iy45
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Posts posted by iy45
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This is really helpful. Thank you both.
Ian
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I've recently bought a pair of OrganMaster shoes, and was surprised to discover that the soles are suede, rather than leather. (I see they've now made that a USP in their advert, but it didn't used to be.)
Can anyone tell me how long they might be expected to last given, say, eight or ten hours use per week. Also, is it possible to have them re-soled and, if so, with leather or with suede? And how?
Advice would be much appreciated.
Ian
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From the Manchester Cathedral News, July 2103:
"Organ Task GroupThe Organ Task Group has recommended to Chapter that Tickell is the preferred organ builder for a new organ, and has received Chapter approval. Tickell will now be asked to enhance the design somewhat on issue of aesthetics. A visit to the Tickell workshop in Northampton is currently being arranged so that further discussions on case embellishments and structural issues can occur. Further conversations regarding the social outreach projects that could be created around the new Cathedral organ are currently being worked through, with particular reference to children from deprived backgrounds."Ian -
I was in Liverpool Cathedral yesterday - a friend was one of three priests who were being installed as Canons.
What a happy coincidence that the Mag and Nunc (Weelkes' Sixth Service) both contain a passage where the altos duet in canon!
Ian
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A very long time ago, I got a trombone-playing friend to reinforce the pedal line of the Widor for a wedding.
It seemed to work quite well!
Ian
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last page of the Widor Toccata problematic for me these days - now there's an obvious candidate for swapping hands; has anyone tried that?
I know one professional player who always swaps hands for that bit. I suspect there may be a lot more of them around.
Ian
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Out of interest, does the St Anne Prelude have any Trinitarian relevance?
i) The key signature has three flats.
ii) Schweitzer says "The prelude in E flat major ... symbolises godlike majesty". [Albert Schweitzer, J.S.Bach, Vol 1 p.277]
iii) Peter Williams notes that the structure has three ideas, and adds that "It has also been seen as a depiction of the Trinity", with the first idea (bars 1-32 painting "majestic, severe Father", the second (bars 32-50) painting "the 'kind Lord'" (Son), and the third (bars 71-98) painting "fluid, incorporeal (Holy Ghost). [Peter Williams, The Organ Music of J Bach, Vol 1 pp. 184-5]
Given all the internal evidence that Bach regularly got up to that kind of thing in the Cantatas and elsewhere, it would be a little rash to dismiss such notions out of hand.
Ian
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http://www.npor.org....ec_index=N17533 has been transplanted, with modifications, to All Saints, West Dulwich, Lovelace Road, London SE21 8JY, by David Wells of Liverpool. Stephen Disley will give the inaugural recital on 2nd June at 7.30 pm. Admission £10 (concs. £8).
I'll try to post his programme here when I return from holiday in a couple of weeks time.
Best wishes
Ian
I'm sorry about the delay in posting the programme. It's as follows:
GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL (1685 – 1759) arr. W.T Best
Overture to the Occasional Oratorio
JOHAN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685 – 1750)
Chorale Prelude ‘Dies sind die heilgen zehen Gebot’ (BWV 678)
JOHAN SEBASTIAN BACH
Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor (BWV 537)
GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL
“ I know that my redeemer liveth”
Emma Penrose: Soprano
JOSEPH FIOCCO (1703 – 1741)
Arioso, Andante and Allegro
PERCY WHITLOCK (1903 -1946
Folk Tune (Five short pieces)
Andante Tranquillo (Five short pieces)
Toccata (Plymouth Suite)
JOAO DE SOUSA CARVALHO (1745 – 1798)
Allegro
ALEXANDRE GUILMANT (1837 – 1911)
March on a theme by Handel
SIGFRID KARG-ELERT (1877 – 1933)Nun Danket alle GottGEORGE THALBEN-BALL (1896 – 1987)
Elegy
SAMUEL BARBER ( 1910 – 1981)
Emma Penrose: Soprano
IAIN FARRINGTON (b 1977)
Animal Parade
Barrel Organ MonkeyHippopotamusPenguinsCriticsGORDON BALCH NEVIN (1892 – 1943)
Will O’ the Wisp
WILLIAM WALTON (1902 – 1983)
Crown Imperial
Hope to see some of you there.
Ian
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Responding to the suggestion that we might try to re-enliven things on here, a little stir before I go on holiday later today.
Is anyone planning on doing anything with "O Tannenbaum" on 3 June? And if so, what?
All the best
Ian
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http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N17533 has been transplanted, with modifications, to All Saints, West Dulwich, Lovelace Road, London SE21 8JY, by David Wells of Liverpool. Stephen Disley will give the inaugural recital on 2nd June at 7.30 pm. Admission £10 (concs. £8).
I'll try to post his programme here when I return from holiday in a couple of weeks time.
Best wishes
Ian
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Then there was another organist, who famously played for one Messiah, where the large chapel organ was still hand-blown.
During the "Amen Chrous," he leapt off the organ, ran around to the side and shouted, "Pump you bugger....pump! We need more wind!"
MM
And there was the - shall we say? - over-enthusiastic organist whose wind supply disappeared altogether part way through "Worthy is the Lamb". An unrepentant blower told him "Messiah teks two thousand four 'undred and thirty-seven pumps, and tha's had 'em".
Ian
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The film to which you refer is "Raising the Wind"; it's a Carry On film in all but name
David Harrison
Is that the film in which an organ teacher declines to hear his student's performance on the grounds that "I know exactly what it will sound like"?
Ian
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There are a few harmoniums (or would they be American organs? what's the difference other than one blows, the other sucks) with electric blowers and full pedalboards which I presume were made for organists in days of yore for home practice who would have bought electronic organs except they hadn't yet been invented. I've never seen one in a church though - are there any examples of such instruments in churches? I would imagine they wouldn't be loud enough to fill anything but a small chapel which might explain their rarity.
Didn't I see somewhere that FJ played one regularly in his local church after his "retirement"?
Ian
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I think I read somewhere that Widor was "Acting" for the whole of his time at St Sulpice. Does anyone know if that's true?
Ian
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For a moment I entertained the notion that the topic hadn't strayed at all and we were still in the hearty English world of... well, pork pies, say, and other products from that locality. But I can't think of anything which would qualify as being good.
I don't know about pork pies, but stick with English.
Admittedly others have told me that the one Stephen described as the best is a right so-and-so to play, but he thought it qualified as good.
Ian
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Could a five-letter word in German be involved?
Sorry - no.
Ian
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Yes indeed I shall have to be very careful, otherwise I may get into lots of bother. Nice to know I'm not the only one who has these opinions though...
When the late Stephen Ridgley-Whitehouse was involved in the commissioning of a new organ for St Peter's, Eaton Square (after the fire), he told me that the best and worst organs that he'd tried were both by the same builder.
Go on - have fun trying to work out which two organs he was talking about. Remember that the trying-out was done in the early 1990s.
Ian
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During the interval of the 2010 Prom which included Parry's 5th Symphony, a TV crew in the arena of the RAH asked a number of Prommers what they thought about the piece. I told them that I thought it was very old-fashioned for its time, considering what Brahmns had done by then. Since all the interviews were left on the cutting room floor, I guess I wasn't the only one who didn't share HRH's enthusiasm for it.
Two telling quotes from HRH though. "It took a lot of pressure on the BBC" to get them to programme the piece. So he was bombarding Nick Kenyon with his famous letters, was he? At least we now know beyond doubt who chose the music for his son's wedding.
And, in a conversation about Parry's relationship with his wife, "Marriages can be very complicated"!
Ian
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I'm sorry to have to say this, but I thought the accretions to Jerusalem were unbearably cheesy, particularly the violin figurations towards the start of the second verse.
It was surely Elgar's orchestration, as heard at the Last Night of the Proms annually! Elgar arranged it only six years after the original was published, which suggests that Parry's setting caught on rather quickly.
Ian
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I see that Stephen Farr is playing this in his Prom. What's the latest state of scholarship on who might have written it?
Ian
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I have been asked to give a recital in a methodist church and find myself wanting to find some music to play that might have had its roots in the methodist church. You know, you think of people like Brewer, Howells, Jackson, Bairstow, who were all involved in cathedrals, but what organ composers were based in methodist churches? I can think of Lloyd-Webber (senior) at the Westminster Central Hall, but does anyone else have any ideas by any chance?
Francis Westbrook was the only Methodist Minister to have an earned DMus; I know there's some choral music of his, and you might be able to find something for the organ. I'd be surprised if they are members of this board but if you can track down Martin Ellis (Dorking Parish Church), or Revd Ivor Jones they probably know as much between them about Methodist music as you're ever likely to be able to find.
I sometimes play the little chamber organ in the Foundery Chapel at Wesley's Chapel in City Road, London; it's believed to have been Charles Wesley Snr's house organ, and I find salutary the thought that Sam Wesley might have played it before me.
Good luck with your research.
Ian
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I looked Harris up in John Henderson's Dictionary, and discovered that he used to be organist of the Church that I attend - St. Leonard's, Streatham.
A bit of googling led me here - http://www.bardon-music.com/music.php?id=H...s_Cuthbert_1870 - some pdf files of the first page of several compositions, together with midi files of the complete pieces. Sadly, IMHO the quality leaves everything to be desired. Does anyone know of any decent stuff of his (organ and/or choral) and where it might be obtained?
Ian
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In Jenny Setchell's book there is a report of organ practice clearing the cathedral of terrorists.... surely a full recital would easily deal with just a protest march?
Sorry about this but:
Q. What's the difference between a terrorist and an organist?
A. You can negotiate with ...
Ian
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Indeed. The R3 messageboards are the place for all that. (Though I think you get booted out if you can't spell 'ragged'!)
The R3 messageboard has been closed down. Like this one, some of the more opinionated stuff could be infuriating but it was a good place to widen one's knowledge of things musical.
Ian
Chester Cathedral Organ
in General discussion
Posted
The number of times I've said to ever-protective and over-officious custodians of organs: "You can't break an organ by playing it".
You can, of course, break an organ simply by under-using it.
Ian