Malcolm Kemp

................... and they either become blunt or break when they hit the floor beneath the pedals. Malcolm Kemp

What you are looking for is Suite for Organ by John Stanley, arranged/edited by Henry Coleman and, as you say, published by OUP. Tasteless, vulgar Philistine that I am, I still use it myself and I know of at least two other organists in Brighton who do likewise. I like it better than the more "correct" editions. Roger Molyneux does not have it in his current catalogue. Another possible second-hand source is Music-by-the-score (an on-line site). I am sure that either Banks Music Publications (01653 628545) or Allegro Music (closed until after 9th August) could get one-off new copies for you as they can for most out-of-print Novello and OUP items. If you really get into difficulties with those sources send me a PM in due course. A notable local organist has just offered my organ scholars and me the pick of her organ music as she no longer plays so I will see whether she has this volume. That would be one possibility......... Malcolm Kemp

This being the 150th anninversary of Reubke's death I suppose we should commemorate it somehow although I can't quite picture (on the other hand, unfortunately, I can) a designated Sunday where every church in the British Isles has the entire Sonata on the 94th Psalm as the voluntary at the end of the morning service! There are some(!!!) organs, organists and congregations that just could not cope!!! This ties in with my comments earlier this week on the RCO topic about a comparitive lack of generic guidance available on playing German 19th century organ music as compared with the guidance (and opinions) on offer regarding Bach/Buxtehude. I'm not sure whether this has been mentioned before but there is a superb DVD, produced by the University of Leeds, all about the history and rebuild of the Schulze organ in St Bartholomew's Armley. This centres around Geoffrey Barber discussing and giving a complete performance of the Reubke Sonata and there a many, lengthy views of him at the console so that you can watch how he plays it and handles the registration. You can even see his markings in his copy of the score. Very well worth buying and an admirable companion to the Durham DVD of James Lancelot similarly playing and discussing the Elgar Sonata. Malcolm Kemp

Those of us whose circumstances permit a more leisurely breakfast than those who have yet to escape the rate-race can be grateful for Rob Cowan on Radio 3. Several times recently he has played organ music between 7 and 10 am. Today we heard the superb Prelude & Fugue in B major by Saint-Saens I tomorrow we are promised an expanded version of a Handel Organ Concerto. Does this herald a sudden (and most welcome) realisation by the BBC that there are people who actually like organ music or do Mr Cowan and his producer have a fairly free hand in what comes out of his "rucksack" each morning? His on-line CV states that Rob C is a string player; I had begun to wonder whether, like Hugh Edwards, he was a closet organist. Whatever, his fairly regular inclusion of organ music makes the trivial round and common task of completing Telgraph Suduko puzzles that much more enjoyable. We should be grateful! Malcolm Kemp

Towards the very back of the new Organists' Review is a small photo which includes a regular contributor to this Forum. Why do people never look as you imagine them to? More seriously, I was very impressed with the views expressed by Peter King about playing music of various styles and countries on, seemingly, unlikely organs. Good article also by Alan Thurlow. Malcolm Kemp

One could think of a recent thread on this Board about registration &c., of pieces by Howells. We get a great deal of help offered from all angles about articulation &c., of Bach/Buxtehude but very little about how to interpret German 19th century music - Mendelssohn, Reger & Rheinberger. Or, even for the really keen organ anoraks, the keyboard music of Gibbons, Bull and Tallis. At least that's a starter. Where would one want the RCO hold these events? London is in a corner of the UK where there are already many facilities for organists of all ages to hear recitals and get tuition (for example, St Giles School) but it is not terribly convenient for people living in Carlisle, Penzance or Retford (or even in Welsh vicarages). They do an annual course in Cambridge and they hold events around the UK. As with so many organisations, musical and otherwise, it is difficult to arrange events where the content, subject matter, time, place and cost suit a goodly majority. There is a general feeling in this part of the world that people want to support organisations like the RCO in a passive way and expect them to arrange events but don't want to get involved personally. Much as I remember with affection and gratitude the good old days when one entered that woefully inadequate building in Kensington Gore and Barry Lyndon, immaculately dressed as ever (he had previously worked in the hotel trade), remembered everyone's name instantly, we have moved on since then and, although I fully uinderstand what members of this Board are moaning about (and in a way I agree with them) the RCO currently tries harder (and to a certain extent succeeds) to provide far more outreach. training opportunities and member services than it ever did 30 years ago. Let's keep our moans in proportion and, as Just-a-Dad says, lets be positive about it and tell them what we would like them to do to give us better value for money. People like Simon Williams have turned the RCO into a very different organistion to what it was and although what is on offer may not be perfect it is beter than we had before. Malcolm Kemp

The announcement on the news section of the RCO website implies that is something to do with the trustee side of things but I suspect that we are unlikely to find out more than that, officially. The e-mail edition of the members' monthly magazine. received a few days ago, does not mention it. I keep counsel over which side may be the loser. Malcolm Kemp

I was not aware that Barry W had been doctored; he certainly didn't mention it the last time we spoke, a few days ago, and neither did June. Perhaps Cynic knows something we don't? Whilst I have already indicated my own personal support for this campaign, and I have suggested to the president that our local organists' association might like to support it, we need to beware that the seniments expressed on this forum are not necessarily held by everyone. Within the last month I have had a private conversation with an eminent church musician who was worked in the world of cathedral music and who clearly does not hold FJ in the same esteem as we do. This is a pity but it is a fact. Let me suggest another campaign to run simultaneously. I speak to Barry Williams and exchange e-mails with him at least once a week (as I am sure many other members do) and I have suggested to him several times that he should renew his membership (as I am sure others have already done). I am aware of why he resigned his membership and that people tried to persude him not to. It was he who encouraged me to join (perhaps our Reverend members will agree to give him joint absolution for this sin!!!) and I think a concerted effort to get him back would be nice. Malcolm Kemp

I am sure I have seen in an on-line catalogue recently reference to publication of the complete organ works of Middelshulte but I can't remember where. Does anyone know which publisher it is, please? Does anyone know whether it's worth buying and playing? I've only ever been aware previously of the Perpetuum Mobile to which reference is made in another current ubiquitous topic suggesting that there are more than one versions of that. Thanks Malcolm Kemp

Those who are intrepid enough to pass through the vestry and into the organ loft (both of which are usually filthy and full of rubbish) may spot, somewhere on a wall, a photo of me taken with my predecessor in 1971 when I was appointed organist there. I think it is fair to say I look totally different now - hardly any hair at all and certainly not covering my (rather large) ears as it did then!! The organ is good for Franck, particularly with a Vox Humana on the Swell, but the tremulant operates over the entire instrument and you need very strong muscles if you are going to use couplers. You also get the option of playing part of the recital on a 4 manual Wyvern theatre organ which was left to the church by Ernest Maynard. Malcolm Kemp

I agree totally and support any such campaign totally. Everyone speaks of what a nice, friendly person he is and we must not forget the constant support he has had from Mrs J. They both deserve the titles that would come from a KBE. Great ambassadors for our cause. I was speaking to an organist friend (Ron Bayfield) and his wife on Saturday. From their own experiences they were moved, during the IAO congress in Paris when they came across the Jacksons, to speak to Priscilla first on the grounds that so many organists completely ignore colleague's wives when they meet. Apparently she was really appreciative of this. I remember at an IAO congress in Hull about 40 years ago FJ made a speech at a dinner and referred to two cows having a conversation in a field. They had seen a bill-board advertising milk which was pasteurised, hermogenised, skimmed &c., &c., and one cow turned to the other and said "It makes you feel really humble, doesn't it?" Funny how these trivialities stick in the mnd. Malcolm Kemp

There is a posting somewhere on this Board - I can't remember under which topic but I think it was a few months back - where the member concerned said they had met Cameron Carpenter who had been in this country looking for venues for a recital tour in (I think) the west and west Midlands area. They said he was a really nice, quiet person and totally unlike the impression one gets from the various web-links that we have been given for him. Love him or hate him, he is a force to be reckoned with in the organ world and, like others one could name over the years from that side of the Altantic and who have been similarly criticised, he has a technique that is enviable. What he does with that technique may be more open to debate. Malcolm Kemp

On another current topic I have mentioned singing for a service in another town on Saturday. For all its big festivals and special services that church gets David Bell down from London (he lives in Wapping)to play the organ. Not only is he an extremely nice, humble and unassuming person to talk to - and very knowledgeable - he is an exceptionally fine player with a formidable technique. Some Board members may know him as Master of the Guild of Musicians and Singers. At one time he was organist at The Annunciation, Marble Arch - a church which has seen better days - but the fact that he was also at one time regular organist to the Berlin Phil gives some idea of his stature as a player. Yet outside a comparitively small circle nobody much seems to have heard of him or be aware of his playing these days. Surely he is one of the unjustly neglected greats of English organists? His Tournemire Te Deum played on a large 3-manual Hunter on Saturday was fantastic. Nobody in he church moved until he had finished; even the servers delayed putting out the candles and the choir delayed processing out until he had finished. Malcolm Kemp

That's got you reading!!! Not an organ problem but it is a church music one and therefore, possibly just about related to this forum. I'm having great difficulty - nay, finding it impossible - to get hold of copies of a quite small book of Mary Hymns by Fr Alban H Baverstock (one-time Vicar of Hintel Martell) which I think was published in the late 1930s, and also a rather sentimental D major 6/8 tune to the hymn "Mother of Christ, Mother of Christ, What shall I ask of Thee?" Both could be hidden and forgotten at the back of a drawer or cupboard in some church which has not been averse to E&B or what the (quaint) old Church Travellers' Directory used to designate DSCR. The more obviously likely sources have all drawn a blank so far. Thanks Malcolm Kemp

I went to sing yesterday for a special service in a church in another town. Very extreme Anglo - Catholic (Heaven on earth!) and at one time famous for its all male choir and musical repertoire. (A vicar I knew there in the 1960s was a former pupil of Gigout and Dupre.) Great fun. Whilst there I heard of two other churches in that town. At one of them a new vicar has got rid of a very able and enthusiatic D-of-M and choir bcause he wanted a music group and everything that this implies. Perhaps even more worrying - and certainly sending out the wrong message to young people -is another church where adults in the traditional, all age, church choir are openly arguing and building up opposing "camps", seemingly over a clash of egos. Even worse, neither the Vicar nor the D-of-M seem to have any intention of getting involved in trying to stop this un-Christian nonsense. Malcolm Kemp

About twenty years ago, for two consecutive years, I trained an organ scholar to be not only a competent player on the organ but also a litugical church musician, experienced in all aspects of what a church director of music needs to do. He went off to TCL and then to York and is now a professional musician. All this I did in my own time and totally free of charge. Nobody - lay or ordained - ever even suggested so much as a thank-you let alone any payment. Having returned to that church as D-of-M two years ago I decided to try again and for the past 15 months I have had two more organ scholars - now aged 19 and 18 - one of whom is hopeful of going to Cambridge to read music this autumn. One in particular has exceeded all hopes and expectations in the way he has involved himself with the music and life of the church even tough he admits to being agnostic. They get lessons to the value of at least £810 (in practice rather more than that) per year each, totally free of charge as well as experience and training ina parish church music set-up - everything from playing at services to putting up numbers on the hymn boards. Again, the church is happy to take advantage of them - and has been very welcoming to and supportive of them but nobody has ever thanked me for doing this or suggested that the parish should pay anything towards the cost of their lessons. Yet this church likes to think it values the place of music in its worship and likes to think it is one of the wealthiest and best run churches in the area. I beg to differ on all those points and I am certainly not wasting my time reruiting any more organ scholars. They seem to want to ignore the amount of my time that is taken up on this venture and the fact that I am giving more than £1,620 worth of lessons each year without payment. No wonder there is a shortage of organists who are willing to be involved with the church. I emphasise that this is not an attitude particularly originating with the clergy; it comes as much as anything from the laity. Malcolm Kemp

I've been told by Muscroom that the following items have been deleted from my order because they are out of print: Rachel Laurin Suite Breve Hovland Toccata Cochereau Sortie sur Adeste Fideles Scherzo symphonique Berceuse a la memoire de Louis Vierne I'll try Butz for the Cochereau but a supplier I use a lot reports that Butz has been erratric lately. Disappointing! Malcolm Kemp Having had a PM from another member of the Board (for which I am very grateful - surely what this Board is all about) I've spoken to Allegro Music and discovered that these and other items that Muscroom say are unobtainable are either in stock with them or easily obtainable by them. Next time I shall know where to go first! Very grateful. Malcolm

As the first member to offer a reply to the original question I have been fascinated by the other answers and the way in which this thread has developed. Whilst I accept that this may work for some people, I can think instantly of many very god reasons not to "play along" with a recording. Interestingly my own current teacher and my own current students agree with me on that one. (To what are you listening - the recording or yourself?) The more recent comments about nerves and confidence particualrly strike a chord (apologies for the pun!) with me as this is something that plagued me for many years and that I have really only overcome fom my mid-50s onwards. Perhaps this is partly due to age, partly (I hope) because very good teachers have improved my technique and musicianship and partly to a change of atitude on my part. The recent comments about confidence could almost have come from any one of a number of Paul McKenna self hypnosis CDs. On these he shares techniques that top athletes use before races to help them do well. A lot of this is basically NLP to which I was introduced some years ago at a ABRSM talk on ear-training. A book about this called "A soprano on her head" by Eloise Ristad was fascinating reading. It seems that a lot of experts, in various disciplines, are all saying exactly the same thing in slightly different ways. Let's go back to something I hinted at before on this topic. From the age of about four or five years I was afflicted by a stammer which varied from being very slight to being terrible. All the usual helpful advice by well meaning people was useless. At age 60 it has virtually completely disappeared. Partly because I said I could read lessons in church without any problem and then proved on a very regular basis that I could, perfectly. Partly through having singing lessons with the marvellous Hilary Llysten Jones (who herself trains regularly with top, up-to-date voice care specialists and speech therapists) and partly through the Paul McKenna self-hypnosis CDs. This is all very relevant to the organ playing question because what I have gained for speaking - as in organ playing - is confidence and a sound technique. One well known former member of this Board is always talking about the importance of being able to play from memory. I can recite vast quantities of English text from memory, without any prompting, but cannot - and never could - play music from memory. I was so glad when such an eminent recitalist as Cynic said he can't either. That made me feel less sorry for myself so, Thanks, Cynic!!! Malcolm Kemp

This is a subject to which I've devoted a lot of attention over the past few years. Whatever techniques one uses to improve concentration &c., there is no alternative to knowing the music very, very well and this involves constant, slow (sometimes very slow) systematic practice, particularly of the most difficult sections. Have you tried learning pieces backwards? If you learn the ending first and then gradually work towards the biginning this has a wonderful pyschological effect because, in performance, you will know that you are moving towards the part that you know best. Lots of people do this and find that it works. One very well known lady teacher I was with some years ago used to use all kinds of coloured sticky paper to put over difficult bits that needed extra work. The Roger Fisher books on piano/organ (4 thin volumes published by Animus) are well worth reading as are the various Inner Games books. The original was the Inner Game of Tennis and those such as the Inner Game of Music followed on. Easily obtainable. More and more I become convinced that all the technique and musicianship in the world is wasted if you are not in the right frame of mind. Quite by chance I came across self-hypnosis CDs and, although at first I was as sceptical of these as anyone I quickly found that these can be immensely helpful and that those by Paul McKenna are the best of the lot (some others are awful). These have helped me enormously in a number of other significant areas of my life (one in particular) as well as music. People may mock and laugh at them and some people may even think they are incomatible with Christianity. My own experience is that they are not incompatible with anything but are very positive, Of course, what works for one person may not works for others and everyone has to find out by trial and error what works for them. Recording yourself is very helpful and nearly always makes you aware of faults that you were previously oblivious to. I know one international recitalist who testifies to this. Recording yourself is rather like playing to a highly critical audience or to your teacher; those of us who teach the organ must be familiar with "I could paly this perfectly yesterday when you weren't listening". Louis Kentner is quoted as saying that all piano music is either easy or impossible to play; it's just a case of finding the easy way. I have a student taking a grade exam in organ next week and I told her yesterday that the examiner will probably forgive an isolated wrong note but he will be less than happy with a performance which is utterly boring! Teaching is another salutary way of improving one's own performance. Brief example. My own current teacher (William Whitehead) was constantly criticising me for a particular fault. Whilst teaching one of my own students I noticed that he was making the same error, very slightly, in a particular piece and I spent some time helping him to correct this fault. It appears that this had the effect of eradicating the fault in my own playing. I do hope all this does not sound pompous, patronising or presumptious but it is a problem I have battled with constantly over many years and my experiences might just be of some help to others. To those who think I'm trying to teach Granny to suck eggs, I'm sorry! Malcolm Kemp

When I go to Winchester for a singing lesson I usually go to The Old Market pub in The Square - just opposite Grieves and Hawkes - for lunch. They do decent real ale - including London Pride - and good quality pub food whch is not so expensive as the Wyke. I think it was almost 3 years ago that I went for the day with a couple of friends to take part in celebrations for some major birthday of the Wyke (I think it was 250 or 275) in the cathedral Close and the cathedral choir performed al fresco with such items as "Over the rainbow" and "Hands that do dishes will feel soft as your face". All organised by Gales to raise money for a choristership. The comment was made by Gales that they wanted to support the cathedral choir because the cathedral lay clerks were very good at supporting the pub......................... Whoever heard of church musicians going inside pubs??? Malcolm Kemp

Go to www.chamberlainmusic.com Sheet music section. Search "Liszt Rogg organ" and you will find what you are looking for - costing just over £17 plus postage. Chamberlains are based in Surrey and are a useful on-line ordering service alternative to Musicroom. Most stuff appears in one or other on-line catalogue if not both. They are not as quick as Musicroom and they charge postage (even for orders over £20) but their prices for the actual music are often a bit lower than Musicroom although I find Musicroom faster. There is a very helpful lady called Dot at Chamberlains who used to work for Brittens. Hope this helps. Malcolm Kemp Edit : On a second look this may not be the piece you are after but it could possibly point you in the right direction. MK

Dear PCND If you would care to send me a PM listing what you have available in the way of your own transcriptions and how much you owuld like in the way of payment I would be happy to send you a cheque wich more than covers the cost and, at thre same time, give you my address. Malcolm Kemp

There is a You-Tube site (which I orginially accessed from a link somewhere on this Board) of someone called Jonathan Hope playing it at Blackburn. A good piece very much in the typical french toccata style; it is on my list of items to include in my next order to Musicroom. Malcolm Kemp

Perhaps I am being naive but, surely, we are all here to support and help each other? Organ recitals are notoriously badly attended (with a few exceptions by famous concert artists) and they need all the publicity they can get. I cannot see why recitals should not be advertised both on the organrecitals.com website and on this Board, especially if by doing so the size of the audience is increased. I look at this site daily but I rarely look at the other one more than (probably) once every two or three weeks. My choice. See Psalm 133 (Anglican numbering) verse 1. Malcolm Kemp

Perhaps they were more dissolute than dissolved? Malcolm Kemp