|
OBITUARY_________________________________________________________________
AUSTIN NILAND 1922-1997
The death of Austin Niland on 20 January 1997 has deprived organ scholarship in this country of one of its senior figures.
He was by profession a civil servant, but it is as a scrupulous and well-informed writer on musical matters in general, and the organ in particular, that he will be remembered. He was a careful author, unwilling to commit himself to print until he had thoroughly researched his subject; this is why perhaps he was so effective a foil to the inspired impetuosity of Sam Clutton in their classic study The British Organ (1963). For a generation that book provided inspiration and information, and suggested lines of enquiry to be further explored. On his own account, Austin was author of An Introduction to the Organ (1968), various articles over the years in Musical Opinion, The Organ, and The American Organist and a monograph, The Organ at St. Mary's, Rotherhithe(1982). He had for many years been working on a comprehensive study of the organs at St. Paul's Cathedral; sadly he did not live to see the publication of a short extract from this potentially greater work in Fanfare for an Organ Builder - a volume of essays presented to Noel Mander.
Mander and Niland knew each other well. Mander had restored the Rotherhithe organ in 1959; Clutton had been adviser and Niland was briefly Organist. Mander was also of great assistance to the two authors during the writing of The British Organ. The collaboration with Clutton had another side; he and Niland were for some years Joint Secretaries of the Organs Advisory Committee of the Council for the Care of Churches. This was in the late 50s and early 60s when the work of that committee was only just beginning, and they provided an invaluable sense of purpose to that infant body.
Anxiety and ill-health overshadowed Niland's last years, but he was always glad to see old (and not-so-old) friends and chat about matters of common interest. He ws also unfailingly helpful to those who wrote with enquiries, and would reply promptly with a neatly-typed letter, subscribed in familiar brown ink.
Niland was a devout churchman and his Requiem was held at the Church of the Annunciation, Washington Street, Brighton on 30 January. Representatives of the CCC, and members of BIOS and the Organ Club attended, and the service ended on an appropriately joyous and triumphant note with the Siciliano for a high ceremony by Herbert Howells. May he rest in peace. |