The parish I serve is doubtless one of very many where S.S. Wesley’s ‘Wash me throughly’ will have been sung on Ash Wednesday. Although registration indications and performance practice are well documented for the eighteenth-century English voluntary, Wesley was practically the first to include registration instructions, dynamic markings, and indications for the use of the pedals in choral accompaniments. Some of his anthems provide a good deal of such information; frustratingly, however, ‘Wash me throughly’ is not one of these: a sole indication for ‘Sw. Reed.’ at the outset and a handful of dynamic markings constitute the entirety of the performance indications for the organ part. It should of course be noted that at the time of the composition of this work (around 1840, according to Peter Horton in the Musica Britannica edition), although English stoplists were relatively uniform, compasses were anything but; this fact may have led Wesley to omit manual and pedal indications in the work at hand. Furthermore, we should always ask whether a given composer is likely to have written for the organ regularly available, or for an ‘ideal’ instrument. Given Wesley’s long involvement in organ design, building, and rebuilding, and the difference in  compasses between the Exeter instrument described below and that at Wesley’s previous post, Hereford (Great and Choir GG—f ''', Swell c—f ''', pedals C—c'), the latter might well have been the case.

Nevertheless the thoughtful player will still want to ask how Wesley imagined ‘Wash me throughly’ to be realized and will not take modern editorial suggestions as gospel.*

Some information (taken from Andrew Freeman’s article ‘The Organs of Exeter Cathedral’ in The Organ VI [1926–27]) can be gleaned from the stoplist of the organ in Exeter Cathedral, where Wesley served 1835–1842. In 1838 Wesley engaged the organbuilder Gray to make modifications to what was by that time essentially an organ by Abraham Jordan, dating from 1741 (with further work probably by Paul Micheau in the late eighteenth century, and then by H.C. Lincoln in 1819). Gray extended the Swell down to G (from a previous lower limit of g) and extended the pedals upward to g (from a previous top note of C); the work also, apparently, included the replacement of the former Choir Fifteenth with a Cremona:

Choir [Chair]

GG AA—d'''

Stopt Diapason

Dulciana [c] (Lincoln, repl. Bassoon)

Principal

Stopt Flute

Cremona (Gray, repl. Fifteenth)

Great

GG AA—d'''

Double Diapason

Open Diapason

Open Diapason

Stopt Diapason

Principal

Twelfth

Fifteenth

Sesquialtera V

Cornet V [c']

Bassoon (ex Choir)

Trumpet

Swell 

G—d'''

Open Diapason

Stopped Diapason (Micheau)

Principal

Sesquialtera III (Micheau)

Hautboy 

Trumpet

Pedals

GG AA—g

[Double] Open Diapason

(i.e. the bass of the Great Double?)†

Accessories

Foot lever controlling venetian swell shutters

4 composition pedals

Couplers

Sw/Gt

Sw/Ch

Gt/Pd

Ch/Pd

Octave Pedals

The interlocking factors to consider, it would seem, are 

1 the compass of the Swell keyboard,

2 the compass of the pedals,

3 the dynamic markings,

4 the swell control mechanism.

The provision of couplers (Swell to each of the other manuals, but not to the pedals) and Wesley’s indications in other anthems from the same period are also crucial points to consider.

It should first be noted that the piece exceeds the range of the Swell division, in fact making use of the entirety of the long compass from GG to d'''. Thus it is required either to couple the Swell to another manual, or to play part of the work with the use of the pedals, or both, in order to complete the compass in the bass. 

That we might reasonably expect the Swell to be coupled to another manual (most likely the Great) is borne out by Wesley’s indications in some other anthems. Among the twelve anthems in the 1853 collection in which ‘Wash me throughly’ was published, ‘Swell Reed[s]’ (uncoupled) are used practically exclusively in the left hand, either alone, or more often with the right hand playing the Choir Stopped Diapason (or both the Open and Stopped) and Flute, or the Great Diapason or Clarabella. Otherwise the Swell reeds tend to be coupled to the Great Diapasons and used in a full-texture, both-hands context, particularly to more or less double the choir parts in a fugato texture (with an extra bass voice played, explicitly or implicitly, in the pedal): both ‘Ascribe unto the Lord’ and ‘Let us lift up our heart’ feature this kind of writing at or near the end. Though the Affekt of ‘Wash me throughly’ is quite different from these extrovert passages, its texture is closest to them, and I suggest that (perhaps from the entrance of the full trebles and excepting the exposed tenor passage) the majority of the work be played on the Great Diapasons or equivalent, with the Swell reed coupled. 

The organ part of ‘Wash me throughly’ does not actually exceed the stretch of relatively larger hands, with the possible exception of the interval F–a in b. 24 and the A–e–c#' chord in b. 73 (and Horton notes that, whatever the feasibility of doing so, Wesley often clearly intends such large spans to be played manualiter), so this article might conclude here, with the possibility of playing the entire piece without the use of pedals. But a number of passages are so awkward to play with the hands alone, by virtue of their density, span, and/or wide-ranging motion, that we may – along with the supplementary use of the pedal in the aforementioned other passages in similar texture and Wesley’s reputation as a ‘pedallist’ – take the use of the pedals as read.

If the pedals are to be used, though, what should be played on them, in the absence of any specific indications? 

More than one editor, including Horton, has suggested that the lowest voice in bb. 22–32, 51–55, 65–87, and 95–end be taken by the pedal, and viewed from the standpoint of the musical lines, this scheme makes perfect sense. However, it leaves much of the resulting ‘manual’ passages after the first pedal entrance to pass repeatedly below the range of the Swell, including in (at the very least) b. 36 when, by virtue of the crescendo then being made, the sudden disappearance of the reed tone (even a Hautboy, I should think) would be most audible. While I cannot confirm that Wesley intended that a manual part involving the coupled Swell should never exceed the compass of that division, I suggest that in this piece the lowest voice from bar 22 through the rest of the piece might well be played in the pedal (coupled to the Great or equivalent – though it is not clear to me whether the coupling mechanism in such an organ would cause the Swell to couple through to the pedal), so that there is no change in tone in that voice. This is admittedly not quite a perfect solution: the a in b. 55–56 exceeds the upper limit of the Exeter pedalboard. A possible workaround is to play manualiter from 55.3 until, say, 58.2, or even 59 (the latter allowing the ‘new’ tenor to enter cleanly); if the pedal were playing a stop[s] coupled from the Choir (though Choir flutes seemingly would not be a match for the coupled Swell reed and Great Diapasons) it would also be possible to play the a in 55–56 on the Choir and then resume playing the lowest voice in the pedal.

Besides the compasses of Swell and Pedal, the character of the Swell mechanism must be considered, in tandem with the printed (and perhaps some omitted) dynamic markings. First, it should be noted that the Swell control was certainly not a balanced pedal but rather a foot lever, located at the extreme right of the kickboard. Furthermore, according to Thistlethwaite’s The Making of the Victorian Organ, such a lever is unlikely at this date to have had a means for fixing the position of the shutters between the open and closed positions.‡  Thus the organist’s right foot necessarily would be engaged during any crescendo or diminuendo, and possibly would have been required to keep the Swell open at all.

Let us consider the dynamic markings in the light of this information. The ‘hairpins’ at the outset pose no problem, as the passages in question certainly are to be played manualiter. The crescendo at b. 33 is mirrored only by diminuendi at bb. 65 and 67; given the choir’s unchanging mf marking from b. 37 to 61, it seems reasonable to leave the swell open for this entire passage. If a hitch-down were available, this would be easily done, and possibly this scheme constitutes evidence for the presence of a hitch-down. The crescendo at 74 follows the choir’s marking; it would seem reasonable that Wesley intended the remaining dynamic markings for the choir to be followed in the organ part (perhaps dynamic markings are given in the organ part only when they differ from the choir’s), and in all these passages, the stepwise motion in the lowest voice would be convenient for the left foot alone to manage, leaving the right foot free for the swell lever. The unbalanced mechanism would indeed be advantageous for the subito p at 80.

Finally, a word about adaptation for today’s instruments. For modern C-compass organs, bb. 95–end can be played an octave higher than originally notated, with a 16' stop added. Where the available Swell reed (or Swell enclosure) is unsuitable, or there is none, a string, perhaps with a 4' Flute and/or a combination with a Twelfth or Nasard, can sometimes do the job, as I have experienced and others have suggested. And it is worth asking whether or how much, especially in a work of uniform, mostly contrapuntal, texture with shapely lines, with an organ part that already uses tessitura and density as dynamic and expressive elements, the employment of such an artifice as swell shutters is truly necessary to the (or compatible with the tasteful) realization of the work.

*  The evolution of editions of this piece is beyond the scope of this article, and the 1853 Addison &  Hollier Anthems edition is not available to me (the MB text is based on the 1863 Novello edition, which I presume is the one found on Petrucci; Horton says that edition was ‘slightly’ revised from the 1853), but not only the successive attempts to re-notate Wesley’s rather tangled original in the interest of clarity, but also various editors’ changes and additions to the dynamic and disposition markings in the organ part to address some of the issues covered in this article, make an interesting study. 

†  Accounts differ as to exactly what the pedal played. Freeman recounts that in 1819 H.C. Lincoln had added ‘an octave and a half of pedals, from GGG to C, acting on the bass of the [Great] double diapason’, his proposal also to add twenty independent pedal pipes having been turned down. 

Bumpus’s account of the 1838 reopening of the organ in his History of English Cathedral Music, quoted in the aforementioned article, claims that Gray added double diapason pedal pipes down to 20' GGG – even though every other account describes the presence of 14 or 15 pipes from 20' dating from the 1665 Loosemore organ (and perhaps, Bicknell conjectures, even from the 1513 Playssher organ). Did Gray instead add open pipes above the existing lowest 14 or 15 to complete a two-octave rank of opens, since the upper range of the Double, added by Jordan, apparently consisted of stopped pipes? 

Hamilton’s Catechism of the Organ, 7th ed., describing the 1859 Willis rebuild of the Exeter organ, states that ‘the lower two octaves [of the Double Diapason] had at some period been disconnected from the Manuals, and were exclusively played by the Pedals – a very unsatisfactory arrangement.’ Was this reassignment of the low two octaves to the pedals the work of Gray, misunderstood by Bumpus?

‡  In fact Thistlethwaite never specifically mentions the presence or development of a hitch-down for keeping the swell box open at all; he does note the ‘surprising lack of evidence’ about the spread, from around 1850, of means for fixing the position of the shutters in an intermediate position, particularly the ratchet mechanism introduced by Hill. David Knight’s article in The Organ Yearbook 1996 states that the surviving 1756 Snetzler Swell at Hillington has no hitch-down, and as late as 1791, Jonas Blewitt’s Complete Treatise on the Organ instructs the reader that ‘In order to make a complete Choir organ [where the Choir bass and treble Swell share the lowest row of keys], the [Swell] Pedal must be kept down with your foot...’ Perhaps Lincoln, replacing Exeter’s old Swell front with venetian shutters, also supplied a hitch-down, or perhaps Gray did.