Paul Carr
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Posts posted by Paul Carr
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Yes, thanks Nigel - how exciting!!
Are we going to be able to arrange a board members' visit like the one to Malborough last year?
Apologies if this has already been asked...
P
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Thanks Patrick! Everything's been sorted now. I wonder why it happened....
Ooooo, same thing's happened to me!!
Thanks Patrick too, with your tip it's sorted and back to normal!!
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This fits that well-known organ-builders' maxim:
'You can either see it or reach it, never both!'
...and in this case: neither!
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That's terribly sad.
On another thread, I mentioned an organ whose Swell box was very dangerous to access. When I spoke to one of the tuners of this instrument (about 12 years or so ago), he said that each time he climbed inside this instrument he thought of an organ tuner who had fallen a long way down onto a soundboard and had died as a result of having pipes penetrate his body. I wondered if this gruesome story was merely anecdotal, and hope it was. Has anybody any knowledge of this happening?
On unsaid organ did you ever work out how to get to the middle of the swell Bassoon? I haven't.
A friend got married a couple of years ago and I tickled the reeds, which were surprisingly easy to tune considering the 'pick 'n' mix' nature and generally poor quality of all of the reeds. Anyway, I tuned the top end and the bottom end (so fine for the Pedal reed borrowed stop) but couldn't see how to get around the Diapason to even see, let alone reach the middle! Played round it, so wasn't a problem...
I don't touch them normally, especially as with an organ appeal looming it works in our favour for it not to sound as good as it can! Plus it gives the French stuff a satisfying edge!!
P.
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The organ loft of a former church of mine was a rather worrying place to be. It was on three levels. To climb up to the Great wasn't too bad. It was getting up to the Swell that was rather worrying! One had to climb up an awkward ladder and then - somehow! - turn round through 180 degrees at the very top of the ladder and, without any handholds, mount a wobbly and very narrow gangplank to walk across to the front of the Swell organ. If you fell one way, it was two storeys down to the ground. If you fell the other way, it was only one storey, but you'd land on the Great pipework which would finish you off just as effectively. I used to walk across it on all fours. I didn't mind tuning the odd pipe that went out of tune on the Great organ, but it would have to be quite badly out of tune on the Swell for me to consider going up there.
Every organ tuner who tuned it said to me that they wouldn't be allowed to tune the Swell if "Health and Safety" saw it although, of course, they all did.
Mmmm, I think I know where that is, and they're still all saying that it shouldn't be allowed!!!
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Looking to see if there was anything similar for Widor on Amazon, I came across this previously unknown arrangement from the maître of St Sulpice: http://tinyurl.com/3yx4ky
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'Tried this but I only managed to find the Christmas Eve Radio 4 broadcast (albeit on the Radio 3 page) where the announcer chips in over the first bars - then the whole thing ends!
AJJ
Many thanks Alistair McEwan, it took a few wrong turns, but I've found it and I am listening to it now - very Cochereau!
Alastair J - this may work, it's just copied straight out of the address line in the other window where it's playing right now...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.s.../afternoon3_tue
Cheers, P.
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I missed this on Christmas Day and the BBC replay on line was not including it - how was it?
AJJ
I missed it too!
(unless you count the faded out first bar on Christmas Eve underneath the presenter talking!)
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Paul, do you know where i can obtain these? I'd be very interested in this, being a big fan of 'the planets.'
I had mine from Allegro Music (www.allegro.co.uk) but I think David sells scores directly through his own publishing company/website Chestnut Music rather than Allegro these days.
However, they still have some of his music there, or at least they did last time I was there in the summer. If you don't get any luck with that send David an email directly (from his website) and I'm sure he'll sort you out.
The Double CD of the Opening concert, with the original impro on was a limited edition I think, but again he may have one knocking around that he'd be happy to sell...
Cheers, P
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According to his website he has his own publishing company now.
It's slightly out of date though - there are works promised for the mid part of 2007 that have not yet been published, such as the T&F on i vow to thee my country, that sounds very interesting.
A nice modern in dulci jubilo would be nice though. I equally enjoyed last years Kings commision of 'in the bleak mid winter.' Is this to become a regular thing i wonder?
http://www.david-briggs.org.uk/compinfo.php?sel=70
The above link should (if I've got the technology right) take you to the page on DB's site about In Dulci.
The Fugue-Toccata on 'I vow to Thee' has been around a while - I played it in a recital in August 2005. It's a transcription from a recording (also available) of the final movement of an improvised Symphony on themes from The Planets which DB improvised at the inaugural concert on at Gloucester following the rebuild.
It's not all that difficult, but very effective.
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Has anyone heard David Briggs' Organ Concerto, recorded in 2005 at Blackburn? Powerful stuff imho, with more than a hint of Poulenc and his contemporaries in places.
Yes, I have the recording and we were at the première, in Blackburn Cathedral - it's a fabulous work. The recording can be purchased directly from DB's website, I believe.
P.
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Has anyone heard of the 'Profusion Project' at All Souls Church Halifax? Mr Adam Sun, a watchmaker by trade, has acquired the church from the Churches Conservation Trust and seeks to populate it with organs of different types so that students can gain experience of playing various instruments.
I have no other information and wonder if any Board members know about this project.
Barry Williams
Wow, that sounds a fabulous idea... We've talked, amongst friends about something similar in Birmingham, mainly to rescue organs that are about to be scrapped. (Not those that would, musically speaking, benefit from being scrapped though!!)
This project could be a good blue print...
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Come on Paul, you've got a much better Star Wars anecdote than that, and I'm sure she doesn't read this board. Shame you registered under your own name though ... Google's a dangerous thing!
Ah ha, that'd be the wedding I played for which featured a hidden, but not very hidden* to anyone who was really listening, Darth Vader theme during the improvisation just before the entrance of the bride.
Well, that's what someone, who was listening, told me it sounded like - I couldn't possibly comment on whether or not it was deliberate.
(Those of you who've twigged and know the bride will also know the answer to that one anyway!)
* infact, only slightly hidden - well, just about not UNISON!!!
Mmmm, don't think Google will pick up too much from that!
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OK, now I am really going to blow all of my serious music credentials.
A few years ago, friends of mine got married and asked me to play. They are both discerning musicians - one of them is a noted organ builder, now working freelance - but also they were both passionate fans of Star Wars.
After some discussions, it was agreed that they would walk out to the Finale of Vierne I, but the bride would walk in to the Throne Room March from Star Wars.
My 6 year old has just discovered Star Wars, with the result that I have watched the film about 37 times this month (and am bound to say that it just gets better each time). However, for those of you with not such a detailed recall, this is the big march from the penultimate scene when our heroes walk the entire distance of the throne room to receive their medals from the alliance leader, having destroyed the Dark Star and (temporarily) wiped out the threat of the Empire. I digress.
I got hold of the piano score and made a transcription, and although it was a swine to play, it worked very effectively. Most people did not recognise the piece and just commented on what a splendid march it was ; a few others got the joke, which only added to their pleasure.
Anyway, back to the film. The score is fantastic and there are a number of scenes I would like to transcribe ; the opening fanfare and credits sequence would work well, as too would the cantina band music.
I know there is an American CD of an organist playing a Star Wars Suite, and when I think no - one is looking I have even had a furtive look on the internet to see if I could find a score.
Does anyone else share this guilty secret ?
M
I've got that CD - it's amazing. Fantastic solo reed (chamade-like rather than Tuba-like) which always takes me by surprise in the fanfare sections!
There's a transcription/arrangement of the Star Wars Main Theme in "Music from the Movies: The Organist Entertains book 3" (Ooops have I confessed too much about the music I own?) I used it after the morning service the last time I played for Hereford Cathedral School in 1992.
(It was the last time because I'd finished there, not because of that piece
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Common Praise again! You know the tradition/set up at our place, it won't have changed since you were there
and it fits in perfectly.They'd recently purchased it when I arrived four years ago - the then vicar encouraged me to explore it, introducing previously unknown hymns. We got away with this until Shine Jesus Shine popped up... One of the bases declared "I charge extra if I have to polish the Almighty!"
It was only ever used once... They're well-made too, no covers have fallen off, etc. yet.
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...it was said of Dupré that his piano professor lamented over Marcel's desire to pursue organ rather than piano - I believe he said something to the effect that "alas, the world has been deprived of one of it's greatest pianists"
Cheers,
-G
His daughter later made up for that though....
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I'd heard good reports about that 4 manual along the road from you, and was hoping for good things up North. I understand that the organ I played the other day is better than it used to be with the previous electronics, but that's not saying much.
Well it does make an impressive noise, and ought to with all those big reeds and all those speakers, BUT I didn't find anything of real charm or beauty once I'd got over my extensive tour of the tutti!!
In fairness though, it's still being tweaked...
P
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I have a feeling that quite a few of us might also be interested.
AJJ
Oh yes!
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When I was at school, in the days of shillings and pence, I remember our music teacher (B.Mus, ARCO) telling me that it was impossible for anyone to be equally good as an organist and a pianist. Organists could not develop the sensitivity of touch that a pianist needs and pianists would not have the finger strength that an organist needs.
As a rule of thumb for the majority of us mere mortals, I actually think he may have had a point. Speaking for myself, I love playing Debussy, but always feel like an elephant playing in wellingtons. Nevertheless, without doubt there are some very notable exceptions who have proved themselves equally professional on both instruments. I can think of:
Jeremy Filsell
Wayne Marshall
Francis Grier
Also, if I am correctly attributing one or two clips I have come across on the web, our own David Coram is no mean pianist either.
Who else?
My first two piano teachers were anti-organ.
My piano playing suffered due to this conflict, especially as I was so into the organ in my teens. I gave up the piano at 15.When I arrived at Music College I had to do a second study, I really didn't want to return to the piano, as I thought the previous conflict would re-surface. Luckily, I had a superb piano teacher (the head of the department - I'm still not sure if that was an admin error at the time, or if he just wanted a break from the string of excellent future concert pianists!!) who respected the organ, worked with me to explore how the two complemented each other and restored my childhood enjoyment of the instrument.
These days I don't get time to practise the piano, and don't have one here. A new piano at school last year inspired me to work up a couple of pieces (the Gershwin Preludes) and that was great fun.
I think with the right approach, and time, you can play both well...
And in answer to the question: Jean Guillou.
P.
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Wasn't that the method GTB recommended?
Yes, the first recital was in Yorkshire!
I don't think that I was any more anxious than usual before this particular recital. Rather, I was somewhat disappointed because the Cathedral's "temporary" organ (I really hope it will be very temporary, although I believe it's been there for a while now) which I was anticipating to be a decent - albeit electronic - instrument, turned out to have all the musical charm and variety of a primitive transistor radio I had as a boy.
When I played for the second recital, I was in a state of euphoria having found the second organ to be as beautiful as the first was bad. If I just say the name "Blackburn", some of you will know what I mean!
If the first place was "shef...things sheep and cows stand in" (don't you just love talking in code to avoid the search engines and getting sued) then that's interesting as its replaced insides I believe are by the same company that recently installed a handsome 4 manual near a church you used to be organist at... They get good reviews and some folk are raving about them. My experience was that it looks and feels superb, in my opinion, but that's about it - the 'on' switch starts a downhill trend which includes some stops with less charm than a primitive transistor radio!!
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My voluntaries get listened to each Sunday evening, even when they last 10 or 15 minutes!
(St Anne P&F, Jongen Sonata Eroica, etc) and there's applause, which I'm never sure how to, or whether to, acknowledge - after all it's not a concert... There is sometimes one key-jangling exception to the general appreciation of the voluntaries, but we won't go there... Coffee is served on the gallery, occasionally two or three people head up there and listen with their coffee. The only exception is at the carol service where even I don't really hear the voluntary through the noise of the post service chat, etc!
P.
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I am currently learning the Toccata on "Nu La Oss Takke Gud" by Egil Hovland and if any of you play it perhaps you can help me out, because I don't entirely understand the notation.
What actual notes does he want us to play when he writes those clusters with large flat signs on the final page?
You might also like to comment on whether it's worth the effort. When I was looking through it in Brian Jordan's, another customer looked over my shoulder and said what a cracking piece it was, so I bought it.
I just get my fingers on as many notes as possible, black and white, but below the right hand chords (due to the flat sign in front of the cluster)
I do think it's worth the effort, if only to play the outrageous harmonisation of the tune on the last page!!
It is one of those pieces that, once learnt, sounds better the faster it is though!
Didn't the then Bishop of Birmingham and now York choose it as one of his Desert Island Discs?
P.
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A wonderful visit!
I think everything has been already said above, so I'd like to just add my thanks to all at Manders.
How many of us had a photo sitting at the new St Paul's console? Yes, and pulling out the Royal Trumpet stops... well you have to really, don't you?!!!
P.
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Anybody know where I can get a copy of this, the last mvt of the Sinfonia Concertante, arranged for solo organ? Heard a couple or arrangements recently, including Virgil Fox's legendary Riverside performance, and can't rest til I've learned it. The chances of being offered a concerto at my time of life are rare and this is one piece which deserves to be heard more frequently!
PS - see
Actually, thinking about it / him; he probably just played it from the full score - in his memory that is!!!
An arrangement may not exist...
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(St Anne P&F, Jongen Sonata Eroica, etc) and there's applause, which I'm never sure how to, or whether to, acknowledge - after all it's not a concert... There is sometimes one key-jangling exception to the general appreciation of the voluntaries, but we won't go there...
Herbert Howells - Siciliano For A High Ceremony
in The Organ
Posted
I used to play it - had to learn it for a 1960s concert in 1996 as part of the "Towards the Millennium" series, a while ago but I found it charming enough to re-visit a few times since...
Andrew Fletcher has recorded it at Warwick.
P.