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iy45

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Posts posted by iy45

  1. 4 hours ago, S_L said:

     

    I'd like to hear a performance of Ligeti's Volumina but I understand that on one occasion it was performed at the RAH the organ couldn't cope with it! Was that the 'Proms' performance in 1978 that also included Stockhausen Stimmung?

     

    Wasn't that a performance in the RFH? Or perhaps it happened more than once.

    Ian

  2. 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

  3. 3 hours ago, innate said:

    I remember a recital in Westminster Cathedral c. 1975. I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember who the recitalist was—someone famous. The first two pieces were by Byrd; played on loud chorus reeds.

    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

  4.  

    3 hours ago, S_L said:

    I am reliably told that the first time 'herself' heard the Royal Trumpets she was somewhat taken aback by the noise they made and the 'old Duke' was a little more forthright about them!!! I'm also told that a request came, from 'Buck house' that they be not used when the two, aforesaid mentioned persons are directly underneath them!!!

    Only gossip of course but it's a good story with, I understand, an element of truth!

     

    Didn't Andrew Lucas give a first-hand account somewhere on this Forum?

    Ian

  5. On 02/02/2020 at 00:09, MusoMusing said:

    I would have thought that metal pipes are cheaper to manufacture than wooden ones; especially zinc ones.

     

    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

  6. 8 minutes ago, Stanley Monkhouse said:

    Why did Willis I use metal at Carlisle and Salisbury, but (assuming only one 32ft flue) wood elsewhere?

     

    Wouldn't it be because metal pipes are much more expensive than wooden ones (aren't they)?

    Ian

  7. 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

  8. 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

     

  9. 22 hours ago, DaveHarries said:

    The recent edition of Choir & Organ magazine for July / August 2019 reports in its news section that the console of Notre-Dame's grand organ is unusable: the electrics and electronic system are entirely out of service so the console must be rebuilt.

    That'll teach 'em for removing Vierne's console!

    Ian

  10. 1 hour ago, Jonathan Dods said:
    Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876)

    Duet for Organ in C Major 

    - Allegro - Andante  - Fuga. Alla Capella 

    Free admission

    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

  11. 42 minutes ago, Tony Newnham said:

    I traced the problem to running mic. cables parallel and close to the main action cable between console & organ chamber ( and that was using quality balanced microphones).  Rerouting the mic cables solved the problem.

    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

  12. 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

  13. 15 hours ago, Martin Cooke said:

    I have just caught up with the BBC 1 service from Sheffield Cathedral from Easter morning.  ... Interesting to see the organist wearing headphones to accompany. I can't quite think what the ramifications and effects of this are. Can anyone enlighten me?

    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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