Wandered to Hampshire

The weekend before last I renewed my acquaintanceship with Portsmouth Cathedral's organ (CofE, though I have played the RC one).

 Nicholson's did a good job in the 90s, and mechanically it seems ok with the daily use that a busy cathedral organ gets. I couldn't work out if the electric assistance coupling was on or off with the switch down or up, but it made a difference to the coupling: Swell to Great pulled down fully on all notes (one or two in the middle octave were a little iffy with the switch in the other direction) so I left well alone.

 I liked the little extras
Portsmouth Cathedral chorister...
which were above the console - however, I was less enthusiastic about the other extras which are soon to be added: not that extra stops are in and of themselves bad, just that I don't really see the necessity for a loud trumpet at the west end of the nave, which is not exactly far from the loud trumpet on the main organ.The other thing I didn't like was the curious mixture of languages: "Trompete [German: Trumpet] de [French, Spanish, Italian etc etc: Of] Maris [German: Marist. French: Husbands. Latin: Sea - most likely.].  Another prepared-for stop was labelled "Pyrrho-corax Thomae". Now, I retain enough of my schoolboy Latin to realise that "Thomae" is "pertaining to Thomas". But even Google Translate comes up with nothing for the first, saying that it is English. Really?

 Back in the 1970s there was a debate in the letters pages of the Organ Club Journal about mixed languages, but even that confined itself to a list like "Open Diapason 8, Prinzipal 4, Oktaaf 2" or some such, and the examples were at least a recognisable single language. Perhaps this is post-truth organ nomenclature?
Location: High St, Portsmouth PO1 2HH, UK

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