Malcolm Kemp

Thank you. Just what I needed. Malcolm

Likewise, seasonal greetings to all. Malcolm

I will be very interested to hear what David finds out when he plays at Salisbury next month. If my memory serves me correctly the organ was out of action a couple of years ago for maintenance, including a super-efficient new piston system. I believe all the sampling for the Haupwerk system was completed months ago. (I am waiting eagerly for the release of the complete "dry" version.) I know it is subjected to very heavy usage, of which accompanying the daily services is only a part, but I wouldn't have thought it needed quite so much major maintenance so often. But, perhaps I am wrong.......... Malcolm

Over the past year I have become accutely aware - more so than ever before - that if one wishes to play music of a particular "school" (ie Bach, Buxtehude, Franck, Widor or French Classical) and play it authentically and with understanding one really needs to go to hear and play the organs for which they were written. I don't think anyone would argue with that. Perhaps I should blame Mr Allcoat for this! Apart from trips occasionally organised by the Organ Club are there any fairly small scale and not too expensive visits organised anywhere which would be suitable for someone like me who is retired and not particularly well travelled? Malcolm

Over the past couple of days when going out of doors has been the least favoured option I have twice watched my DVD of interviews with and about Cochereau. Rather like the biographies I have read of Guilmant and Dupre, this DVD makes Cochereau appear to be the nicest person and finest musician ever to have walked this earth. Do members think he is accurately portrayed on the DVD and is his own style of playing typical of Parisian organists of his generation, carrying on a Notre Dame or Paris tradition or is he completely unique? A while ago we discussed here PC's improvisations and the recordings and transcriptions of them. That was a very useful discussion but I am here asking more about his personality and interpretation of music by other composers. I know there are some members of this Board who are very much into Cochereau so I should be interested to hear ttheir comments. Malcolm

Some years ago I was given a long list of misprints in the first movement (if not all of) Depure's 2nd symphony. Since then I have needed to replace my copy but I no longer have the list of misprints. Does any kind colleague have such a list that they could copy to me, please? Many thanks Malcolm

I have often wondered whether I hold some sort of record. About 40 years ago, during an IAO Congress in Cardiff, I, English through and through, sat in a Chinese restaurant in the middle of Cardiff, eating roast and beef and Yorkshire pudding. Am I unique? (No rude answers, please - 'tis the season of goodwill) Malcolm

The pre-Vatican 2 Office of Matins (now called the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours) has 3, 6 or 9 readings according to the status of the day - double of 2nd class or whatever. It's all much simpler now. An obvious example of this is the readings at the Office of Matins (known as Tenebrae) celebrated during the Triduum in Holy Week and now much revived in a certain style of Anglican Church. One has to say that some of the readings in the old pre-Vatican 2 office are rather more inspiring than those in the more modern (post Vatican 2) Liturgy of the Hours, some of which are quite dire - as are some of the office hymns (notably that for St David's day!). Perhaps we're drifting far too far from the ethos of carol services though. (Those of us who enjoy intricate liturgical discussion do so on Fr Hunwicke's marvellous Anglican blog or on the RC ones of Frs Sean Finnegan and Ray Blake.) In a funny sort of way I quite enjoyed having two non-Biblican readings amongst the eight at the service I played for yesterday. I'd never heard Scrooge being quoted as saying "Bah, humbug" in a reading at a service before and I thought it worked rather well. Malcolm

In the organ gallery where I was playing beneath a non too airtight west window I had two sturdy heaters by the side of me, as well as a TCL scarf wraped round me. The good thing was that, led by the choir of that church, my performance of Dieu Parmi Nous got an unexpected loud applause. I had earned the mulled wine that was on offer afterwards. Malcolm

I was merely trying to inject a bit of humour into something that seemed to be getting unnecessarily serious. I personally no longer care what happens in a carol service; I suspect - and hope - that when the Ordinariat actually happens I shall no longer even have to go to them! Malcolm

Clearly the recession is more severe than we thought and is hitting unexpected areas. The carol serivce I am playing for tomorrow evening has only eight lessons! Malcolm

I know it is fashionble in some quarters to knock Sir David W but I can't help thinking it's never been quite so good since he left, and especially now. I don't know whether it's me but when watching it on TV I have difficulty finding any relationship between the music and the conductor's gesticulations. Perhaps I will noe be branded a heretic but I don't particularly care! Malcolm

It has been well said that if you listen to the crispness, clarift, rhythmic control, articulation &c., of the Eliott Gardiner/Monteverdi Choir CDs you can get a very good idea of how your Bach orgn palying outght to sound. Malcolm

Perhaps it would have been too much to ask for - or expect - Kings College to make at least passing mention in the order of service to the tragic death of the Dean earlier in the autumn. He was a very popular man - who I met a few years ago - and this made his death, and the circumstances surrounding it, all the more tragic. Malcolm Moderator's note: the Dean died barely three months ago, this was the College's official statement at the time, and perhaps they felt that there was nothing they could add to it. "It is with great regret that we announce the death of Ian Thompson, our much loved Dean. Ian unprecedently and successfully combined the roles of both college deans, being Lay Dean as well as Dean of Chapel. With great energy, care, and determination, he supported many groups in College and outside, particularly in connection with rowing. His sudden death leaves the College in a state of shock and he will be much missed by many. His funeral will be private, and a Memorial Service will be held at a later date. Your prayers are asked for his widow Ann and for his family."

One of the clearest explanations, although I don't consider myself qualified to vouch for its authenticity, scholarship or compatability with current thinking, can be found it the preface to two volumes of French classical pieces edited by Martin Neary and published by OUP some decades ago. You can occasionally pick up second hand copies. As ever, Nigel hits the nail on the head by saying you must make your ear the ultimate judge. Personally, the percevied number of rules and the problems of playing this music effectively on English organs has rather made me shy away from it and I don't find the Fenner Douglas book terribly helpful from a performance point of view. Viewing some of the videos that Nigel has put on Youtube in recent months I suspect that I have missed out greatly by adopting this attitude. Perhaps I need to travel a bit more so I can hear and play these instruments for myself. Malcolm

If my memory serves me correctly, I think the Christopher Hogwood recording did it that way. I like it. Malcolm

The organ music of Guy Weitz is unjustly neglected and we have aired this somewhere on this Board before. Almost all - if not all - his music can be obtained quite easily, either from Peters or Musicroom - and a lot of it is available on Cds. It is well worth looking into. Malcolm

Slightly off topic, but relevant to St Martin's Salisbury, I once witnessed something very good and thoughtful in there which I have never encountered - or even heard of - anywhere else. I was at the SCF in Salisbury a few years ago - perhaps 6 or 9 years ago - and the organist of St Martin's, who clearly had been dearly loved by everyone (I think his first name was Alan), had just died. On the Sunday evening for a period of two or three hours local organists - including David Halls, Richard Seal and John Birch - took it in turn to play the organ in his memory whilst his coffin was in the church. A friend of mine from Edinburgh and I went along after dinner in the White Hart and listened for about an hour together with several other SCF patrons. We all agreed what a nice gesture this was. Am I right in thinking that David's present assistant organist was involved with this? Malcolm

The old 3-manual William Hill organ in St Martin's Brighton - very near where I live - retains its original console and drawstops with the Great having "Twelfth 3 ft ". This organ (which is on the NPOR) has a most beautiful tone and a wooden 16' Trombone on the pedals but the tracker action is horrendously heavy (the heaviest I have ever encountered anywhere - even worse than St Mary's Brighton) and there are absolutely no aids to registration apart from two or three very cumbersome composition pedals and a trigger swell pedal which gets in the way of the top notes on the pedalboard. Malcolm

Thanks, Colin, for such an interesting and clearly heartfelt post. Malcolm

It is quite difficult to get a copy of the Edmundson. Someone gave me my copy. It is quite short but it is actually much more difficult than it looks and it goes at quite a speed. Good idea to practice the fast manual passages on the piano but I wouldn't risk it if you haven't already at least partly learnt it. Malcolm

Strictly, organ advisers are exactly that and no more; they are there to advise and you can go against them. I once stuck out in my argument that I didn't want the builder an organ adviser was strongly suggesting anywhere near the organ in question. And I won. The problem is that diocesan organ advisers are often also on the DAC and they can make life difficult if you are need a faculty. Even then you can appeal to higher authority although that might prove costly. Malcolm

Most people I have spoken to, who have seen only the leaflet or the on-line publicity, have taken a cursory dislike to it, particularly the sample pointing, but on the other hand pointing and choice of chants is an intensely personal thing. I gather it is designed to help, especially very young, choristers understand what they are singing about (whoever knew what "that Leviathan" was, or why the maidens were playing with their timbrels?) and I can see that this may well be the kind of thing that would greatly help David in his position of rebuilding boys' and girls' choirs at his church. Does anyone have copy of the whole thing and has anyone actually used it yet? I should be most interested to hear how it works in practice. Do adult choristers like it? Malcolm

I agree totally with the above postings. One of the big problems is that most Anglican churches don't have incumbents either called Patrick Coleman or thinking like him. One of the big attractions of the Pope's very kind and tempting offer to Anglicans is that, at least in the Brighton area, the RCs are beginning to accept, and bitterly regret, that they threw baby out with bathwater and they are trying to redress the situation. In one RC church in Brighton you can get the EF (Tridentine) Low Mass in Latin regularly and, occasionally. a full High Mass - subdeacon in humeral veil, Last Gospel, Vittoria Mass settings in Latin with plainchant Propers, the lot, and I was privileged to play for the first one. As an Ango Catholic I probably knew more about it than most of them did! I think it was the Bishop of Salisbury - himself a former Oxford organ scholar who still plays the organ and conducts choirs - who said a few years ago that most Anglican services are boring and poorly attended because they are so badly done - music, liturgy, preaching et al. He was right. There is nothing to inspire people any more. These days, even if you are able to gain access to a church, you will find it cold, dirty, bits of paper and books strewn all over the back of the church and the furniture at the front "re-ordered" so that it looks as if they have forgotten to cleare up after a jumble sale. Of course church music used to be the best means of recruitment that the Anglican church had. So many clergy, organists and others heavily involved in the church started off life as choirboys - and some of them were my choirboys. Organists are much maligned creatures - and sometimes we deserve it - but over the years we have got many people through the church door for the all important first time and, unbeknown to them and us, we have helped to nurture the seeds of their faith. Malcolm

Quite frequently I find myself playing for services or concerts in a church which has abandoned its pipe organ (Norman & Beard - before they joined with Hill - and some Bevington pipework) and now use an enormous 3 manual thing called a Prestige 2 which is full of lights and other gadgets. At my age and state of senility it makes me think I'm flying a plane rather than playing Elgar's Ecce Sacerdos for +Whitby or +Richborough! It would be well worth their while restoring the pipe organ. I gave my first recital on it in 1967 and that, if nothing else, surely renders it an instrument of historical interest! Malcolm PS There's another toaster in Worthing that has a rather raspy reed called "Turner's Trumpet" in honour of its D-of-M