Nun komm' der Heiden Heiland BWV 659 on harmonium

In preparation and anticipation of my (one manual) harmonium to come from the organ builder's work shop I have looked into music that would be possible to play on the harmonium with only slight modifications. For example I have discovered that BWV 659 (the famous Nun komm' der Heiden Heiland) for organ would be playable on my harmonium. The only problem arises at the end:

The G in the pedal is impossible to play together with the left hand (my fingers are too short). I have tried to play the G an octave higher, but it takes away the edge of the music. Suggestions, anyone?

Birmingham...

Evensong from Birmingham Cathedral on Jan 25^th, BBC radio 3, is just another example of poor cathedral choir singing. This only shows how excellent Truro Cathedral Choir is. I don't think anyone held a pistol to the bishop's head in order to have the choir sing an evensong service for the BBC radio 3, so with all due respect (with emphasis on due): Practice, and practice correctly. It is shameful to have all these half-hearted choirs and excellent organists singing and playing together. Birmingham Cathedral is unfortunatety not unique in this respect.

The "Lakeside" brand name

http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/Digests/199903/1999.03.20.05.html

"Lakeside" is a name that goes back a ways. The Tryber & SweetlandOrgan Co. split up in 1899 to become the E. Sweetland Co. and theLakeside Organ Co. (quote from the link above)

More harmonium

I discovered that the exact same model is listed in:

http://www.reedsoc.org/ROdatabase/scrollfulldetails.asp?reg_no=3075&Choice=3&fs=Lakeside&Style=

Compare the picture in the reedsoc.org database to my own (the music stand and the top side decoration are not shown as I had disengaged them before securing the organ to the trailer):

Now I am even more excited since I know more about the organ. I wonder if there are other harmoniums in Norway of the same make and model, or if this model is unique? I also wonder if anybody elsewhere have experiences or recommendations with this organ model, how to maintain it, or other practical stuff. Are there any special written music for this instrument?

New Year

It's been a while since last time so I thought I would drop a few lines. I have had a long Christmas break, but I did not do anything of what I planned to do. Almost no music related activities. Not even on Christmas morning. What is the world comming to?

I am looking forward to get my harmonium back from the repair shop. The organ builder guy said that it would be ready by spring-time. That could be any time from March through May. I have tried to get the Karg-Elert harmonium music on sheet music, but I have not succeeded as of yet. I wonder how it will be like, because now I am playing on a Roland RD100 digital piano with headphones. I would of course prefer to have a real pipe organ with pedals, but the Chicago Lakeside organ will do fine as well. If the electricity goes out I can still play beucause I operate the bellows with my feet.

I did not take the time to record the specification of my harmonium before I handed it to the organ builder, but there are 12 drawknobs. 3 or 4 of them are couplers, I think. I know for a fact that there is a sub-octave, a super-octave and a third treble couple. I know that there is a 16' stop which goes up to the third F (including the lowest key which is an F, not the slightly higher C as in pipe organs). The keyboard thus spans over a larger range than the usual pipe organ. There is a Vox Humana that did not work. And there is one "wing" on each side that can be operated by the player's knee. The left one is for crescendo (adding stops) and the right one is like a swell pedal (increasing or decreasing sound volume). So I reckon this is a fun instrument to play with lot of possibilities for variation.

And that was all I had time to write. I am very busy these days. My wife shall be giving birth anytime soon now so there are lots of things to be done...!