Martin Cooke

Jesu Joy - OUP published a 'simple arrangement' by CHT but whether it's 'manuals only' I don't know. Roger Molyneux has a copy - £2.25. The Archer album mentioend above may be your best bet if you are in a hurry.

Searching on iPad in hotel bedroom... Yes, deffo Popplewell - 'Chants d'oiseaux, des poules, des moutons et des vaches' or something very akin to this. You may find Roger Molyneaux has a copy - I think the album was called a Garland for DGAF now I come to think about it.

There is an album of music written in memory of Douglas Fox. (It contained the St Louis comes to Clifton by Howells.) Anyway, there is a piece in there written in the style of Messiaen by (I think) Richard Popplewell. I am away fro home so can't turn it up now, but it's good fun - it also involves a cow and a few other animals but birds definitely feature. Very manageable.

I'm afraid I can't make it out, but let me be the first to ask or a copy of the transcription if you do happen to get around to doing it! Martin.

I really, really don't work for OUP or have anything to do with them other than being a customer for the last n years, but the latest in their Hymn Settings volume is now out. Like the others in the series, it is a treasure trove of interesting and thoroughly engaging new pieces.

OK, thanks very much!

Thank you very much for your suggestions, everyone. Resources, by the way, are SATB young voices - school choir with organ. I didn't know the Howells but what a fabulous piece - beyond us here, but so glad to have discovered it. It led me to a super Wells Cathedral Howells CD whence I have have also enjoyed the New College Mag and Nunc - I've always been a bit dismissive of Howells' settings other than the popular ones - Coll Reg, St Paul's, Westminster and Gloucester. Dix v England's Lane - well, actually, I've always found Dix a bit dreary especially in the simple version where the harmony doesn't change to accommodate whatisname's descant in the AMR. It's possibly a "St Paul's thing" for me - Geoffrey Shaw was a chorister there about 80 years before me! That just makes an interesting link for me. Not sure I have found the ideal anthem yet but I will keep looking. As I say, many thanks, and if any further ideas come to anybody, please do mention them.

There are chorale preludes on Down Ampney (Come down, O love divine) by Sumsion and Henry Ley which could be useful before a service. Afterwards, wouldn't the Mendelssohn march be a possibility? A bit obvious, of course!

We will be hosting a memorial service in a couple of months time for a young artist and art teacher who died last year. If forum members have some suggestions for anthems or hymns, I would be really interested to hear them. I'm thinking along the lines of The heavens are telling and For the beauty of the earth (either the Rutter or as hymn to England's Lane) - what else is there? She painted en plein air beautiful landscapes and was wonderfully creative and inspiring. Think 'art' but also think 'teacher and inspirer' if you can. Lots more ideas will come to me, I am sure but I would like to choose from a wide a 'gathered field' as possible. Many thanks.

I'm afraid I don't know the answer to Dave's last post in this thread, but my eye was caught for the first time by this one. I can't see that any of us have commented on this, and yet it seems to my mind, at least, to be extraordinarily clever. If you follow the Youtube link to Andrew Dewar's other uploads you can see that he recorded various other pieces too whilst incapacitated. It is especially impressive when he starts to use the stick.

Mmm... surely, a Missa Brevis is a mass setting without the creed - this link appears to be to the Gloria of the Leighton in any case.

Ah - sorry - missed that! Of course, as a child, I sang the Schubert in English. Sorry not to have got the point!

All very subjective, but for concert use, I would say that Schubert in G would be the best fit. The whole Mass would make an excellent concert item and can readily be done with organ accompaniment - Carus do an excellent organ edition copy on three staves. I must say that, for concert usage, it could be good to revert to the Book of Common Prayer order of the musical items (with any of these settings) so as to end with a triumphant Gloria, rather than the more penitential Agnus Dei. Would that be terribly controversial?!

Darke in F - splendid and arresting Tuba solo at "And the third day, he rose again..."; Schubert in G - wonderful, atmospheric Credo in this.

Ah, now then, Colin... actually, something you wrote about on the forum around Christmas made me go to your website where I picked up on your playing of the Alan Gray "Slow" piece which made me go and seek it out. Thank you for that! Yes, a delightful collection, but somehow, the Thalben Ball Elegy has never caught my interest, either. In fact, the only GT-B I play is the other Elegy and also Tune in E, a delightful ditty. Ugh! - sorry - this relates to my post re the funeral music.

Many thanks Colin, this is very much the territory I have found myself in. I have, however, discovered in all of this, and following the Bath link rather than the nursing one, that the astronomer, William Herschel who, amongst other things discovered Uranus, was quite a musician, and composed two organ concertos, but IMSLP has drawn a blank regarding any scores - but his son, John (also an astronomer) who lived in Bath, wasn't a musician! Sorry - a non-story! [Obviously, I believed I was on to something initially with the Herschels and Bath, but it was the wrong one who was musical and Bath-orientated!]

I've been asked to play for the funeral of a senior nurse. Can anybody think of any music that might be particularly appropriate to the nursing profession? As a post script to this - the other possibility would be a piece linked in some way to the city or environs of Bath - I can't think of anyone or anything! Ernest Maynard arranged the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba but I don't think that's what I need.

There may be a few MHs but... if you see, the date for the post about his MBE is 2010.

If you want to hear it in full, it's available from the CD Advent at St Paul's.

Mmm... exciting! It's by Andrew Carter and... I think... it's in that Advent for Choirs volume by OUP - not sure of that without looking and my copy isn't here.

I think some forum members would find some of these interesting - especially the ones recorded for the Sundays in Advent - they are by members of the music staff - Andrew Carwood, Simon Johnson (playing Nun Komm on the new crypt organ), Peter Holder and Rachel Mahon.

The new Lent and Passiontide volume has just arrived.

Ha!

Yes - I had thought of alluding to this very point in my original post—conversely, we spent ages with the person who manages the stewards. [still no news on the supposed new organ at Canterbury, is there??]

This is partly connected to that other thread about organists being second class citizens... A little bit of a debate going on at home last night... after watching the final of Strictly... could the concept be translated to music? Of course, I have no idea good those amateur dancers are in professional terms - (are we talking about chalk and cheese?) - but it seems to me to be impossible to imagine that you could take a group of people away from their day job, and with no previous training at all, get them up to the standard required to play, say, the Emperor Piano Concerto, or the Mozart Clarinet Concerto - or, perhaps a Widor Symphonie? Is that right? [i realise it doesn't matter is it's right or wrong as the populace wouldn't be interested anyway!.] And can you imagine training someone from scratch to accompany evensong - you know, three psalms using psalter and chant book, Murrill in E and Blessed be the God and Father - that sort of thing - Oh! And an 'in' and 'out' voluntary - perhaps a little improvisation before the last verse of the hymn to cover the collection!! And yet, the people who do this day in day out get virtually no recognition at all. I happened to be looking at the website of our just-departed Rector who has gone to a new parish. One of the menus says - 'PEOPLE.' The Rector, Curate and several assistants are mentioned along with the churchwardens, virger etc, but no mention of the organist. Watch out for the New Years Honours again - how many organists will be listed?