Letter: A fine tradition of English organ building

Sir: I wholeheartedly agree with what D E Harvey says (letter, 5 October) about the quality of some of our best British organ builders, and I am sure that I shall not be the only organist to inform you that those builders whom he names, along with others, enjoy an international reputation.

At Chelmsford Cathedral we are proud to have commissioned a new four-manual organ for the Cathedral from N P Mander Ltd, and we expect this to be installed in the course of 1994. It will be the first completely new tracker-action organ to be installed in an English Anglican cathedral this century.

We believe passionately that the English organ tradition is a valid one which should be preserved at all costs, despite the view, fashionable in some quarters, that only continental organ builders are capable of creating organs that have musical integrity.

I believe that the current order books of some of the major English builders will demonstrate an impressive list of exports, a fact which suggests that this tradition is also valued elsewhere in the world.

Yours faithfully,

GRAHAM ELLIOTT

The Cathedral Office

Chelmsford Cathedral

Chelmsford,

Essex

7 October