Martin Cooke

Good to see that bwv572 has written in about John Winter, rather an unsung hero of the organ world in Cornwall over many years. I knew of him throughout my boyhood as my father was an Honorary Canon of Truro, though I was away at St Paul's. John always seemed to me a shy and reserved man who hated the limelight and anything of a showy nature. For example, I'm sure he was happier upstairs playing and leaving Henry Doughty, the assistant, to conduct the choir. He played recitals all over Cornwall but kept to a rather safe repertoire really. I recall a Pastorale by Zipoli, Crown Imperial, Purcell Trumpet Tune and Air arranged Dupre. He recorded the Harris Sonata in A minor. Like everyone over time, he loved the Truro organ and was gentlemanly in his command of it. The fact that the Tuba was tucked away at the back of the chamber rather suited him, if you see what I mean. I recall two visits to the loft for evensong. He played Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam, on the first occasion, and allowed me to play the voluntary on a subsequent occasion - I was only 15 or something. Seeing that I had selected the Coleman/Stanley Suite for Organ, and with only seconds available to register and get my bearings, he drew the Tuba and said, "I suppose you want to use this." A year or two later he invited me to give one of the summer evening recitals which I much enjoyed. John also liked his pipe, and would stoke it enthusiastically upon emerging from the side door into the close. in August 1977 he took delivery of a brand new Ford Escort 1.6GL . How do I remember that?! Well, my father did the same and, actually, it was 1977 that I gave that summer recital - it's all coming back to me now - because I met John in the close to be let into the cathedral, and I arrived in my father's new Escort and was amused to find John waiting in his. Enough Cooke anecdotes for one summer! Ah, but of course, John was first of all assistant to Guillaume Ormond about whom anecdotes abound: Things like driving down from Truro to Penzance to give a recital at St Mary's, coming back on the train and reporting his car stolen upon his return home... they go on and on! A fine organist and pianist, I understand, in his day but terribly unreliable in his final years in office.

Well, slightly more amusingly... Many readers will know the superb setting of the evening canticles by Sir William Walton which were commissioned by Chichester in the 80s. We need to set alongside this John's choral conducting movements which could be the tiniest indications imaginable on the one hand and yet dramatic and sudden, rather like a controlled explosion on the other. He conducted from the west end of the cantoris stalls where there there was little room for flamboyance, but, as I suggest, there was always a degree of drama about JB's presence there just on the end of the stalls. Anyway, the canticles were first released and published by Novello and it was from these copies that the choir learned the music and first performed them in the cathedral. I think Priory recorded them. Then, at some stage, they were reissued by Novello and the pagination had changed. And so, one Sunday afternoon, JB went 'downstairs' after playing the psalms ready to conduct the Walton Magnificat leaving Ian Fox to play and me to turn. By now, the Chichester choir were using the new edition of the music with its altered pagination. All started well but there reached a page turn when in the old edition there had been a major choir entry immediately over the page. Obviously forgetting himself for a moment, as the chorister turned the page John gave a large gesticulation with his right hand which caused his full length surplice sleeve to partially cover his head - all of which would have been amusing enough had there actually been a choir entry over the page - which there no longer was in the new edition! I also remember the great pride he took in his published last verse arrangement of 'Everton' in the RSCM volume from the 70s, and I recall seeing manuscripts of this that he had sent to John Dykes Bower for his approval and comment before submission to the RSCM. It's quite a complex, 'grinding' re-harmonisation which many congregations would find off-putting, I can't help feeling. For the nonce, I thought Dykes-Bower's own submission on 'Nun Danket', and also Christopher Dearnley's 'Oriel' were both superb and all the better for being much simpler harmonically. Not sure if this volume is still in print, but if anyone ever has the chance to use the CHH Lloyd harmonisations of 'Laus Deo', they'll make your hair stand on end. The second of the two, written for "With his seraph train before him..." is magnificent but would need rehearsing with the (strong) choir or they would stop singing in wonder, I cannot help but feel. There is no doubt that JB was an absolute legend in his own lifetime and though he visited us here at school twice in his first retirement at Salisbury, I am only sorry that I never fulfilled my wish to get in touch again upon his move back to Chichester a couple of years ago. I think the last time we spoke, he rang me to tell me that the University of Sussex had redesigned its academic dress and I ought to buy the new bachelor hood to replace my rather horrid grey fur square one!

As is the devastating nature of such sudden things as strokes, I hear he was in cracking form as recently as the annual Good Friday Royal Choral Society 'Messiah' in the Albert Hall. It would be good to see some reminiscences appear here about JB. I had half a dozen lessons with him in my final year at Bishop Otter College, Chichester, and often assisted in the organ loft for him and Ian Fox in the eighties. He was fearsome in many respects and yet very encouraging in the lessons. The choir was fabulous. JB's antics could be extraordinary. I remember being in the loft one Sunday, and he was 'downstairs' to conduct the canticles which Ian Fox accompanied. The anthem was Wesley's 'The Wilderness', a piece which by custom, JB always accompanied. Thus, during the early part of the Apostles' Creed Ian jumped off the bench and we generally readied ourselves for JB's arrival in the loft. But he didn't come - and Ian hadn't practised 'The Wilderness'! We peered disbelievingly over the top of the screen and John had returned to his stall in the quire for the responses. Up aloft, 'tenterhooks' didn't come into it! It wasn't until the beginning of the third collect that we finally heard the creak of the loft stairs as JB finally came up, and without a glance at either of us, took his position at the Allen console. There was another amusing escapade when John played part of 'Hallelujah, Gott zu loben' as the voluntary, using the quiet section to play the choir out before launching into the fugue. I hadn't come across this piece before and being in on the action was quite something. There must have been a bit of a slip in the pedals towards the end - (for which anyone could be forgiven) - because as soon as it was over, John leapt from the bench, pulling it back a couple of feet and got down on his hands and knees and waggled bottom E flat of the pedalboard vigorously to give the impression some mechanical fault had caused the slip. He was a great raconteur and loved telling stories of John Dykes Bower, Howells and exploits of his own. I remember a story of an occasion when he went off to Norwich to give a recital in the cathedral and during the Fiddle Fugue in D minor (I'm sure it's not referred to as that now) the blower burnt out and the recital had to be abandoned. He was very keen on academic dress and was, for a time, president of the Burgon Society. I can't quite remember the actual detail of this, but I recall him telling me about the 'passing on' of DMus robes. I think Howells bequeathed JB his DMus outfit which he subsequently wore when awarded his Lambeth DMus, or was it Thalben Ball's. He was very interested in the fact that John Dykes Bower, after his final service at St Paul's gave me his first DMus hood - something I still have and treasure. I would love to hear other people's recollections of John's organ music playing as I didn't get to hear very much of it - lots of service playing, but not a great deal in terms of actual organ music. A few pieces used as voluntaries come to mind - Fugue from Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, two or three Rheinberger last movements (No 3 in G several times), Howells - Rhapsody 3, Hollins' Trumpet Minuet - oh, and Arthur Hutchings 'Processional' - the second of those two pieces published by OUP before the blue and white covers came in - a good piece!

First - I am sure our host won't mind me mentioning that Harrison and Harrison have a new website. Second - On page 39 of the May/June edition of 'Choir and Organ' there is an ad from OUP about two volumes of Hymn Miniatures by Rebecca Groom de Velde. Volume 2 is new but I had never come across volume 1. You can go to the OUP website and download sample material including whole pieces based on Adeste Fideles (an excellent fanfare intro to this hymn for this year's carol service) and Abbots Leigh (sadly in C major rather than D). I have only managed to play these through with my laptop balanced perilously on top of the piano, but I am sure others would enjoy looking at them and would agree that these are really worthwhile little gems not just for playing but also for those studying composition and improvisation. Have a look.

It's so easy to go off-topic, isn't it? In my world (education) thought was once given to the collective noun for school governors in independent schools such as the one where I work. It was decided it should be a 'bidet' of governors, on the grounds that they add a touch of class but nobody really knows what they're for!

The third of the meditations is a beautiful and well worth a look. Some of his music is available on line from the IMSLP site.

Has anyone ever come across organ music by Trevor Hold, by any chance? I was listening, the other evening, to a terrifically exciting pair of pieces for Alto Sax and Piano, and I see from the web that he wrote some organ music which might be equally exciting, but I know not who published it.

I fear there there is just an element of being too clever for one's own good about this. I can think of many occasions when I was directing music when we undertook anthems and such like that were just a bit too difficult for an amateur choir. I fear, though, that I would be terribly disappointed with the end result of how this service comes over especially with regard to the final hymn which is, let's face it, quite a mess. I tend to agree with the other correspondent, too, who mentions the latest round of descants from King's. These and the Southwark ones are just, in my view, too complex for the good of the overall context of music-making. It would be tedious if we never took risks, of course, but the last verse of "O Come" from Southwark could serve as a very helpful illustration of a risk too far. I can't quite tell what's gone wrong - a concatenation of circumstances, I fancy - but once a large, unrehearsed congregation gets on a roll and doesn't understand what on earth is going on with strange organ parts which many lay people can find off-putting, trumpet solos, and wildly different descants, there really is no controlling things. We introduced the wonderful Andrew Carter descant to O little town of Bethlehem a few years ago - (King's used it once about ten years ago) - but there is some element of it which makes the congregation (here) stop believing that they need to hold "O" at the beginning of the penultimate line of the last verse for two counts - O come to us, abide with us, and we had to give it up after a second try. Sometimes there is no accounting for these matters but I think there was a "perfect storm" (as it were) in "O come" at Southwark, unfortunately.

Are you sure this wasn't the well-known version of said Toccata , arranged Ligeti??

Yes. As an infant, my clergyman father used to take me into St Michael's, Newquay, when Nicholsons were installing the new 3-manual in about 1963. It was voiced by Roger Yates and designed by him and John Dykes-Bower. Fast-forward and I found myself frequently playing at St Michael's as a teenager and later for concerts, services and recitals. It was thought to be one of the finest organs in Cornwall and was recorded by the BBC in the days when they broadcast Organ Recitals. Indeed, I turned the pages for someone whose recital was being recorded once. The organ wasn't entirely satisfactory. The swell wind pressure was never properly stabilised so that the notes shook in an unattractive manner when many stops were drawn. I once found myself at the console with a nameless Oxbridge eminence from the organ world who disliked the organ a great deal and spent the half an hour we were there improvising on the Great Quintaton! In about 1985, I fear that someone lit a fire inside the organ and apart from the pedal Bourdon which was transplanted elsewhere in Cornwall, the organ and much of the church was completely destroyed. The story goes that, as a cost-saving measure, the organ was not separately insured and so although the church was very beautifully rebuilt, there was little or no money to provide a new pipe organ. Thus a large 3-manual Wyvern was installed (which I played for the service of re-dedication in about 1994. I believe that Lance Foy is installing or has recently installed, a new organ based upon the organ from St Paul's church, Truro. I haven't seen it, heard it or have knowledge of the scheme. The Yates/Nicholson organ certainly had a splendid 4-rank Great mixture that made its presence felt and there was a nice resonant acoustic in the church prior to the fire to which the organ was well-suited. Many, many years ago, I played (as a child) the organ of Kilkhampton church and am pretty sure that Yates was involved there. PCND (a frequent and erudite contributor) knows this organ well and there are other references to it in this blog somewhere.

Thank you, Paul, for sharing these - they look superb. Martin

That's the chap.

It was the dome tubas (16, 8 & 4) that were replaced in 2008 and, I'm pretty sure, also the two chorus reeds that were moved to the dome from the Solo organ in the 72/77 rebuild. I haven't heard the new ones in the flesh but they sound stunningly magnificent on the Priory DVD by Simon Johnson, and I think they probably give any tuba anywhere a jolly good run for their money, made all the more special by their very location in the dome area, of course. The Trompette Militaire gets maligned because of its provenance but it is superb - surely one of the most magical trumpet stops anywhere in the world. The Royal Trumpets above the west door should not be forgotten, of course!

Thank you so much for responding JOR - most helpful. Of course, the other thing I've come to realise is that you don't need to play the semis 3+3 just because they start on a triad, in some instances I've been playing them 4+2.

They demonstrate the organ in St John's once a week - v informal and friendly, and you get invited to the loft and I reckon you could play if you wanted. Look out on You Tube for the demo of this stop by Philip Stopford - (have I got his name right? Yes!) ALL his stuff is top quality (compositions) by the way and well worth listening to on You Tube.

Well... Do you know Treble Uplift by Andrew Fletcher? This was originally published by Oecumuse but they are excellent, all of them - as are the Organ Uplift volumes as well. There is also the Novello Book of Descants with some excellent examples by Christopher Robinson, John Scott (try his St Clement) and others. Also... Richard Marlow (Trinity Cambridge) a volume of two part descants - a speciality of his.

Yes, it's a great descant and that recording from St Paul's is outstanding. If you happen to get hold of a copy, would you mind sharing it with me? I've been wanting a copy for ages. I always think another wonderful moment on that St Paul's recording is when it gets to the last verse of the National Anthem and Christopher Dearnley uses the old Cymbale on the Dome Diapason Chorus - you can hear it sparkling away on top of everything else - magical. The Dome mixture work has been revised since then so the Cymbale has gone.

I feel this is a great piece and I have often sat down to get my hands and feet around it, the most recent time being yesterday evening. However, I am always foxed by the fingering of those little ascending semiquaver passages - six semiquavers in octaves followed by two bold chords - for example - bars 6 - 8. I confess that I usually start (in the RH) with thumb on the E flat for the first three semis, and then thumb again for the second three semis starting on D, but this can be hit and miss (of course) and I just wonder whether I am missing some more elegant and safe fingering solution to this passagework, or whether I should put in some sedulous practice so that I nose dive more accurately when I re-place my hands for the second time, if you see what I mean. This is where my lack of early discipline in learning and practising scales and arpeggios on the piano catches me out badly. The trouble is that this little argeggiatic motif appears so frequently during the piece and in so many different contexts in terms of the notes, that, for me, it renders, an otherwise, reasonably straightforward piece rather unapproachable. If anyone who has this piece at their fingertips has got these things sorted I could do with some advice, please!

Greetings, Justadad I think you need the RSCM boxes - see their website. All the best; Martin

Ooh Gosh, no - that's not at all what I had in mind - the CP at St Paul's is much more gentle than the Ophicleide.

Well, I wouldn't include Chichester in a short list, I don't think - St Paul's would be at the top - as someone has said - presence, what Dearnley called "playing the buildings," the range of sounds and timbres and not just the big reeds. Truro is extraordinary - even well down the nave it has incredible presence - (sorry to use that word a second time). I just cannot help thinking that adding a Willis style quiet Contra Posaune 32 (just like the ones at Salisbury and in the chancel at St Paul's) would have added something worth having. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being absolutely beyond the pale, how great a sin would it have been if one had been added at the last rebuild? And if it would have been such a shocking thing to do, why would this have been so much worse than adding a pedal divide or bringing the Tuba forward?

Many thanks everyone - so I presume that the title of the first piece I downloaded is actually that of the track before - ? I have the Impromptu in print (York Album and Fanfare for Francis) and also recorded. Martin

I wonder if anyone can solve a quick mystery! Having read somewhere that FJ's favourite own composition was his Impromptu for Bairstow's 70th birthday, I sought it out on itunes. There appear to be two pieces with the same or a similar name - the one recorded by John Scott Whiteley is the piece I was expecting from what I remember of the score in the York Organ Album. However, there is a second piece called Impromptu for Edward Bairstow's 70th on a recording by FJ which is not the same piece at all. I don't suppose that FJ wrote two different Impromptus for EB - could anyone have a quick listen to the snippet on their itunes account and tell me what the piece is on the FJ recording that may incorrectly be labelled Impromptu for EB? Sorry, I've made this sound laborious. Martin

Well, it's not that easy to work out exactly what you're doing - you say you're a "non-musician" but you must have some musical knowledge, surely? The answer to your question about stretches of a 10th etc is that one tends to use the pedals when playing hymns so the bass part would be covered by these (coupled to the manual that you are playing on) leaving the two hands free to cover the tenor, alto and treble part. Of course, you can often (usually) redistribute the parts between the two hands so that you play three notes with the right hand and just the bass of certain chords with the left hand. This is essential on a piano, of course, but on an organ it is good not to use pedals in every verse just to create variety. Don't count on leaving out a part altogether - if the part you omit is the third of the chord, the chord will sound very "bare" (wrong) without it. Hymn books are, as much as anything, a matter of taste and familiarity. I don't care for Hymns Old and New partly because I didn't grow up with it, but I also find it less easy to play from because of the way the music is laid out. Almost any other standard hymn book is easier to read, in my experience. As I say, these things are a matter of taste, but a good alternative standard hymn book would be Common Praise which is the latest version of Hymns Ancient and Modern. The notation is very clearly laid out and you will find some of the better, more durable "modern" hymns in it. You don't need to destroy or abandon Hymns Old and New - but why not look at Common Praise and see if you find it easy to play from? The whole business about keys for hymns is about the circumstances in which they're used - E is the highest note you can reasonably expect a congregation to reach, I suggest but a lot of them will be growlers singing an octave lower so you don't need to be too concerned. Hymns sound brighter in certain keys - I never play Ye holy angels bright in C major, for example - always better in D. The other major hymn book is the English Hymnal - all beautifully laid out on the page with more (unknown) hymns for feasts and special occasions - probably (arguably anyway) regarded as the most scholarly of all the major hymn books. As to the wisdom of playing hymns when relatively inexperienced, I would only say that a lot of able organists who can play very complex pieces from the standard organ repertoire are foxed by hymns for some strange reason. I don't think you can do any harm by trying some early on in your organ playing career - just as it's good to try to transpose from an early stage. I hope that's a help - keep going! Martin.

Ah! Well, I have a copy of A Westminster Suite by Westbrook - I haven't looked at it for ages but I recall that it was a bit indigestible!