KEY POINTS:
Ten years after the $34 million refurbishment of the Auckland Town Hall, councillors have finally agreed to complete the job by approving a $3.5 million restoration of the hall's great pipe organ.
Of course this should have been done a decade ago when the hall was closed for its makeover and the cost less, but we Aucklanders do like to complicate things if we can.
Back in the mid-1990s it was argued that ratepayers wouldn't accept the added cost of restoring the organ as well as the hall. My view was that when you're dealing with these sort of numbers, no one was going to notice a couple of million here or there. Anyway, the organ, a gift of newspaperman Sir Henry Brett in 1910, had been an integral part of the hall since its opening and should have been treated as such.
But it wasn't to be, and the knackered old instrument remained untouched while the rest of the building was rebuilt around it. lt has hibernated centre-stage ever since, awaiting better times. Thanks to the present council and the lobbying of city organist John Wells and the Town Hall Organ Trust, German organ builder Johannes Klais Orgelbau has now been commissioned to do the job.
The rebuild will involve replacing a large number of the 5000-pipes - but not the signature front rank - and other items such as the bellows and the console. The work should be completed by 2010, in time for the centenary of the town hall's opening in 2011. To say nothing of that other 2011 deadline - the Rugby World Cup.
"This is an opportunity to secure a truly world-class musical instrument for the town hall that will satisfy the expectations of Aucklanders and all music-loving New Zealanders for the 21st century," says arts and culture committee chairwoman Penny Sefuiva. Stephen Hamilton, chairman of the organ trust, echoes these sentiments, asking, "What better way could there be to celebrate the centenary of the town hall in 2011 than by redeveloping New Zealand's most significant musical instrument?"
All of which I'd go along with. But for those of you who might regard the facilitation of organ recitals a rather questionable impost on your rate bills, could I suggest that a civic organ is rather more than just an instrument of entertainment. It's an integral part of the grandeur of a venue, purpose-built not just for concerts, but for major civic functions such as citizenship and graduation ceremonies.
Pounding out the national anthem on a piano, however grand, might be okay for a school hall, but it's rather underwhelming and cheapskate in what is the most important civic meeting hall in the country. How better to instil a sense of occasion into a civic event than to zap the audience with a dose of body-jiggling, low-resonating bass notes.
For the past 30 years, the poor old town hall organ has looked its part as king of instruments, but it was all front. In the early 1970s, it had been emasculated on the advice of local organ enthusiasts swept up in a worldwide trend to make organs "authentic". By that, it was meant, to reduce the sound and range of organs to approximate those of the 17th-18th century. Which rather missed the point that the Brett organ was an authentic big grunty town hall instrument of the late Romantic period, not something designed in the time of Bach.
The 1970s rebuild left the organ a gutless, good-for-nothing hybrid.
Back in 1999, the city council got an estimate of around $2 million to restore the organ and subsequently allocated $1 million in the 2001-2002 financial year on the condition that local enthusiasts raised a further $1 million. The issue has dragged on.
The latest announcement is that the city will pay $3 million, leaving the organ trust to find the other $500,000. So far it has raised $150,000. Mr Hamilton is confident he and his fellow enthusiasts will be able to raise the rest.
* Talking money, Finance Minister Michael Cullen's office gently reminded me following last Monday's column that, since 2006, the Government will be spending more on roads than it collects through fuel taxes - "$300 million more, in fact, over the next five years".
I stand corrected.
