Martin Cooke

Forumites may enjoy this Easter Monday recital - https://www.facebook.com/stedscathedral/videos/131676128912936/ - some unusual music.

Tonight, there is a recital by John Challenger on the Salisbury cathedral organ - I believe it is available from 7.30pm on the cathedral website and thereafter on youTube.

Did we hear the Tuba Mirabilis at any point? There were definite tuba-ings in the pre-service music but was that the famous stop?

The Organ Recital that this post was originally heralding is now up on the Beauty in Sound website. But also, I thoroughly recommend a visit to the Truro Cathedral website and a listen to any or all of the services that have been livestreamed in recent days. The psalm singing, for example, on Maundy Thursday, is stunningly good, and every performance at any of the services marks out this choir, its director and accompanist as being of the absolute top drawer in cathedral circles. The singing is beautifully done, even if you're not a fan - (I am!!) - of Kelly in C Mag and Nunc (at Easter evensong). Another highlight... Will Fox's Bach recital at St Paul's this afternoon. That opening scale in the D major P&F- phwoar!!!

Would anyone who knows about closing odes at masonic funerals be able to advise me in a PM about something? It's about the right tune for a popular closing ode, Now the evening shadows closing. The family has suggested the Redhead tune, Laus Deo, as in Bright the vision, but online, I can only find it to Dykes' St Oswald. And there seem to be a number of ways of accommodating 'So mote it be' at the end. Any advice, copies, etc, most welcome. Many thanks. Martin.

Ok... if I had to choose a 'new' organ for a GEO I think I'd like to hear St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, post the recent Nicholson work and I'd be happy to hear some William Harris or Sidney Campbell which ought to sound 'at home' there.

Volume 20 of the Institute of British Organ Building's annual journal, Organ Building, is out now. If you don't know about this publication, I strongly recommend it. It's £20 or so, but full of interest. This time amongst many interesting articles, there is an entertaining and thoroughly informative one by Andrew Scott on the new Canterbury quire organ. Next time, I guess (hope) it might be York. In terms of ordering a copy, the IBO's webstore isn't quite up to date so you might have to use the contact details to get one, or wait for the webstore to catch up.

I am tempted to say either Canterbury or York Minster - (but failing either of those for some reason or another) - St Paul's Cathedral... and Widor Symphony 6 or Dupré Prelude and Fugue in B major. And if Priory were to do one more DVD... I'd like a new one for Canterbury or York.

Of course - thanks, Ian, I'll check it out.

Ah! Splendid, Tony - thank you for that. I had seen this on another supplier's site but it didn't have a list of the contents. Now ordered!

One of our parishioners happened to mention this organist and composer the other day. He seems to have written a few pieces of organ music and I wondered if anyone knows any or has any recollections. In a review of a CD of his music, an Arioso is especially commended, but I can't pin the sheet music down online. Any clues, anybody?

Any recommendations re others, Peter? Yes, I love the geek side of it!

This comes from Richard's youtube channel - if you haven't explored it yet, it's worth a look. He is a great communicator, plays wonderfully well, and is heavily into his tech and his Hauptwerk set up. He is about to have a new console modelled on York's new consoles but he tells you all about it. You could be on the site for days!! Lucky there are a couple of bank holidays coming up soon, perhaps!!

I've checked with the chap I thought might know - (he's very into the mathematical aspects of Bach, for example) - and he knows nothing either.

I'm not aware of a link between Palm Sunday and B minor but I know a man who might! Is the Bach 'Corelli B minor fugue' one of the obvious ones? I played the bassoon in Borodin 2 at school - sorry you're not keen, S_L... and for A-level I studied the Liszt Piano Sonata in B minor. I haven't time to check now but what key was the Ride of the Valkyries in? I have an organ transcription somewhere and I'm pretty sure it's in B minor but that doesn't mean that the original is/ Oh, and I hve a transcription of the Bach Badinerie which is in A minor, but the original is definitely in B minor.

I have seen the organ given its NPOR identification somewhere on line. I can't find it now but am reasonably confident that if you were to have a quick trawl through this site - https://www.facebook.com/groups/355269498442029/?fref=mentions - I think you'd find it... and lots of other interesting stuff besides - a great and very busy site.

It's difficult not to agree with you, Tony, and some of the 'blown-up' arrangements from a past era sound quite wrong - but one or two of the trumpet movements do sound well and I have found them useful. The trumpet movement that starts on a high A - (TUM..... te tum te tum) works well as a concluding wedding march in the Coleman (?) OUP arrangement in way but would seem less convincing, to my mind, as writ in the 'proper' version. There's also a very good Maurice Greene trumpet voluntary in D which was a Cramer publication which is filled out, and another voluntary in C minor published by Novello. (Simon Johnson plays this in his Priory Records St Paul's DVD.) Actually, there are less 'blown up' but 'pedals included' versions of some of the best known trumpet tunes and voluntary movements etc (Purcell, Clarke, Stanley) in the slender, blue covered OUP Ceremonial Music for Organ published in the 70's - they're arranged by Jackson, Hurford and Willcocks, and were all recorded by Christopher Dearnley. The volume and the recording includes Willocks' Gopsal, Hurford's Old 100th fanfares and the Jackson Archbishop's Fanfare. Volume 2 in the series (red cover with pic of St Paul's) is CHD's own volume of arrangements of odd bits and pieces including The Lord Mayor's Swan-Hopping Trumpet Tune.

I'm afraid I have never heard that introduction before and it doesn't come from any of the Stanley voluntaries that I know. As Dafydd says, I think it's pastiche and I suspect that CO or GTB devised it. A possible avenue to explore might be with Ian Tracey, via his website. He undertook the transcription of some CO arrangements a couple of years ago but it's not amongst those that were published. Actually, IT has actually published his own transcription of this trumpet voluntary (Church Organ World) but it doesn't include any introduction at all.

I'm bound to say that I think both work very well. I haven't tried 4ft pedal reed down an octave - I guess that's the more comfortable option. No 4ft pedal reed at church (and at home I have to couple down from the Great or Swell unless there is one hidden in my 'library' that I haven't yet discovered. However, on my church instrument good old HW III provided his traditional 'Swell Octave to Pedal' so that saves the day.

Hi Damian - a couple of things I've read recently suggest that Dame Ethel probably intended an 8ft reed in the pedal. See here, for example. And I agree re those stretches!!

Yes, so am I, and wish I lived closer. Very good of Robert Sharpe to come on here and explain things, all of which makes perfect sense to me at this particular time. The Ethel Smyth chorale prelude that is being played at the start of the Evensong clip that Robert has posted, is the one alluded to by me in another post. The original Novello score has the left hand in alto clef, but it is available on IMSLP transcribed suitably for non-alto clef readers and is worthy of attention along with her more striking chorale prelude on Erschienen ist der herrlich Tag for Easter.

If I have understood things correctly from the YM website, today was just a temporary measure - a blessing - so that the organ could come back into use officially, as it were, rather than wait for Easter Day when there is to be a full dedication. I thunk it's all to do with Lent and the fact that the Minster is still closed until next Sunday. Something like that, anyway.

Yes, drat! Though actually, the IMSLP versions are dated 2019 and I did my transcription a while ago.

Some interesting things going on... The RCO and the Society of Women Organists have announced that this Sunday will be Woman Composers' Day and they are encouraging organists to play a piece by a female composer and flag it up on a website with a hashtag. I am playing three pieces before the service on Sunday by women: The Präludium in F major by Fanny Hensel (Mendelssohn), an Ethel Smyth chorale prelude that I have transcribed to avoid the alto clef, and the Maria von Paradis Sicilienne... though, actually, on reading up about it this I gather this may be by a man! Then, via her twitter feed, Anna Lapwood is playing a piece by a woman composer every day in March - just type "Anna Lapwood twitter" and follow your nose to the hashtag. So far we have had some Emma Louise Ashford, a delightful piece by Ghislane Reece-Trapp which will be included in a new Stainer and Bell volume of organ music by women that Anna Lapwood is working on, and, today, a slow movement from Florence Price's Organ Sonata.

Yes, I entirely agree - a super little item. Actually, the Communion 'went on a bit' yesterday, and I snuck in a performance of an Alcock piece just published by Fagus in their album - new Edwardian Preludes volume - http://fagus-music.com/composers/edwardian.htm. Does anyone else play the Rutter Elegy? I closed, on Ash Wednesday evening, with Thalben Ball's Edwardia. I had not played it before and although the title didn't really fit the occasion, I felt the nature of the piece did - just on swell strings with the Octave coupler.