this amazing organ, Valerie. Both of the pieces you heard at the concert are perennial favourites of mine.
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