Peter Clark

Greetings everyone;this is the latest of my one of my now increasingly infrequent submissions to this forum, but only because health is not good. Not looking for sympathy but what I am looking for is the score for the heme tune of the TV series Sanctary which aired about 35 years ago, set in a convent. I do not know who wrote the music. Any help please? Thanks Peter

Have you ever noticed how many well-known organists have surnames ending with 'ton"? Smon f Adrian Pariingtonton Carleton Etherington David Titterington Iain Farrington Nichols Kynaston Any more? Peterton

All good things come to an end, including my periodic silences, so here I go with another volley of, as it were, folly. I bought the score of Steel's Changing Moods recently (for which Banks are to be congratulated; I made my order by phone on Friday afternoon and it was in my hands the next day), mainly for the final movement, Dancing Toccat, an excellent romp. However I am unsure of what to make of the other four movements. They strike me as being very much in the tradition of British organ music of the 60s to 80s in a sub-Matthias kind of way, angular and not always possessing much sense of direction. What does occur to me though is that the harmonic language of the first four movements is at odds with that of the Dancing Toccata. I wonder therefore if the Toccata was written first and the other pieces later in order to make it a sellable "value for money" volume? Thoughts, anyone? Peter

I have recently started learning this piece, almost certainly dating from Messiaen's student days, and I note fron the accompanying booklet to Gillian Weir's recording that there are a number of misprints in the published score which she rectified for her recording. Some are obvious eg tenuto rather than staccato in the final section. Does anyone have information on other misprints? Thanks in advance Peter

Tomorrow (17th Sept) St Peter's in Roath, Cardiff, is holding an open day adn the organ gallery will be open for anyone who wants to see/play the organ. I will be around all day (except for a lunch break) and hope to see some of you there. Peter ps for satnavers the postcode is CF24 3BA

MM are we talking about the same Immaculate Mary here? The one I refer to is in 3/4 and contains such priceless sentiments as "We pray for God's glory, may his kingdom come! We pray his Vicar, our Father and Rome" . Now Mary Immaculate, star of the morning to Bach's harmonisations, that's a different thing entirely. Peter

PS on The Servant King (not Song, sorry) - there is also that ghastly tritone in the refrain. (and a suggested descant which sounds like it is from the soundtrack of a 1960s sc-fi B movie.) P

Dear Lord and Father is a beautiful hymn, an almost perfect match of words and music (though some irreverent people refer to it as the constipation hymn.) Does anyone know/use Charles Ives' setting of one of the verses, Serenity? I don't care for Immaculate Mary, which a bit sectarian in this ecumenical age, and the refrain has a once again dreadful example of word setting - a-VEEH, a-VEEH, a-VEEH Mari-AHHH.... How Great Thou Art, as I have remarked elsewhere, promotes a questionable expatiation theology, though the tune is very strong and it is always well sung. I am unsure about Amazing Grace. Knowing the circumstaces which propmpted is composition (and having seen the excellent film) helps in how moving this can be, but I can't also help feeling the tune is lacking something, and a succesful hymn has rto be a marriahe of good words and good music. Make me a Channel is anodyne. I canot see anything actually wrong with it and certainly the sentiments cannot be faulted but the music is simply not very interesting. Morning has Broken. Why do wedding couples want to sing a Christmas Carol at 3.00 on a Saturday afternoon in July? Peter

I Watch the Sunrise - bad tune which is never sung properly and words which hardly constitute a hymn. The Servant Song (From heaven you came....) with abominable word setting in the refrain - ....humble offer-RING we bring them TOOO the Servant King. This caused one well known liturgical musician to question whether English was the writer/compposer's first language. Bring Flowers of the Rarest If I were a wriggly worm The Lord looked down from his window in the sky Which Be Still do you mean though? Be Still and Know or Be Still for the Presence of the Lord? If the latter, I think this one of the best comtemopary hymns. The Lord's my Shepherd to Crimond with that awful pause between lines 2 and 3 (though I can never play the other tune without imagining Edward Woodward in The Wicker Man!) More to come I hope! Peter

The 32' at Llandaff is a sock-knocker-offer (I know because when I used it for the first time I thought the cathedral was about to collapse!) so they have a quint to make sure that the building stays intact. I used it on paged two of Howells PP 1, last system, just the one note as indicated. Great feeling! P

I am certainly not advocating getting rid of it! I love it these days. As I said, one can adapt to it quite quickly. Also it is of historical interest. Tomorrow I am going to try some other music on it, maybe the Yon Toccata for flutes which I think will work well (the organ has no mutations but two mixtures, great and swell, the former needs to be used only now and then as I think it a bit fierce, as is the Great 2', but the swell 8 and 2 combined is most effective). On the bummer side, my regular chuch, St Peter's Roath, was targetted by lead thieves at the weekend and so the damage to the roof caused rain to get onto the organ gallery. No real harm thankfully but the pedalboard had to be removed as water was getting under it. The most harm seems to have been done to the porch. Tony N and others have said that this is not uncommon these days. Vandalism seems rife though. When I got home about an hour ago I found that someone had put dog poo (or possibly worse) into my food recycling bin. Swines, ignorant and antisocial bleeps. Not really our forum's remit but just wanted to let off steam! Peter

Another problem is that the fourth finger can inadvertantly glance the manual above if the overhang is too great! Peter

The 8th bar ort the Litanie section in Dupre's Cortege et L:itanie has a very awkward LH - from tenor B to low G# but with a tenor G# and D# as well.I find this easier with a coupled pedal but no pedal stop suppplying the lower G# and then bringing the pedal 16 (still coupled) on for the next bar. However on the St Alban's organ (and, Tony N, I will provide a full spec soon, if not a history) this LH bar is unproblematic. Peter

Paul Hale at St German's. Cardiff on Wednesday 15 June, 7.30. I have no details of the programme yet. Peter

I play regularly at St Alban's in Cardiff and in fact am due to give a recital there in a few weeks. One thing that I have been aware of over the years that I have played there is that the keys are slightly narrower than standard (which on the plus side means that chords over the octave or tenth are more comfortable to play) and I wonder if this is common. The organ was rescued from a redundant Baptist church in the vicinity and recently restored by Deane; but for some reason the church wanted to retain the original console* which as I said does not seem to conform to standard dimensions. It is not uncomfortable once you get used to the variation just mentioned (and the pedalboard seems to be standard RCO). Was there a time when manual dimenions were eventually standardised and are there other examples around of "deviations" from what we now would consider the norm? Peter *perhaps for financial reasons