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Martin Cooke

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Posts posted by Martin Cooke

  1. There are two pieces in this new album that stand out for me so far and would be cause, for me, at any rate, to buy the book... a really lovely, atmospheric piece based on Gabriel's Message by Ian Farrington and another on Personent Hodie by Philip Moore. OUP seems to have developed a habit of publishing single items from some of their volumes so it might be worth waiting. Does anyone really play the Homilius piece based on Wachet Auf! which is included in this volume? I don't get it! See here and let me know - perhaps I should persevere!

    I have come to appreciate Philip Moore's organ music more and more in recent years and lots of it can be eeked out of those Kevin Mayhew volumes of old in the form of hymn preludes and other short pieces, though there are some excellent more recent examples in the OUP Hymn Settings for Organists series. Yesterday, with a spare few minutes on my hands before a funeral, I played his prelude on St Botolph which is in a blue volume called New Music for Organ Volume 2  by Mayhew which I bought many years ago. It is delightful.

    The other pieces in this Mayhew volume which I enjoy include Richard Lloyd's Church Parade, and also Dom Gregory Murray's Processionale on Veni Emmanuel. I have included the latter amongst the pre-service music for the Advent Carol service for the last couple of years and feel it is well worth the learning, though it's not difficult. It has something new to say about this ancient tune. 

    In preparation for Remembrance-tide, I have decided to go 'out with the old and in with the new' in terms of 30-minutes of pre-service music. Yes, I'm not including Nimrod for the first time in years, in favour of the Solemn Prelude from 'For the Fallen.' And I have worked up the splendid Epic March of John Ireland instead of the RAF March past which I have often used. This is good fun and is in an old (1988) yellow Novello book entitled Processionals for Organ. I have passed it by all these years but it's caught my eye this year. You can read about for yourselves, but it was commissioned by the Ministry of Information in 1942 to inspire a push for peace and cheer everyone up - well, that's my interpretation. It starts in a rather austere fashion using the morse for 'V' as the opening rhythm and growing in to a stately tune in the Crown Imperial manner. When the hushed first statement of the 'big tune' is first stated, I have found it helpful to play from the IMSLP piano arrangement, just for this section, before reverting to Robert Gower's version in the Novello. The other reason to acquire this volume would be in order to have the arrangement of Whitlock's The Phoebe which is a jolly romp for the right occasion.

  2. I do just want to add that I think the livestreams are one of the best things to emerge (a) from lockdown and (b) from the world of church music in recent times. My all time favourites are York and Truro, followed by Christ Church, Oxford, Merton College, Oxford and Trinity College, Cambridge, though I struggle, if I am scrupulously honest, to appreciate the organ at Trinity in its accompanimental role. 

  3. 3 hours ago, innate said:

    especially the one dedicated to Dykes-Bower.

    Set 2, No 1 - De profundis - a wonderful piece. You've made me question my own prejudices now because I do go for 'very loud' during the climax of this piece, but at least it dies away to almost nothing. I think I can cope with the loud if it's part of a piece, or if it's part of the specific pre-Evensong recital, but it's the rowdy improvisations that I'm struggling with. And, yes, I certainly agree with Andrew Butler. 

  4. I am sure folk would enjoy dipping into some of this. It's Evensong on the Eve of St Thomas from St Thomas, Fifth Avenue, at which new old organ console is rededicated in its new position at the west end of the south side choir stalls. There is a new replacement console in the old alcove on the Cantoris side. It's a splendid service with wonderful playing and singing. Stay to the end to hear Jeremy Filsell play the Final from Vierne 1. 

  5. I know, I know... it's called progress! BUT... is LOUD organ music what we want to hear before Evensong as the choir processes in? Perhaps is comes over in a particular way on livestreams, but I do find loud, grinding, attention-grabbing improvisation getting more and more on my nerves, and yet this seems to have become the norm in several places that (very generously) livestream their often stunningly beautiful services. Has anyone else noticed? I'd be thinking Great 1 + Swell to Oboe as a max, myself. (I know, you'll all think I'm just an elderly expeller of flatulence). 

  6. Thanks, AGP, for that. I don't think I knew the Dryden. But it's come to me that it's the Milton/Parry 'Blest Pair of Sirens' that mentions 'in perfect diapason.' I must have been making it up when I thought there was a plural usage in poetry somewhere, I suspect!

  7. 10 hours ago, timothyguntrip said:

    This could almost lead to another thread about pronunciation of stop names… 

    I say Gemshorn with a hard ‘G’ (as in go) but my colleague says it with a ‘J’ (as in gist)…

    and then there’s Posaune! 

    Indeed. I called in one of our pupils from Germany once to solve this as I don't know anything about German pronunciation. She was very definite that its was Pos-ow-ner. I must admit that I do tend to call it Pos-orn. Then there is Violone which I have heard pronounced Violon-ey. And Richard Popplewell (Holiday Course for Organists at the RAM, Summer 1973) referred to the short piece I wanted some help with as a Choral-ey Prelude! We could get into Diapason as well. Isn't there a famous poem that mentions 'diapasons'? I think in that context I have heard it pronounced di-AP-ason as opposed to diaPAson as I suspect most of us organists do. 

  8. 9 minutes ago, father-willis said:

    Does anyone here happen to know who publishes, "Variations on a theme of Guillaume de Machaut", op 65 Christopher Steel?

    Have you been watching the recital from Truro cathedral, by any chance? Philip Rushforth also played them on his Chester/Priory Records DVD. Can't help with the publisher but don't underestimate how willing busy fellow organists are to engage in a bit of email correspondence and general help. 

  9. I am never sure I have really found the best voluntary for an Advent Carol Service. I can't play the Andrew Carter piece! I tend to think that a Bach OB-lein CP (Nun komm for me) followed by a minor key P&F is the most dignified ending, but I have also tried the WS Lloyd Webber piece on Helmsley and the Cuthbert Harris one on Veni Emmanuel - IMSLP. The Bach Wachet Auf  always features somewhere as does the Karg-Elert. What else should I be considering? (There's a Wachet Auf piece in the OUP Hymn Settings for Organists series which is hilarious but might possibly frighten the natives.) 

    Very happy that this post might be expanded into considering all Advent organ music - ie, for pre-service music too - feel free. I'm ok generally for Advent, tbh, but would value some thoughts on grand post-service music for the evening service.  Is the Rowley Veni Emmanuel piece on anyone's agenda these days. I have used it but sort of hope there's nobody around!!

  10. OK - well, the Six CPs are definitely worth having out this Christmas! I especially like The Angel Gabriel (using the 'other tune'), and The First Nowell. I found just one other volume of his in the end and this is in the Hinrichsen Advent to Whitsuntide series. I only played through the Veni Emmanuel piece but felt this was worth a proper re-visit. 

    There's an awful lot of Christmas material out there and yet for many of us, Christmas is over in a flash, whereas there are always 3 or 4 Sundays in Advent and a good number in Epiphany. I notice though that most cathedrals play the 'Christmas card' as it were right up to The Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple in terms of anthems, so perhaps the playing of Christmas organ music can be extended in similar fashion. Is that appropriate? I'm not going to hijack Tim's thread any further - this is meant to just be about Gordon Phillips... so I am just going to open a new one that relates to this.

  11. Thanks for airing this Tim. I am bound to say that I have struggled to appreciate GP's works over the years. It all began with his Six Carol Preludes which must have been amongst my very earliest purchases in the 70s. It's a long time since I played any of these but I will whip them out and re-appraise them. I do have some volumes of his published by Hinrichsen (perhaps in the Sunday by Sunday series??), but I have never made much of them, I'm afraid. [There are other 60's organist-composers whose works I have recently adopted though. They're in that Novello series with the rather dull grey covers and include the Hurford Dialogues.] 

  12. There were many influences for me. I grew up in a country rectory in Cornwall but was shipped off to be a chorister at St Paul's aged 8. Obviously, we had to go to church on a Sunday but I kicked up a fuss one morning, aged about 6, and my father suggested I came and 'sat with Denis.' Denis Osborne was O&C at St Columb Major and became a lifelong friend. I learned a great deal from sitting with him over the years and he used the splendid St Columb Bryceson very creatively. He was no mean player - he took his FTCL in organ performance - but he craved a third manual. Heles prepared a scheme for electrifying the organ and adding a choir with a detached console opposite, in the Lady Chapel. Thank goodness it never even remotely went ahead, but Denis's craving continued and the 'new' 3-manual Nicholson at St Michael's, Newquay proved too much of a pull in the end. But, of course, St Paul's was a massive influence and it wasn't long before I paid my first visit to the old 'peep hole' organ loft in the company of senior pupil, James Lancelot, to see John Dykes Bower play the voluntary and to be allowed to press the General Cancel. The 5-manual console had 128 stops in those days and was set in a small loft that I can only describe as magical. By contrast, the St Columb organ was a tracker instrument with just 2 manuals and just 24 stops, none of which were labelled 'Tuba', or 'Contra Posaune' or even 'Fern Flute.' No, the St Paul's organ 'did for' the St Columb organ in the mind of this 8-year old and it genuinely caused me to think that mechanical action, small organs were dull. This was 60 years ago! Dykes-Bower took a kindly interest in me - he knew and loved Cornwall, of course, and, arriving early for choir practice in the choir school each morning, he would happily talk to me about organs I should try to visit. I remember him mentioning Lanhydrock, (FHW) which my father subsequently took me to play, but that has since found its way to a church elsewhere in the county. Harry Gabb was also a big figure and he always played on a Saturday when one could count on a decent voluntary. He usually brought a student to turn, but even so, two choristers were always welcome in the loft. WHG used 'more' of the organ it always seemed, than the slightly more reserved DB. You weren't always fully aware of them aurally, aged 10 and standing in the organ loft, but one could often see Dome Tubas, large Dome pedal reeds and the full Dome Diapason Chorus coupled through to the Great (Tuba to Great and Pedal was the stop knob) at the end of the big pieces. When Richard Popplewell (No 3) left, his place was taken, fresh from Oxford, by Christopher Herrick. He was a great breath of fresh air and we had, amongst many other treats, our first taste of Messiaen. He recorded an LP in about 69/70 which I still treasure, and many will know - Transports de joie, Litanies, Bridge Adagio in E, Mathias Processional etc. Wow!

    Of all the St Paul's musicians, it was probably Christopher Dearnley whose influence was greatest. His use of the organ was quite idiosyncratic and interesting. He seemed to enjoy every stop and his recordings reflected this. He also, tantalisingly, opened up one of the larger peep-holes when he was playing so that he could watch one of the Vicars Choral 'beat' downstairs - invariably, Maurice Bevan. This means that a keen-eyed chorister could see much of the RH stop jamb. Until CHD's time, we were not accustomed to hearing organ sound coming solely from the dome, but he would introduce hymns on Dome Tubas or on the Dome Diapason Chorus, and these departments featured in voluntaries. The greatest moment was when he arranged for a friend and me to have an hour on the organ one Saturday before Matins (yes, with one 't' at St Paul's). What a noise we must have made. One of the virgers told me that 'Joey', a tramp, I think, who used to come and sit in the cathedral in the 60's asked him who was playing. The virger said he didn't know... "Sounds like the choristers to me!" said Joey. 

    When I reached Senior School, the organ (a Willis III of mised heritage) was in the middle of remodelling by Percy Daniel. It wasn't a very inspiring instrument, tbh, and then I moved on to Bishop Otter College where there was a large Walker extension organ in a rather beautiful modern chapel. For what it was, this was a splendid instrument though it lacked profundity. While I was there, Willis cleaned it and added a bottom octave to the 16,8,4 Trumpet rank which was helpful. At the cathedral, the Allen reigned supreme with Ian Fox and John Birch getting the absolute best from it. It was this experience that enabled me to respect digital instruments and acknowledging that they have a part to play. And they were, afterall, endorsed by Thalben Ball.

    I'll leave it there!

  13. Picking up on a theme from another thread, and bearing in mind that one of our number specifically mentioned reminiscing, it would be really interesting to hear how, in our different ways, we became interested in, and took up, the organ. I can't go first as I need to take my car to be serviced but I'll join in later...

  14. 12 hours ago, Peter Allison said:

    I just see it as professional jealousy, plain and simple. Yes any person could do what she does, but it just happens to be her. She is young, vibrant etc and has the social media contacts. Hope others can do what she is doing, the Scott bros and Richard McVeigh (100K followers) are also getting the recognition they deserve, where talented ivory tower types are just not "getting it" are are to hung up in their own little worlds

    I don't know AL at all, but I have heard her play two excellent recitals - one of them, especially thought-provoking - and I am aware of her work at Cambridge, chorally and on the organ, and her work in Africa where she is giving children and young people experiences that are just wonderful, and her determination to bring music by women composers and performers more to the fore. I am full of admiration and respect for the way in which she has launched her career and especially for the way in which her approach has inspired so many. Not only is she a staggeringly hard-working musician, but she fully understands the world of social media and the way in which it can be used to everyone's advantage and that seems to me to be a great partnership for someone who has such an inspiring personality. All of what she does is backed up by experience at a high (exceptional) level in a range of instruments including as principal harpist in the NYO, a first class Oxford degree and an organ scholarship at one of the world's principal and historic choral institutions.

    It isn't just Anna, I think there are a number of staggeringly good young people doing exceptional things in their area of musical activity with genuine and heartfelt commitment to 'spreading the word' amongst young people to open their minds to and inspire in them a love of singing, performing and composing (and not just organists). It's something of which, I feel, we can all be very proud. I, for one, am in awe of so many of them. If I were to single out one other name, it would be Tom Daggett who has recently moved to a super new role at Sheffield Cathedral after giving wonderful opportunities to hundreds of young people through his work based at St Paul's Cathedral. I fully expect to be astounded by what he will do at Sheffield and all of us with a passion for what this forum is all about, and for wanting the very best for the world's children and young people will want to follow his work in these coming years, and indeed, to watch how his great work in London is built upon by his newly-appointed successors at St Paul's. 

  15. Well look, all of you - we must keep going! It's really encouraging that lots of folk have popped up with thoughts and posts etc and I'm really pleased. I don't really think we need to change anything - people seem to appreciate the forum for what we are and what we do, and that's to be treasured and respected, I think. I deliberately pushed the parameters a bit with my mention of digital instruments, and I don't think we should push that, whilst accepting that, how ever many years on, these things are with us to stay and they play a part in many organists' lives one way or another. 

    In essence - keep going, everyone!

  16. It's very good indeed to see some renewed activity and some new names coming to the fore.

    Please feel that anyone can raise any topic about organs or organ music regardless of how basic it sounds or how inexperienced you feel. Nobody here is going to knock you back or reply in critical or disbelieving tones so if you come across an interesting organ, or you wonder why some pistons are square and others are round, or you want to identify or get hold of a copy of a piece of music you have heard, ask away. And we're not even fierce if you go off-topic - but it's great to start new threads even if they spring from current or old ones. And, ok, you feel a bit of a duffer if no-one replies to a thread - as happens to me quite frequently, but no need to be discouraged. 

    And do, please, tell us about experiences you have have had, playing or listening or organ building or meeting people, and new music you have discovered. There is quite a lot of new organ music about at the moment. I'm a real sucker for buying music, both new and second hand, and have a strong relationship with all the free sites too, but I am always looking for something new or unusual. I will try to get some posts going to draw attention to new publications that may be of interest. 

    Oh, and incidentally, we're not completely averse to occasional discussions on digital instruments - he said, controversially - they are a fact of life and lots of us play them at home and at church... and the blogs etc on the websites of the major players in the UK are often very interesting. Actually, in the case of Church Organ World (Makin, Johannus, Rodgers & Copeman Hart + sheet organ music) it's Keith Harrington's weekly newsletter that carries useful commentary about new music etc - and it's worth writing to him to ask to be included in the mailing. Whereas, the Viscount website has a blog and info about new installations which is always interesting to keep up with.) 

  17. I'm sorry to go for a dramatic headline, and I wrote along similar lines some years ago, but correspondence on this forum seems to have almost died out, with just a handful of us contributing topics and comments. As I write, there are about 30 people, mostly 'guests' viewing the forum. Could some of you not consider joining and starting some new topics? I think I speak for all existing forum members in saying that we would love it if you did! 

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