David Drinkell

Several of the Buxtehude praeludia are relatively easy - the D major, the G minor and the C major Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne. Similarly, any of the works of Georg Bohm (four or five praeludia and several sets of chorale variations) or Nicholaus Bruhns. I have an old French edition of Pachelbel's Chaconne in F minor which has proved invaluable over the years. If your organ can make the right noises, most of the French baroque composers are available for free download. The noels always go down well at Christmas, especially Daquin's. Max Drischner composed early baroque-style music in the twentieth century. His Nordische Fantasie in A minor sounds impressive and is dead easy. There's a sizeable collection of chorale preludes, too, including a very fine one on 'Lobe den Herren'. A pupil swiped my copy some years back. Published by Schultheis of Tubingen. Peter Hurford's 'Laudate Dominum' suite, especially the last movement 'Exurgat Deus'. One often finds or inherits old copies of 'The Red Album', 'The Blue Album' and so on. Most contain at least something worth playing - like Hollins's 'A Trumpet Minuet', Brewer's 'Marche Heroique' or Reginald Goss-Custard's 'Chelsea Fayre'. Howells's 'Master Tallis's Testament'. Weinberger publishes a massively useful collection of five pieces arranged or composed by Alan Wilson called 'Music for an Occasion'. It includes Susato's 'Mohrentanz', Praetorius's 'Springtanz' and a very useful arrangement of Purcell's Chacony in G minor. S.S. Wesley's 'Choral Song' (I find Watkins Shaw's edition benefits from further thinning of the texture). S. Drummond Wolff's 'Purcell Suite' includes 'When I am laid in earth', 'Fairest Isle' and a couple of lesser known trumpet tunes. I don't know if it's readily available outside North America. Theodore Dubois' Toccata and Fiat Lux. 'Marche des rois mages' is amusing at Epiphany. All this and more available free online. If your congregation likes Lefebure-Wely's Sortie in E flat, they will also like Scotson Clarke's 'Marche aux Flambeaux', and it's easier to play....

Hmmm - must be Henry Willis III posting.

I think the Flute Octaviante on Manual III might be 4' rather than 2', but that doesn't explain the oddity of no 4' on manual I north.

I remember seeing John Goss's rubber-stamped signature on a volume of Victorian anthems.

I've never done any of the French Messes Solenelles. The Langlais is too expensive and the length of the Vierne makes me wonder if it's worth it (100 bars of Kyrie!). But I'll have another look at it. I first encountered Dvorak in D with the Bristol University Singers and subsequently gave a performance of it with the St. Magnus Festival Chorus in Orkney. I like it very much but, again, I wonder if it's too long for ordinary liturgical use. We do the usual Viennese suspects - Schubert in G, Haydn Little Organ, Mozart Coronation and Spatzenmesse - and get round the time issue by singing the Benedictus before the Agnus, rather than after the Sanctus. I don't know the Lang or Gounod, but I guess I can find the latter score online somewhere. Thanks again.

Yes! Thanks very much - that melody is precisely what Willan uses, quoting it line for line in the Kyrie and then in various guises later. Nigel Davison was my tutor at Bristol and I owe him a lot in so many ways. mrbouffant - I agree about Noble's 'Come, O Creator Spirit'. I'm glad someone else appreciates it because it always seemed that no one else had heard of it, despite its presence in the Church Anthem Book. We've done it once here - now that you've reminded me I may trot it out again this year.

Is it? I must be getting daft in me old age....

I, too, had a girl-friend around that time who was nuts about Dustin Hoffman....

I don't know the Tye and what I've seen of the Taverner looks more complicated than we could find the time to tackle. We sing the Willan O Westron Wynde mass, which is a very good piece indeed, although the cantus doesn't bear much resemblance to my idea of O Westron Wynde and is more like Pastyme with Good Companye (asking a Willan expert about this, the reply was, 'The old B***** probably forgot how the tune went'). We have the Howells Dorian. I think the choir might have sung it once before my time, but the copies look rather pristine. I wasn't greatly taken with it when I looked through it, although I'm a tremendous Howells fan generally. Would you rate it highly? If so, I'll take a closer look at it. Philip - thanks for the suggestions. We have all those except the Harris. I'm inclined to agree about God is a spirit! Tony - the Lassus Octavi Toni certainly looks as though it would suit us, and possibly the Wilton too. Thank-you. Vox - Thanks also for your helpful remarks. Sometime, but not this year, we will learn Taverner's Dum transisset. I used to do it at Belfast and it's a fine piece. I'm wondering about Byrd's Christ rising.....

I got to know 'The Crucifixion' from the St. John's LP and was impressed by it. I later acquired the Peterborough version too - I think this may have been on a transfer to CD, in which case I still have it (I gave away all my LPs when I moved to Newfoundland - something had to go!). Oddly enough, the Stainer LP doesn't appear to be mentioned in the discography of George Guest's "A Guest at Cambrdige".

It was a nice 32', too, of metal I think. Dixon may not have been able to play, but he pulled together a lot of theory into a cohesive whole and no one can deny that the result, as realised principally by Arthur Harrison but also by every other builder to some extent, was a tremendously successful instrument in the opinion of the day, and one which is still infuential and admired. Sam Clutton did learn to play in later life. I heard him play Guilain's Second Suite on his Mander organ at Blackheath, and he tried the organ in St. Magnus Cathedral during my time, having turned up unexpectedly one Sunday. In any case, he knew better than most organists of the time what various schools of organ building sounded like and his influence was good. There are still some organ-playing advisors about whose idea of an organ is still heavily North German neo-baroque, and some organ builders who have funny ideas about specification and balance. Although I'm sure Harrisons' would make a wonderful job at Canterbury, I very much admired the organ as left by our hosts at the last rebuild. It did the job it was meant to do very well indeed, and no one is going to tell me it ceased to sound like a Father Willis. It was a mistake to lose the Solo Organ, although the argument at the time was sound enough.

It's a pity that there aren't at least six Sundays in Ascensiontide to accommodate all the fine choral music written for that season, but I find it difficult to find really good motets for Easter and Whit. Any suggestions for voicing SATB,SAATB or possibly SSATB? While I'm at it, any thoughts about unaccompanied masses (BCP or Latin) that aren't too long or complicated? In the last year, we've sung Byrd for Four Voices, Palestrina Aeterna Christi munera, Victoria O quam gloriosum, Hassler Missa Secunda and Missa super Dixit Maria, Viadana Missa l'hora passa, Batten's Short, Wood in the Fridge and in C minor, Wills' Short and several of the Willan Missae Brevae (very good, but seemingly little known outside Canada). We also do most of the accompanied war-horses, like Darke, Coll Reg, Francis in G, Mass of the Cocktail Hour, Stanford in B flat, etc. Am I missing out on some gems?

If I've got it right, the Leicester Square Theatre had the 2 manual Wurlitzer, ex-Stillwell Theatre, New York, which is now at the Mechanical Instrument Museum, Cotton, Suffolk. A particularly nice example of a Wurly. http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/NPORView.html?RI=H00670

BIOS carried an interesting transcript of a question and answer session with a Dutch organ advisor a while ago. The system seems excellent, in that there are various areas of expertise to be called upon and the advisors are knowledgeable about the use as well as the historical importance of various instruments.

Holland has a very strict system in place to safeguard historic organs. Government-appointed experts must be consulted before anything is done to them. Having said that, a number of churches are no longer used for the purposes of worship, but the organs are still subject to the same rules.

In Canada, copyright extends until 50 years after the creator's death.

I guess others will remember this from school.... Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer; Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. And all I remember is, friends flocking round As I sat with his head ’twixt my knees on the ground; And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.

December 2013 was particularly nasty. We don't usually get such heavy snow until February or March, so it might have been (for these parts) relatively mild in December 2001. The principal RC church in the city is the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist, and this would also have been the nearest to Signal Hill, where Marconi carried out his experiments. At the time, this had a Robson of 1853, a very fine example of a "Hopkins and Rimbault" organ. It was, in fact, listed in that book on p.453 of the Third Edition. It has sometimes been assumed in the past that this entry refers to the Anglican Cathedral because the RC Cathedral did not get basilica status until the 1950s, but we don't know what the Anglican Cathedral had before the Hope-Jones/Ingram of 1904 (although from pictures, I think it may have been a Father Willis 'Model' organ). The Robson was rebuilt and finally succumbed to a Hammond, which itself was replaced by the present Casavant (4m in the west gallery, 2m behind the High Altar) in 1954. There's also St. Patrick's, Patrick Street, a wonderful example of the work of the "Irish Pugin", J.J. McCarthy (but with a thoroughly messed-up post-Vat2 interior) and a 1931 2m Casavant sounding well from the west gallery. Other RC churches in the city post-date Marconi's visit. There is one thing which I should mention about our winters. It's true that we get more snow than any other capital city in the world, temperatures can be vicious and winds high, but today is typical in that the sun is shining brightly and the place looks glorious. It's too cold for snow (you need temperatures within a few degrees of freezing). One learns to wrap up well and life goes on as usual.

I was thinking about that - but wasn't it the altos? Another local peculiarity here is that downtown St. John's is very hilly and our house is so placed that it takes five minutes to walk to the Cathedal and fifteen minutes to walk back. Three times in the last couple of weeks, including Christmas morning, the road was so slippery with compacted snow and ice that the only way to get off the street in the car was sideways, despite studded winter tyres. At least the church is kept warm. Belfast Cathedral was so tall (90' inside) that it had its own micro-atmosphere and we would get clouds in the ceiling in cold weather.

The organ looks to have been worked on by reputable craftsmen and should contain some good pipe-work. If the mechanical state is sound and well-executed (as I expect it would be if Trevor Tipple had anything to do with it), it might be possible to rebalance the voicing or alternatively to replace certain ranks with more suitable ones. Get opinions from a reputable consultant and an experienced voicer. It seems strange that original diapason work by Hunter, Ingram or Rushworth should be inadequate, especially if a secondary diapason in the form of the Geigen was added later. Maybe the change of position upset the balance.

We usually expect one moderately big snowstorm before Christmas (and several more in the New Year), but this year it was more than moderate - about two feet of the stuff. Temperatures then dropped dramatically to lows of -20C - not as cold as the -40s in the Prairies but made worse by our position in the middle of the Atlantic. Last weekend, the power company warned that rolling outages would be in effect due to heavy demand on generating equipment. Shortly afterwards, something blew and virtually the whole island lost electricity. In our house, it was out from 9:30 on Saturday morning to 1:30 on Sunday morning, with temperatures outside around -10. At one time, it was reckoned that 125,000 people in St. John's (pop. 150,000) were without power. We also had another snowstorm. On Sunday, most city centre churches cancelled all services, including all the United Churches and the Basilica. At the Anglican Cathedral, it was business as normal - five services including two fully choral ones. We didn't get all the choir - some were ploughed in - but we had enough to do the job. Rolling outages were still in effect, so we carried candles into Evensong (Ayleward Responses, Gibbons Short Service, Bethlehem Down), but the power lasted (it went out for four hours at 9:30pm). It takes a bit more than a touch of bad weather to keep us Anglicans from our BCP. I love my choir....

Yes, the St. Patrick's console is preserved in a case in the north transept, and a very handsome piece it is, with its large Willis ivory drawstops.

Dammit! Banged my other knee today, and hit my elbow on the way back

Ummm - I broke off Great III at Kirkwall trying to straighten it up. Worst of all are pistons which are not numbered. Henbury PC, Bristol was like this. I was organist there while a student and it was a pain, even though there were only four pistons to each manual.

I liked them - at least they were always straight. One can get seriously irritated by a piston which is a little bit askew. Still, Casavant's put department labels over the pistons, and the Choir Organ one here has always been wonky (including in the article in "The Organ" c.1971). I keep meaning to unscrew the key-slip and put it right - it would only take about ten minutes - but I haven't got around to it yet..... There are some damsilly piston designs around, aren't there? Compton and Willis had nice, smart ones, and N&B (HN&B?) used to do a handsome, quite large, type.