wolsey

It'll be a little earlier than that: Adrian Partington was Assistant at Worcester from 1981-1991.

I suggest you contact the person who performed the pieces on the CD (Jean-Pierre Griveau) at Orléans Cathedral, making clear on the form that your enquiry is for his attention.

Gert van Hoef at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church: have I missed something? Where is the date and time?

A video recording of James O'Donnell's performance of the Poulenc is available on the BBC iPlayer here, even if it wasn't broadcast with the Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms and Mozart K 551 from the same concert on BBC4 this evening. It's available until 24 August.

I agree. Martin Cooke's mention of Sir George Martin's arrangement of Imperial March prompts me to draw attention to my post here eight years ago about a misprint in it. I wrote then that having listened to at least four different orchestral samples (courtesy of iTunes) and consulted the full score online, there is a misprint in the Martin transcription published by Novello: bar 27 (two bars before the modulation from B flat to E flat) - the pedal minim (beats 1 and 2) should be bottom C - not E flat as printed.

Here's chapter and verse: Under the Cathedrals Measure 1999, three bodies together form the body corporate of a cathedral – the Chapter, Council and College of Canons. The Measure also states ‘The bishop shall have the principal seat and dignity in the cathedral’. The bishop, after consultation with the Chapter and subject to any provision in the Statutes of the cathedral, may officiate in the cathedral and use it in his work of teaching and mission, for ordinations and synods and for other diocesan occasions and purposes.

I find it an incredible coincidence that someone else is enquiring about a 'best' edition for a Widor movement - albeit it a different one to the one I'm after (Symphony No. 2 - Finale) - having spent a few hours last night and this morning investigating the very same thing. It is clear from Fiffaro's post (26) above and from what I've researched online that the most reliable edition is John Near's (A-R Editions), and purchasing the acclaimed scholarship direct from the publisher - including international postage and packing - is slightly cheaper than buying a French edition.

Available here.

Bearing in mind the young non-organ-playing enthusiast who has initiated the petition, I am bound to treat his campaign with dispassionate caution.

I'm sure you meant north transept.

One supplier here.

That doesn't accord with my recollection of playing for a recording session there in January. That organ has one balanced swell pedal.

Agreed.

Further to my earlier message, I've just listened to the Credo settings from Stanford's services in B flat and C on Spotify (recorded by Durham Cathedral twenty years ago on the Priory label), and would commend these for consideration as well.

The Credo settings from Stanford's Communion services in G or A (in that order) are worth investigating. Their texts are in English, as you specified.

Also, St Mary Magdalene Church, Paddington

He was.

To this should be added the loss felt by the church community at St Mary's, Bourne Street where he was Director of Music.

I have this recording of Vierne's complete chamber music. His songs can be found on the Naxos label (Michael Bundy/Jeremy Filsell), as can their recordings of songs by Widor and Tournemire; I have the latter. Many of these twentieth-century French so-called organist-composers wrote much music for forces other than the organ, and it is a shame that it is rarely heard. When was the last time we heard Widor's symphonic or stage works?

I'll also throw into the mix James Lancelot's acclaimed DVD of the Organ Sonata. It will take a little effort to get hold of it though.

Kynaston's Vierne 6 *was* available on CD some years ago from Mitra Classics; I tried to buy it online, but the company didn't have credit card payment facilities, and the German-only website was so unfriendly with regards overseas purchases. Sadly, it seems to have disappeared from the catalogue completely now.

It's, in fact, just under £60, and can be ordered here.

Latry performed Florentz's Prélude from L'Enfant noir at his Royal Festival Hall recital on 27 March this year, at which I was present. Jean-Louis Florentz (b.1947) completed university courses in natural science, literary Arabic and ethnomusicology, before entering the Paris Conservatoire where he studied with Messiaen and Schaeffer, receiving additional instruction from Duhamel. He won the Lili Boulanger composition prize in 1978, which was followed, from 1980 onwards, by further prizes from the SACEM and the Institut de France. During the 1970s, he undertook 14 field trips to Africa, and between residencies at the Villa Medici, Rome (1979–81), and at the Casa Velasquez in Madrid and Palma de Mallorca (1983–5), he was a visiting lecturer at Kenyatta University College, Nairobi (1981–2). Appointed to a professorship in ethnomusicology at the Lyons Conservatoire in 1985, he subsequently extended his studies of oral traditions to the West Indies, Polynesia, Egypt and Israel. He was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1995. He was a friend of Latry and died of cancer in 2004.

The full dedication is to 'Monsieur Charles-Marie Widor and the great Country to which he belongs'. The first three Sonatas were written during the Great War, so the dedication and themes of No. 2 (the last movement uses the Marseillaise, as Martin Cooke notes above) immediately make sense.

The venerable institution that was Barry Lyndon has, sadly, died recently.