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wolsey

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Posts posted by wolsey

  1. Philip Moore has written elsewhere:



    "In case you have not already heard, Priscilla Jackson, Francis Jackson’s wife, died two days ago. She was very frail, although remarkably alert. She had meningitis about a year ago, from which she recovered remarkably well, although it left her partially deaf. I think she woke on Sunday with chest pains, and was in hospital for two days. "



  2. Gossip in a pub or around the coffee/dinner table is fine. The Internet, however, is a public medium (subject to the laws of libel), so people should really think twice before publishing stuff here and pressing 'Post'. Facebook, for example, has been used in far too cavalier a fashion, and there have been many recent incidences of people falling foul of the law in one way or the other because of material appearing there.

  3. It seems to be common, if not compulsory, that Choir Masters and Directors of Music retain the title of Organist, while their organists have to make do with being Assistant Organists.

     

    Why is that?

     

    I wonder if this is quite correct. The gradual change of [cathedral] job titles was initiated by the 1992 report of the Archbishops' Commission on Church Music In Tune with Heaven which recommended that "Cathedral Chapters give careful thought to what they require of their organist, and consider whether, in any new appointment, a change of nomenclature is desirable in order to indicate the importance of that person's role in the cathedral's life, as well as expertise in choir training, vocal technique and organ-playing." [Recommendation 39]

     

    A glance at the websites of a few cathedrals will reveal that the person in charge of its music will often have either the title 'Organist & Director of Music' or simply 'Director of Music'; the recent vacancy at St George's Chapel, Windsor, for example, was advertised as the latter, and this is now the default title used in cathedral circles (e.g. Canterbury, York, Gloucester, Winchester, Salisbury, etc.)

     

    The second person in a cathedral's music department is often titled 'Assistant Organist & Assistant Director of Music', 'Assistant Director of Music', or even 'Organist'.

     

    Variety in job titles exists, but the matter of them more accurately reflecting the role of twenty-first century cathedral musicians has already been taken in hand.

  4. Happened upon this this afternoon - It's the installation of the new Master at Trinity, Cambridge.

     

    I loved the Fellows' two-fold 'Mexican doff' as the new Master entered Great Court...

  5. This was the Bach piece I played for my Grade 8 examination decades ago. I remember being told (as a teenager) to use a 4' stop for the pedal cantus firmus, and a soft 16' was included in the LH semiquaver 'river' passagework. Having just played it through once again after all these years using a 4' and then an 8' stop, it is apparent with the 4' stop that there are indeed far too many collisions/unisons - especially with the RH lower voice. From my experience of organs abroad, the 16' manual stop would be very prompt in its speech, and knowing how agile (period) string players can be, the semiquaver 'river' wouldn't be an issue - and would, perhaps enhance the musical imagery.

  6. I will put it down to the circles I move in, but I am surprised that the Twelve Chorale Preludes have only now been discovered by AJJ. They were published in 1950 in response to a request from an American publisher for less demanding music that would be suitable for students; Dupré's Le Tombeau de Titelouze serves as her model. They were long out of print, and it is very good that their republication relatively recently has ensured a still wider demand. In the original manuscript, five of the preludes are marked with an asterisk as being the composer's own favourites, viz:

    • Tu es Petrus
    • Rorate caeli
    • Ubi caritas
    • Veni Creator
    • Attende, Domine

    Among recordings, I am aware of those of some/all of the preludes by Graham Barber (1985) and Adrian Gunning (1994), as well as the more recent ones of Demessieux's entire oeuvre by Maxime Patel and Stephen Tharp.

  7. As there are at least 3 different people playing during the course of the service, presumably they have to put the job title to indicate exactly which one it is!

     

    BTW, would any of you experts like to explain why they use multiple players for these things? I'm assuming that any one of them would be perfectly well able to do the lot, so why the musical chairs? Is it just to give the more junior members of staff the experience of the grand state occasion?

     

    The 'musical chairs' is nothing new at large events both at St Paul's and at the Abbey, and to be honest, how the musicians organise themselves in their duties on such occasions is their business.

  8. I cannot comment about the hinder parts, but I remember the late Canon Colin Beswick, sometime Precentor of Norwich Cathedral, recall that he challenged Adrian Lucas (the then Assistant) to find a suitable backdrop for the last part of verse 12 in Psalm 39 "... like as it were a moth fretting a garment". I have yet to find out if the challenge was satisfactorily met, and by what means...

  9. ...but simply some great playing by Daniel Moult of "Thine Be The Glory" at St Mary, Redcliffe during the broadcast CE which I have just heard on Radio 3. The whole thing is well worth listening to on the i-player - especially as it seemed to draw opprobrium from some of the more fossilised on a R3 forum!

     

    Absolutely. There are certainly quite a few there, aren't there?

  10. BBC London News had a feature on the organ tonight, and it can be found here 20' 55" into the programme. News programmes have a very short life on BBC iPlayer, and it will probably be unavailable after tomorrow (Friday) evening.

  11. The main information I have found is here: http://www.colinsmyt...istarecords.htm

     

    Thanks - I had found the site, as my link attests. Michael's brother, Colin, says there that he donated the Vista Records files and a set of all the recordings that he had to the University of Ulster while he was a Visiting Professor at that institution, and that is now housed at the University’s Magee Campus. Soon after Michael’s death, he had also filled in gaps in the collection of what is now the British Library Sound Archive. This is all very good, but it doesn't confirm whether or not the deposited material (i.e. "set of all the recordings") was the master tapes.

  12. I wish the recordings could be released on CD as well, as with various other recordings from 30-40 years ago, because the superb performances certainly deserve a new audience! Michael Smythe was also a master of his 'trade' and the recordings are worth hearing for that reason too.

     

    I agree that it would be very good indeed if Michael Smythe's Vista recordings could be remastered to CD. Does anyone know the whereabouts of the master tapes?

  13. My memory may be quite wrong but do I remember the name in connection with the GDB organ at New College Oxford in the late 1960's early 1970's

     

    A quick 'google' has yielded a French website which says that Walter Hillsman was elected organ scholar at New College, Oxford, in 1964, so his time there pre-dates the GDB instrument.

  14. This is there comment...'Your slow tempo militated against a sense of momentum, although you adhered to it with tenacity. The pedal 'theme' was delivered as a series of somewhat disconnected notes (well I am not going to play it legato and romantic am I??). Your varied registrations made for quite an engaging effect but the stylistic appropriateness of the ornamentation which you added seemed less certain (why? I was ornamenting in all the right places). Ultimately your manneristic delaying of the first beat of nearly every first beat vexed the ear and compromised the effective projection of this piece as a coherent entity (would they rather me not accentuate the strong beats of each bar?)

     

     

    You say that you failed the Buxtehude "because of the trills and the phrasing and the other stylistically baroque effects". [Dangerous word is 'effects'!] Having seen their comments above though, apart from the matter of appropriate tempo, I sense that the examiners didn't perceive momentum, projection or (in the pedal theme) a sense of musical line in what they heard; legato doesn't automatically equal romantic! Oh, and accents can be made by means other than delaying the strong beat.

     

    That said though, congratulations on passing the pieces overall.

  15. The RCO has a mix of examiners who are experienced in a mix of fields though from experience, a lot of them appear to be traditional cathedral organists who are well versed in the British Church Music tradition.

    You make a lot of presumptions! What, in the 21st century, is a 'traditional' cathedral organist and how many of them comprise the examiners' panel today? While they may be versed in the 'British Church Music tradition', what evidence is there to suggest that their musical interests do not extend outside the organ loft?

    Would they rather you play it like option 1 or option 2? Can anybody from experience, tell me which is preferred?

    One of the eight courses this year listed on the RCO website deals with preparing for the exams, so that would be an excellent opportunity to ask the question about 'Baroque performance'. Moreover, from looking at the assessment criteria and the detailed mark descriptors printed at the end of the exam syllabus, I sense that the examiners have no preference, and are looking at the basic musical considerations listed, viz., Musical communication; accuracy and technique; tempo and style; and registration and organ management.

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