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iy45

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Everything posted by iy45

  1. Radio 3 Choral Evensong from Lincoln Cathedral on 5th April marks the 400th Anniversary of Byrd's death. I wonder who thought it appropriate that the introit be Byrd's "Sing Joyfully". Ian
  2. I've said this before in other contexts, but ... Henderson has a paragraph. Interestingly, publishing in 1999, Henderson gives 1891 as DOB but no date of his death. Ian
  3. A few lines in Henderson. Ian
  4. iy45

    Proms 2021

    Wasn't that a performance in the RFH? Or perhaps it happened more than once. Ian
  5. This brings back memories. Back in 1976 I spent a few months filling-in playing the organ in what is now Harare Cathedral. I played the Cocker one morning after the Sunday Eacharist, and as I finished two of the choir men came to the console to tell me that they'd been in Cocker's choir at Manchester. Fortunately, they didn't make any invidious comparisons! Ian
  6. There's a short paragraph in John Henderson, which I'm loath to quote for copyright reasons.. Ian
  7. Could it, perchance, have been E Power Biggs? I remember some Sweelinck in St George's Hall, Liverpool where the antiphony between chorus reeds and tubas seemed ever so slightly inauthentic? Ian
  8. At the risk of stirring a hornet's nest ... surely, the Neopolitan chord at bar 285 cries out for a cadenza. Ian
  9. One eminent current Cathedral DOM claimed around the time of his appointment never to have played a note on the organ. Ian
  10. Didn't Andrew Lucas give a first-hand account somewhere on this Forum? Ian
  11. And "Bristol Suite", based on the same tune and published by Novello in 1977.
  12. I think I'm responsible for introducing the notion that metal pipes are more expensive than wooden ones. I really don't know, and I was just making presumptions about the costs of material and labour. I guess the expert answer would be on the lines of "It all depends on ...", but is there a rule of thumb answer to the question of which tends to be cheaper? Ian
  13. Flor Peeters' Op 74 is a "Concerto for Organ and Piano". Years ago, I lived in hope of finding a pianist who would play it with me but it never happened - and now it's much too late! Ian
  14. Wouldn't it be because metal pipes are much more expensive than wooden ones (aren't they)? Ian
  15. It's a Hinrichsen publication (it says No. 355 on the cover). It has the first movement of the Pastorella, the Jig Fugue, and the Fugue on a theme of Corelli. Ian
  16. I've long thought that the organ contribution to the last variation of the Enigma is an aspect of the self-portrait. Ian
  17. I once, as a teenager on an organ crawl, found myself seated at the console in Ampleforth Abbey. I played the first few notes of BWV564, then I heard the first few notes of BWV564, then I gave up! Ian
  18. I agree entirely with Colin. But what really annoys me is the sound of a harpsichord jangling away in Bach's church music. It should surely always, always be the organ. (Lights blue touch paper and retires to a safe distance.) Ian
  19. I too thought - somewhere in the depths of my memory - that it was only the outer sections that derived from the wedding march, but when I checked I found the Little quote above; it's not my field, but his introduction in the Novello edition certainly suggests that he knows what he's talking about. Either may, my question remains: what on earth was Mendelssohn thinking about when he combined a wedding march with a penitential chorale? Ian
  20. I wonder if anyone has any theories about something that's puzzled me for years. Little, in the preface to his Novello editions says of the first movement: "The final version of a work written for performance at his sister Fanny's wedding in October 1829". Certainly the outer sections would make a decent Wedding March, but how do we explain the first fugue, which has in the pedals the tune which in Germany is sung to a metrical setting of Psalm 130 - "Aus tiefer Not schrei zu dir", or, in English, "Out of the depths I cry to thee"? Surely not Mendelsohn's idea of a joke, but what might the serious message be? Ian
  21. That'll teach 'em for removing Vierne's console! Ian
  22. Jonathan The Duet is by Samuel Wesley (son of Charles the hymn writer, brother of Charles the organist, and father of Samuel Sebastian). The BACH motif lurks here and there in the Fuga, which - unless someone knows better - is surely a first in English organ music. Ian
  23. This reminds me of what used to be a famous (infamous?) story of Clitheroe Parish Church. In 1961 Nicholsons did a very extensive rebuild, with the organ in the North gallery and the console in the South gallery. The cable connecting the two went underneath the chancel floor. One Christmas, the organ pistons started operating of their own accord when the organ was being played. It turned out that the problem was that the cable to the (flashing) Christmas tree lights was interacting with the organ cable. The organ was subsequently destroyed in a fire. I still have - somewhere - the programme for the great Fernando Germani's opening recital. Ian
  24. I've given up on the Proms website until they get their act together, but I see that they've timed Widor 5 at 6 minutes and the Franck Trois Pieces at 11 minutes, and goodness knows what the Bax arrangement of BWV 572 is supposed to be, but my bet is that the reference is to an orchestration of it. Ian
  25. I once wandered into Sheffield Cathedral and found a pianist practising for a lunch-time concert at the same time as an organist was practising (on the digital instrument) into headphones. Ian
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