Malcolm Kemp

Thank you for all your comments and suggestions. One point I take particularly is that it is helpful to have the registration &c., marked on the score although, clearly from what has been said, the really gifted performer does not need this. Yesterday in the post I got two DVDs from Alfred Publishing Co Inc in the USA. One was about performance practice in romantic piano music. More to the point, the other was of a very interesting lecture by Dr Stewart Gordon (that's the right way round, not to be confused with anyone else!) on memorisation in piano performance. He makes the point made particularly above by David that memorisation is only reliable if you combine motor, visual, aural, analytical and spatial memory. One on its own won't do. I haven't yet tried any of the exercise he suggests but hope to do so quite soon. Ordered via Amazon and you need a multi-region DVD player. Malcolm

In all honesty, for good congregational singing you cannot beat Dom Gregory Murray's New People's Mass. The harmony is good, it doesn't try to be clever or "modern" and it has really taken over from the pre-ASB best congregational setting which was Martin Shaw's Anglican Folk mass. At one church I did Murray from 3rd Sunday before Lent until Holy Saturday, during August, at all Requiems and from All Saints' Day until Advent 4. The rest of the time we did Mass of St Thomas and that arangement worked well. My present erudite congregation in middle class Gin an Jag commuter land complained that Murray was too difficult for them to join in. At another church I taught it to a smallish Parish Mass congregation (mainly new to church-going) round the piano for about four Sunday mornings before the service; they learned it easily and loved it. My personal view is that settings with separate choir and congregation parts (ie Rawsthorne) really do not work because they are neither one thing nor the other and assorted settings in Celebration Hymnal such as the Inwood Gathering Mass and a Coventry Gloria are useful only for non-musical purposes on the evening of 5th November, alfresco. Thirty yeas ago I was using Gelineau, which was simple and worked quite well, and Rutter which got boring after many repetitions and probably has not stood the test of time. Like all these things it is a matter of personal (and congregational) taste but I do believe that a repertoire of 2 or 3 settings in ample. Malcolm

Apparently I have been quoted elsewhere as saying on this topic that Bishop's are no longer in business. You will note above that I have said absolutely nothing of the kind; I merely stated that Maurice Merrell is alive and well. Malcolm

Maurice Merrell is certainly still around; I sw him about ten days ago at a meeting of the GMS. Malcolm

Thanks, Vox. Your advice appears to have done the trick. Malcolm

pcnd - Thanks. PM sent with details. Malcolm

I think this point may have been raised, and answered, before but I wonder why it is that some days I can log-in after breakfast and keep going back in again for a period of well over 24 hours before I have to do the log-in process again, and yet on other days I have to log-in every time I look at the site. I think I've logged in at least four times today. Is it something I'm doing wrong on some days? OK, I'm a bit sad and lacking in a meaningful life in that I feel a need to look at the site several times a day but perhaps that is indicative of how much I appreciate it and, indeed, how much I learn from it. When you live within easy walking distance of two crematoria and you seem to spend your life playing for funerals in order to beat the world economic situation this site brightens up one's day no end! Malcolm

Do many of you play organ pieces in public from memory? Apart from the obvious answers of knowing a piece incredibly well, forwards, backwards, sideways and upside down and learning it from the end backwards are there any less obvious tips that members can offer. Is it an age thing? (I notice that teenaged students seem to take to it quite naturally.) Do different people's brains operate differently, ie being more or less adept at, for example, kinetic or photographic memory? A number of pieces I can play more or less from memory in that I can play them with the score open in front of me but without looking at it except very occasionally and briefly but, generally speaking, if you take the score away (a sort pf psychological crutch, perhaps) the mind goes blank. Should I be worried about this or should I be like the rest of you, wandering round Amsterdam or fitting sequencers on 400-year old historic instruments? Is it best not to worry about it at all and just let it happen? Malcolm

My copy of the DVD arrived yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not least my slight amusement at counting the number of different shirts seen at and around the console during the course of recording! Very well recorded and an excellent programme very well played. Increasingly I find DVDs like this very useful as a teaching aid so that students can watch how real experts sit at, and handle, a console whilst making it all look so easy. To me, close ups of the player actually playing are more interesting and beneficial than views of the building it is in. I find exactly the same with Graham Barber's excellent DVD of Armley and the Reubke Sonata and the James Lancelot one of the Elgar Sonata at Durham. Hopefully recording companies will produce lots more of these/ Not everybody has the benefit of a helper to push pistons at vital moments but not everybody has a console the size of the one at York. Who was the "other" page turner? Malcolm

Today my postman delivered a glossy, four page (folded A3) autographed programme of CC's recital at RAH on Tuesday. The content of this programme rather suggests that possibly the audience he was aiming at was a not entirely a musical one. However, I gather that the playing itself was superb. Also, he's obviously got a very good marketing/publicity team working with him. M

I'm getting conflicting stories about the pitch of this organ; one person tells me it is definitely a semitone sharp and another tells me it is (or at least was) exactly at "concert pitch" (which I take to be A=440). As a matter of interest, and for the record, could someone please confirm which is correct? I think I can work out which is the more reliable source and shall be interested to see whether I am right or wrong! Thanks Malcolm

A friend of mine who went has sent me some photos and is ringing me this evening to give a report. If there's anything worth reporting I'll post it later. Seems he was quite happy to talk to the audience afterwards and autograph programmes &c., Apparently the audience was able to buy a new DVD which is not yet generally available in the UK. The photos show him signing autographs whilst dresed like one of the higher orders of angels &c., (I've never seen an angel so this is guesswork on my part.) Malcolm

Thank you; full reply sent likewise. I sometimes miss the most obvious things! Malcolm

My own very recent experience of the OHS website is that they send CDs very quickly and efficiently. One (of Rheinberger Sonatas) sent from the USA arrived more promptly than some internal post from the UK. Mlcolm Kemp

I have to be in London on Saturday and Monday so don't want another journey up there on Tuesday in order to hear CC although I should have liked to have gone in order to form an opinion of him from a "live show". I have previously related on this board how at the tender age of 14 (in 1962) it was listening to an LP of a certain Mr V Fox at the Riverside Church in NY that finally persuaded me to have organ lessons even though I now find that recording quite dreadful in nearly every respect. My congregation gets very excited if I play that Sortie in Eflat by you-know-who yet, in the past few weeks, they have got equally excited by the Karg Elert Nun Danket and the JSB Dorian Toccata. They would have applauded heartily if I hadn't previously banned them from doing so! Malcolm Kemp

It appears than Blin's music is still copyright in most countries, including the UK, but I can't find reference to him in any current on-line catalogues, not even UMP. Whilst the you-tube link doesn't suggest to me that Blin's music is the greatest ever composed, are legal copies of the scores available anywhere, please? Malcolm Kemp

Those of us who receive the RCO News will have noticed that both Colin Harvey and Richard McVeigh passed the ARCO exam in the summer. Hearty congratulations to both. Perhaps they should get together for a celebratory pint in one of the excellent local hostelries that we have mentioned before. Perhaps they already have! Well done to both of you. Malcolm Kemp

Is it my imagination or do the Wolfgang Rubsam recordings of Rheinberger (Naxos) take rather a lot of liberties with what the scores ask for in terms of tempo, tempo fluctuations and registration, not to mention excessive rubato and flapping swell pedals? Perhaps I am being too purist but I somehow don't think so. Any comments from those better qualified to comment thereon? Malcolm Kemp

Somewhat off the original topic I recall another quote from Gordon Reynolds that tempo rubato is a device used by tenors to draw attention to themselves during the mating season. Malcolm Kemp

If you have further trouble with translations you can to go www.worldlingo.com which translates to and from most languages. Some of the results are slightly quaint but you can generally get the gist of what is meant. Malcolm Kemp

That's really helpful and interesting. The dabate over whether Mulet should have used "Petra" or "Petrus" has been going on in the more musical Anglican churches of Brighton (generally known for being slightly more Roman than the Vatican in ethos) for years. Malcolm Kemp

Many thanks to all who have responded so knowledgeably to my original post. There is obviously a lot to be said on this topic so please, keep your comments coming in. My copy of the CD of the complete organ works of Brahms played by Jacques van Oortmerssen arrived yesterday and it opened up a whole new field of beautiful repertoire to me (previously I had only ever played one chorale prelude by Brahms!). My particular interest at present is in the organ music of Rheinberger (unjustly neglected by most organists and choir directors) and Mendelssohn. Let's hope that Carus eventually publish an English translation of the Laukvik book like they did for his book on earlier organ music. (The church choral music of Rheinberger has some marvellous pieces, neglected for many years but now beginning to be performed again - there's far more thanghe Adendlied and the 8-part Mass.) Malcolm Kemp

Does anyone know whether the excellent pieces in the Faber collection "Unbeaten Tracks" have been recorded or even whether the Judith Bingham contribution "St Bride assisted by angels" has been recorded without the others? The usual websearches don't come up with anything. Thanks Malcolm

Did anyone find the composer of the improvisation on "Eens als de Bazuinen Klinken" played by Hautbois8 on Youtube? It appears that it tanslates "Th Trumpet Call" and is number GVL 434 and LVK 300 in Dutch hymn/psalm books. Most of the postings in the Youtube site are in Dutch; Dave Harries had asked this question on the site but the language barrier prevents me from working out whether he actually got an answer. Perhaps it was a genuine extemporisation although I think there was music on the desk. It's not great music but it might make a suitable concluding voluntary - or even an encore piece - occasionally. Malcolm Kemp

A "big-name" performer (on any instrument, surely) who has got to the top because they find everything comparitively easy to achieve and has lots of natural talent won't necessarily be as good a teacher as one who has personally learned how to overcome the musical and technical hurdles of mere mortals like the rest of us. This, of course, is a generalisation. One also needs to take into account the personalities of the teacher and student and whether they are compatible; far more important an issue than some might imagine. Malcolm Kemp