msw
-
Posts
152 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by msw
-
-
========================
Any of the Bach Trio Sonatas or Trio-style Preludes would convince anyone of technical and overall musical ability.
Only an absolute musician can play Vierne's "Berceuse" properly, to the extent that it will move people deeply.
MM
The other thing about trios is that they are easily registered - and given the limits of most audition processes, that is an important time-saving factor! At one audition, I was given just 25 minutes to prepare one piece of Bach, one other contrasting piece, a psalm and a choral accompaniment to be done with the choir present at a later stage. This preparation time was over in a heartbeat; I finished it having not even had a chance to open my copy of the Bach, let alone try out possible stops for it, so I had nothing for it but to choose one I knew inside out and that could be registered "blindly."
-
I think that funerals, for obvious reasons, are a more sensitive area and we organists should prepare to be a bit more open and flexible when it comes to a family requesting permission for a friend or relative to play. I agree that they should be gently reminded about the incumbent organist's entitlement to a fee, but as has been said above, it must be a gentle reminder rather than a blunt statement of rights or policy.
Having said that, I did have a pertinent experience about 7 years ago when a friend of mine passed away. On a number of prior occasions, he had expressed ... a hope? a wish? - that I would play for his funeral; I never found out if he had formalised such an expression in his Will or any other document, but I remember being called by my grandmother (a friend of his) with the news of his passing away and a reminder that he had asked me to play for the funeral.
I was duly put in touch with the Parish Priest at the Church where he had practiced and where his funeral was to take place. The Priest told me that the Church's own organist would be "mortally offended" if anyone else played for the service, and that whilst I would obviously be welcome as a guest at the service, I would not be able to play, regardless of my friend's wishes when he had been alive. I knew better than to try and argue the case, so I let it go. Sadly, a subsequent commitment at work prevented me from even attending the funeral, although I have paid tribute to my friend by playing some of his organ compositions over the years. (Amongst them are finely crafted chorale preludes and a set of Variations on "This joyful Eastertide" which have worked nicely as voluntaries around the appropriate time of year; he heard me play these pieces in public before his death, so I was fortunate to learn his suggested interpretation of the music and can ensure that, in some wise, he lives on through that.)
-
So, do I understand you are prepared to take a fee, having done nothing to earn it?
There's the rub, I think, but it can be answered in two words: "redundancy pay."
As the appointed Organist of one's church, one has the right to play for all services requiring music and to receive the customary fee for those services. No-one has the right to tell a church's Organist that s/he may not play for any service, as that would technically count as dismissing the Organist or making him/her redundant, in which case s/he could quite legitimately claim severance or redundancy pay. Bringing in another organist, or having a CD recording played, renders the Organist (temporarily) redundant. QED!
Having said that, it's not on for an organist to charge if a deputy is brought in to cover his/her foreseen absence - I wouldn't dream of charging, for instance, if I were away giving a recital and my church had to find someone to cover me. (Actually, in my current post I'm responsible for finding that deputy myself and notifying the Office and Clergy as appropriate, but the principle is still there.) Similarly, I wouldn't charge if the wedding or funeral in question were conducted without music at all - it'd be hard to argue redundancy if one's services were never going to be required in the first place!
-
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.
It could simply be a mislabelling of CD track; such things are known to happen from time to time.
There is a listing of FJ's complete works (albeit last updated five years ago) on the York Minster website, as follows:
http://www.yorkminster.org/documents/downloads229.pdf
As far as can be seen, there's only the one Impromptu, duly dedicated to ECB on his 70th birthday.
-
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.
It could simply be a mislabelling of CD track; such things are known to happen from time to time.
There is a listing of FJ's complete works (albeit last updated five years ago) on the York Minster website, as follows:
http://www.yorkminster.org/documents/downloads229.pdf
As far as can be seen, there's only the one Impromptu, duly dedicated to ECB on his 70th birthday.
-
Any news of where Alex Mason (St David's, Wales) might be going? I understand he was always highly regarded when at Lichfield.
I think he's off to be DoM at Shrewsbury School...
-
Quite enjoyed it myself, although it was rather disjointed. It was particularly thoughtful of HRH to ask consistent questions of selected performers - including the Westminster Abbey Choristers and BBC Phil string players - about their perception of Parry from performing his work. And I'm sure the composer would have been thoroughly delighted with the excellent performances everyone gave!
A pity we didn't get complete uninterrupted accounts of everything (and yes, HRH's "marvellous" began to pall after about the 50th time they intercut to him mid-performance!) and a shame that room wasn't found for other neglected masterpieces like the Piano Concerto or the other symphonies, although I suppose they had to have the "pops" in there somewhere... On the other hand, if HRH's aim was partly to inspire a search for more unknown masterpieces, he certainly encouraged me to get digging.
-
Why did they do Blaenwern in F major (a dull, flat key) and not the more usual G (much better and brighter)?
I suspect it may have had something to do with the descant (O'Donnell's perhaps, or Andrew Gant's?) Those top As in the last couple of lines would have become top Bs if the tune had been left in G ... might have been even more thrilling, of course, but it could be that O'Donnell and Quinney tried it and thought it a bit OTT. (Or perhaps they felt that the boys might have overstretched themselves, having already ascended to B flats in the Parry and with the need to deliver some quite low stuff in the Mealor later on?)
-
35K a year and a free house, but only 1 day off in 7 -- reasonable remuneration for such commitment?...
I'm not sure if the outgoing DoM has an allowance, but I'm fairly sure he owns his house, so this appears to be a new part of the package. Certainly, in the 13 years he's been at Blackburn, the job has grown vastly, with 10 Choirs to run where once there were just two or three - to say nothing of the year-long professional concert series that has partly grown out of the organ rebuild, nor of the many Musical Outreach projects now essential to maintaining the Cathedral's musical life and strengthening its overall role within the community. Furthermore the Cathedral is developing a new Close in its precincts which is intended to include accommodation for clergy and the key members of lay staff, including the DoM, Organists and Choral Scholars. Providing a house or housing allowance is very likely an interim measure until the Close project is completed, at which point the Music Staff will all be required to "live in."
-
I've only played Magdalen and Queen's in Oxford, though I've certainly heard Christchurch, Exeter and Merton. For all that people are sometimes - how shall I put it? - less than complimentary about Magdalen, I confess I find it intriguing. I take my hat off to all those over the years who have had to "do battle with it" in order to achieve convincing results in choral repertoire by Stanford, Elgar, Wood, Parry, Stainer (etc.) but I could happily spend whole days on it wading through Bach, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Bruhns, Bohm, Bruna, Frescobaldi, Cabanilles, de Sola, Couperin, de Grigny, Stanley, Handel, Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Purcell, Mozart, Liszt, Rheinberger, Mendelssohn... The clarity of the voicing and the famed Magdalen resonance can give a wonderful flavour to much organ literature in the right hands!
It also strikes me that such a specification would go down well in a Parish Church needing something a bit more varied than three pedal flues and a great big wodge of 8' tone on all the manuals - though I realise that the appropriate specification for any such building is ultimately steered by the acoustics and by the fundamental needs of that Church's music. And of course there's the issue of space; reading between the lines of a letter written to OR by a certain Mr Mander, it seems likely that many headaches were suffered whilst considering how to provide a decent pedal section within frustratingly tight constraints... The result may not be to everyone's taste, but the job's as good as it could have been under the circumstances.
Having said all that, I find Queen's a much more enjoyable instrument to play. The specification has the edge over Magdalen's via the inclusion of a 16' flue on the primary manual - not only does it add a touch of grandeur (appropriate for the Romantic choral repertoire I mentioned earlier), it works beautifully up an octave as do several of the other stops (for that matter, the 4' and 2' stops work very well down an octave) so that many effective combinations can be produced out of a limited scheme. And it's a lovely comfortable console at Queen's!
-
I know they are not thought to be by Bach (making my opening to this post something of a contradiction), so what should I put down on the weekly notice sheet? I'm highly tempted to just attribute them to Bach (especially as they've all been assigned BWV numbers), and I doubt anyone will query it!
Is anyone on here planning to do anything in particular for voluntaries during Lent?
For me, "attrib. Bach" always works. They're good pieces, and they may as well have someone's name attached, even if we can't be 100% sure it's the right name!
And as for voluntaries during Lent - well, we get chatter before the service even if there's no music. We have a tradition of Middle Voluntaries at Kendal during BCP services of the word, so there's always scope for something quiet and reflective and penitential (although Matins is about to bite the dust, except on 5th Sundays, so Evensong and Funerals will be the only remaining "Middle Voluntary" services) BUT since Sundays don't count as part of Lent, I'll probably let rip at the end of services all the same.
-
Did you consider "Gaudete" at all? Not only do my Boys love it, I've even found it easy to teach to prospective (i.e. non-singing) boys on Choir Open Days - the refrain sinks in quite quickly, and they can learn some simple Latin as a bonus.
-
Here at Kendal, I'll be treating whoever turns up to Noel Rawsthorne's "Improvisation on Good King Wenceslas." I hope we can get away with the carol of the same name as Introit or Post-Communion hymn too - the caveat being that since we ditched Hymns Old & New in favour of Common Praise, said carol is no longer in our hymnals so we'll have to prep some word sheets instead... (I've never been a fan of Hymns O&N, but this is one reason to lament its loss.)
I believe there's a piece by Robert Cockcroft entitled "A Good King chills out for Spring" which comes highly recommended for St Stephen's Day, although I've neither heard it nor played it myself.
-
Our menu at KPC:
Wancin Woyal *
The darkest midnight in December - arranged by myself from a traditional tune in the Oxford Book of Carols
Of the Father's love begotten +
I wonder as I wander - arr. Barry Ball
It came upon the midnight clear ~
O little town of Bethlehem ~
Away in a manger £
The Angels and the Shepherds - arr. C. H. Trevor
While shepherds watched %
We three Kings - arr. Neary
Lully lulla lullay - Stopford
Hark! the herald angels sing £
O come, all ye faithful £
And for the organ voluntaries:
In dulci jubilo - Bach
Prelude and Fugue in E - Lubeck
* descant by James O'Donnell
+ last verse by Richard Lloyd
~ last verse by David Hill
£ arrangement / last verse by David Willcocks
% plain and unadorned by any descant or last verse arrangement - some tunes really don't need such treatment, and I truly believe this is one of them
It all worked a treat, and I couldn't have been prouder of my Boys, Men or voluntary choir for all their respective efforts. It was our new Vicar's first Carol Service with us, so it was a chance to give him a further measure of what our music's all about; the only drawback was that I didn't get to read a lesson this year - perhaps because they invited our MP to read and had to boot me off the list to fit him in. (Our MP is the excellent Tim Farron, however, and he read extremely well - so I mustn't complain!)
We had a good-sized congregation of about 200-300; having certain other things to deal with, I didn't really get the chance to count precisely!
-
I realise it's a bit late to help on this occasion, but lest it may be of any use in future (or to anyone else):
The RAF March Past (Walford Davies) exists in an eminently-playable piano transcription, my copy of which was given to me by a former Kendal Vicar (Revd John Hodgkinson) priced 2d...! It transfers easily onto the organ too.
-
I am sorry to hear of this. It is most fitting that a recital in his memory will be given in St Werburgh's Chester. The original instrument may be a Binns, but the rebuild by Sixsmith is artful, masterful and a pleasure both to hear and to play - a testament to the outstanding work done by this man.
-
My musically well informed organ tuner has been encouraging me to make a CD of our organ. (His father has been a church organist and produces CDs, so maybe some extra influence there!).
I have looked into various aspects, time required, expenses and so on. But I am concerned about editing and 'takes'. A local choral society paid very large sums of money to have a number of 'unsuitable chords' digitally retuned for a recent CD. In a neighbouring church just a few years ago the parish organist was somewhat baffled when he acted as page turner for a leading concert organist; who amongst other things, did 28 takes of a Bach Prelude and Fugue - so the CD has a number of pieces that are cobbled together from numerous 'takes', yet this organist is quite capable of presenting stunning concerts of difficult repertoire with never a note out of place. My friend cannot enjoy that CD because he knows how many tracks are made up from various takes. So it makes me wonder, if someone can pull off a top performance, when does one decide enough is enough? How many 'takes' in a recording session is fair, musically speaking? I am aware that we all strive for various levels of perfection within our ability, but how far should technology take over?
Recording can be a demanding business: just as the presence of a live audience can create a psychological pressure on a recitalist - even a really superb player - so too can the presence of a microphone. Even if you've practised the music up to the point where it flows out as naturally as your own breath, you can still make mistakes! And even if you make it through a piece in only one take with no mistakes, chances are (depending upon the location of the recording venue) you will need additional takes to eliminate traffic noise, aircraft noise, drunks singing along with you outside the church (etc.) which won't have been apparent to you during the take but will certainly have been apparent to the microphone. In the context of multiple takes on a long evening, you'll be getting more and more fatigued and by the end of your session you'll be lucky to make it through a single take without error, simply as a result of muscles tensing up.
It's worth noting that a "take" doesn't necessarily mean a complete performance of the whole piece being recorded. For every recording I've ever done, each different producer and sound engineer has advised beforehand that "we're going to need at least two complete takes of each piece or movement, and then if we need anything further we'll do little bits to cover joins." So, one might play a Bach Fugue through twice (Takes 1 & 2) during which the producer will be making notes on his/her score of caught notes, slips, smudges, extraneous noises. S/he will then say something like, "it's mostly there now, but we still don't have a clean version of bar 29. Could you go in from bar 20 and stop after about bar 35?" (Take 3) If an ambulance goes soaring past during that, you'll do those bars yet again (Take 4) and if the producer is satisfied, you can put that piece away and move on to the next. Should you therefore be in a venue in or near London, you may therefore have to do dozens of takes even for simple pieces (which, incidentally, is why such ensembles as St George's Chapel Choir Windsor seldom record in their own venue - much less tiring than having to re-do pieces over and over on account of low-flying Heathrow air traffic!) or record very late at night / early in the morning when human activity and noise outside will be minimal. It's possible to have false starts as a result of car alarms starting right before you play; you must also allow the acoustic to fade to silent again after any extraneous noise so that you can start playing into "emptiness."
Even "live recordings" done during an actual performance get done in this way. The producer may call the players back afterwards to play everything over again without audience, and might well have done some sneaky takes of rehearsals beforehand. Angela Hewitt's benchmark Hyperion recording of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" was famously done as a "live" recital for the production crew after two days of proper recording sessions; the producers essentially used their recording of that live performance on the finished disc but needed to go back to the material from the earlier sessions to correct a few minor smears - and presumably the odd cough or creaking chair from the small live audience! Other celebrated "live" recordings of recent years, such as the EMI Mahler Symphony No. 10 (Berlin Philharmonic / Simon Rattle) or the Hyperion Rachmaninov Piano Concertos (Stephen Hough with the Dallas Symphony / Andrew Litton) were done by the recording team shadowing those performers whilst on tour with those works, recording each live concert plus a few rehearsals over a period of several days, ensuring that the finished disc has the best of each performance without any of the audience noise, except of course for some rapturous applause at the endings!
Coming to the question of "how many takes are reasonable for a recording session," you need to think about how much music you intend to record and how much time you're paying for to get it recorded. My own CD at Bath Abbey ("Colours of the Klais" on Cloister Records) has a running time of about 66 minutes, which took about 8 hours in total over two consecutive nights. There are nine works recorded on it, in 14 tracks - two are major works, the Boellmann "Suite Gothique" and the Durufle "Veni Creator," each of which was done on a separate night and each of which needed up to 50 takes, large and small, leaving us with room to record a few smaller pieces before or afterwards. Pacing the sessions was a challenge in itself: I knew that the Durufle in particular would be very fiddly because it takes no prisoners and is also quiet for most of its length (hence traffic interruptions could ruin many otherwise-perfect takes) hence it had to wait until the end of the session when traffic noise would be at a minimum - so I had to choose easier shorter pieces to go before it so as not to wear myself out too much and not have the energy to make it through the work at least twice...
It all depends upon who is producing your recording and how high you are aiming with it. Should you be working for a label - even a small one - bear in mind that they have a degree of quality control and would therefore expect to produce a flawless or as-near-to-flawless-as-humanly-possible performance on the finished disc. If you are going to market the recording yourself, selling it only in the church porch plus in friendly local record shops that will stock it, it won't matter so much and the odd flaw in your performance or in the recording ambience will not matter. Even so you would still be wise to put a disclaimer on the sleeve notes, stating that the recording was made in single takes with no editing, or that the church is situated in a busy suburbian location and as a result there is a significant amount of traffic noise on the recording ("but we hope this will not spoil your enjoyment of the music") --- you never know who might snap up a copy and send it to Organist's Review or Church Music Quarterly, where the quality of performance and recording will be mercilessly scrutinised and commented upon in review pages!
If, as your tuner thinks, your organ is worth recording, I'd say go for it and good luck.
-
For whatever it may be worth - and I speak as just an organist, not an organ builder or consultant - I think that the best organs are those constructed with their space in mind.
I'm sure Mander and his counterparts would agree than a new organ has to be the right size, not only for the building but for whatever space assigned to it within said building. It needs to be appropriate for the regular job(s) it may have to perform - in most cases accompanying congregations; in many cases accompanying choirs with a varied repertoire; in a few cases, playing in recitals and concerts.
Whatever an organist wants, he or she needs to put aside any preconceptions of "our ideal organ" and listen very carefully to what an organ builder / consultant says. Such people are skilled in determining what sound a building may require, and in drawing up specifications to achieve that. It's all well and good to put one's foot down and demand a double reed here, an Open Wood there or a greater number of pedal stops - one may even argue that such things must be included as characteristically "British" or "eclectic" sounds - but if the building doesn't require them, or if the builder is going to have to sacrifice some other stop(s) to include them, one must take that into account and try to accept doing without.
If you look at the most successful recent builds - St Barnabas Dulwich, Marlborough College, Glenalmond College, Jesus College Cambridge - you'll see instruments that, despite lacking certain characteristics, are exactly what their buildings need. They are also excellent representatives of their respective builders' work, and thus proof of this point that "the builder's advice should always be heeded!"
-
I wonder whether the problem is really more to do with liturgy than it is to do with repertoire.
Some people are driven away from the Church by "accessible" music and by Common Worship services that lack the dignity, poetry or familiarity of BCP; newer generations are put off by BCP services with their arcane language and music that doesn't allow for them to participate much, if at all.
When 5th Sundays roll around, we have a single BCP Choral Communion service as opposed to one CW and one BCP service for different congregations. At the last of those, on 29th August, the BCP folks were in their element but it was very sad that the CW crowd - at present a majority - could not engage with the words or music despite their best efforts. One regular attender told us afterwards that she just couldn't get her head round the words, didn't understand why the Choir alone sang the Sanctus and Agnus Dei, and was sorry she couldn't even join in with the Creed and Gloria because she doesn't know the Merbecke setting and finds it hard to sing. (I should stress, this is a very intelligent woman whose entire family - husband and three daughters - have gone from being unbelievers to being committed Christians in less than two years, all because of our Family Services.)
To my mind, we're all dancing around a fundamental issue which we'll have to grapple with sooner or later: Choirs and Robes and "traditional" services are glorious reminders of an age when language, spirituality and culture were very different ... an age now long gone, supplanted by a new one in which values, beliefs and attitudes have been drastically altered, some for better and some for worse.
People are afraid of change, and the Church especially so, because it means that good things pass away - sometimes never to return. And of course, the Church is supposed to be a bastion of timelessness in the midst of changing times! Yet change is a truth of our existence, just like mortality, and the best way to stave off extinction is to evolve with the times. As Hugh Keyte once said in a CD note, "traditions will ossify if new life is not breathed into them." Indeed - and it's not my intention to create controversy by saying this - it could be argued that the Book of Common Prayer is an example of "tradition ossified," since it no longer does its job of providing a "common" language that all can understand.
Traditional music can play a part in more contemporary liturgies: witness for example the Funeral of Princess Diana in 1997, with its unique liturgy enabling all to take part and its eclectic combination of music encompassing J.S. Bach, William Croft, John Tavener, Guiseppe Verdi, Elton John, folk song and hymns both traditional and contemporary. Or for a more recent example, take Sheffield Cathedral's experiments with CW Evening Prayer (as opposed to BCP Choral Evensong) on Sundays in Lent 2009. The liturgy was very different from what is familiar to most of us, yet there was ample use of established church music in both modern and 1662 language. To some, it reeks of "old wine in new bottles," but is that such a terrible thing if the old wine is very good, and "new people" discover it in a way that will bring them back for more?
-
We had just such a service in Kendal last Sunday...
I put to our new Priest-in-charge the options of "War March of the Priests" (Mendelssohn) or "Marche Pontificale" (Widor). His reply was something along the lines of, "Hm, interesting - one makes it look like I'm on the warpath, the other makes it look like I have ideas well above my station..."
He chose the Widor in the end, and it went down extremely well.
-
I prepared my University Final Recital (including the Liszt BACH) from memory, but used the scores on the day as a safety net. Another of my pieces was the Bach/Ernst Concerto movement in C, which I got through without the score in front of my tutor who then told me that Carlo Curley had fallen foul of that one in a recital. (Kept cycling round and round because of the similarity between exposition and recapitulation; apparently, he ended up throwing his hands over his head and yelling, "you'll just have to imagine the ending, folks!" or words to that effect.)
There are odd bits and scraps I can do - I find that there's plenty of Bach I can recall quite easily, and it doesn't matter what organ I'm on because registration is a lot more straightforward than it would be in later music.
Two names I've encountered who play (or played) routinely from memory are Jean Langlais (for obvious reasons) and Jean Guillou, the latter of whom always plays his own compositions from score just in case he ends up revising them on the spot! His playing is so idiomatic, of course, that it doesn't matter if something goes wrong - he can usually improvise his way out of it, or make it sound like Bach / Vierne / Widor / Dupre / Whoever always intended things to sound a certain way. Langlais was similar; for him the distinction between composition, improvisation and performance was so very blurred that recordings of his own material sometimes depart considerably from the published score - and they're all the more exciting and intriguing for it.
-
I believe the fees in question are perfectly acceptable on principle, and indeed may have some legal clout behind them.
If I understand things correctly, the policy of doubling a wedding fee for a video recording stems from Performing Rights - professional musicians have the right to receive a fee for all performances, and the playing back of a recording counts as a performance in the eyes of the law. Since it would be a logistical nightmare (and unreasonable) to demand "repeat fees" from couples every time they play back their wedding video, the organist can charge a lump sum (50% of the fee for audio, 100% of it for video - hence "double") to waive such rights in future.
As for the matter of charging despite the couple bringing in their own organist, I suppose there's a strong argument towards it being redundancy pay - after all, what else what you call it if you arrived at work one day to find someone else in your Office doing your job? Even if the boss told you it was just for a day and that you'd be back at work as normal next morning, you could still have him for making you redundant.
Of course, as others have already pointed out here, the issue becomes a lot thornier when taking into account that many "organists" are not professionals, still less able to play as well for a wedding as the couple's chosen friend who is FRCO...!
-
I play both Sonatas 5 & 6, the copies of which were given to me by Dr Jackson himself. He sent me Sonata 5 as a "going-away present" when I left York in 2003; I had the pleasure of hearing it in his Minster recital that year, sharing my copy with Philip Moore and exchanging knowing glances whenever it seemed that a wrong note had been played - with Francis, a wrong note could just as easily be a revision! Some years later I was playing at York myself, and although my programme did not include so much as a note of FJ's music, he came along anyway and asked if I had learnt his 6th Sonata yet - whereupon I said I had been waiting to get hold of a copy, whereupon he produced one from out of his bag and handed it to me, admonishing me to get to work on it straight away. I was utterly lost for words at this display of the legendary Jackson generosity - "Dr Jackson, I really don't know what to say!" "Well then, don't say it!" came his reply...
Both works have many rewarding moments for player and listener. The inner movements of both works (Scherzetto and Canzona in 5, reflecting the fact that the whole work is a homage to Whitlock and his own C minor Sonata) are extremely useful on their own as service material or recital fillers. The technical demands of each work are considerable - active pedal parts, quick changes of manual to be executed cleanly, registration changes ditto (although the composer is seldom specific about what he wants; it's up to you to find the best sounds available on your instrument that will also suit the character of the music). However, you may find the learning process hugely enjoyable, especially if you take your time and don't rush, even where a faster tempo is clearly required. (FJ would often quote Bairstow in his lessons with me: "If you drive through the countryside in a fast car, you'll miss all the beauty and the detail" or words to that effect.)
Sonata 6 could just about work on a two-manual instrument if that's all you have; 5 needs at least three manuals, as do the other sonatas.
-
"Come, Holy Ghost" by Thiman, anyone? I found a copy of it some years ago - published I think by OUP or Novello.
I'm also aware of an RSCM publication, "Be filled with the Spirit" by Harry Bramma, though I've neither heard nor seen it.
With the Junior Boys at Kendal last Sunday, we did "Spirit of the Living God" and the older Boys and Men did the Harris ("Come down...") which they've really taken a shine to. The voluntary adult Choir sang the first two verses of "Be still, my soul" (tune Finlandia) whose words could at a pinch be taken to refer to the Spirit in action if not in name.
Congregational reactions
in The Organ
Posted
Now then... I could ponder this one for days!
I've long favoured an educational approach towards organ music as part of worship, combined with (obviously) an attitude of matching music to season or occasion as carefully as possible. I also feel it's a duty to champion the neglected and to prevent traditions from ossifying. Yet it's also important to remember that one's choice of music could "make or break" the worship of others...
Lefebure-Wely has nearly always gone down well in places where I've worked, although this has resulted in numerous interminable requests for "it." Sometimes I honour these requests, but sometimes I take the opportunity to show people that he wasn't a one-work composer: hence, having trotted out the Sortie in E flat for the All-Age Service in two consecutive months, I switched to the Sortie No. 1 in B flat and opened everyone's ears anew to this varied and joyous stuff - with which, let it be remembered, Lefebure-Wely bid his congregations "go in peace to love and serve the Lord" (or more likely "Deo gratias") at Ste Sulpice every week. (Next time, they'll be getting Sortie No. 2 in B flat, which hardly anyone seems to play but which doesn't really deserve to be eclipsed by the others, superior as they are.)
In a similar vein, I have shown my congregations that there is another Widor Toccata (that from his 4th Symphonie) and also that Widor had a quiet and delicate side suitable for Communion or the end of an Evening Service. I've introduced wedding parties to the delights of Dubois' "Cantilene Nuptiale" and shown that Saint-Saens wrote a lot more than the Organ Symphony or Carnival of the Animals.
Just about any Bach is well received, as are Buxtehude and Whitlock. Things like the Reubke Sonata (Fugue) and Bossi Etude Symphonique have provoked favourable comment, although this is more to do with the virtuosic nature of the music than with the degree of aptness for a service. I've even managed to get Messiaen into the picture, albeit with works that are the most approachable for average listeners: "Le banquet celeste" (especially on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday) and "Offrande au Saint Sacrement" go down better than "Transports de joie" or "Dieu parmi nous." (People like their ears to be tickled, but not assaulted!) Jongen, Howells, Peeters and Andriessen are usually appreciated, particularly in their more tender or joyous moments, but Petr Eben is a little too astringent for local tastes. And composers like Stanley, Gibbons and Blow tend to be met with indifference - people neither like nor dislike them, for it seems to them like musical polyfiller.
Not since I came to my current post have I heard the words "please don't play that again," although for a time there was an autistic girl with sensitive ears who reacted badly to the louder stuff and whose mother tried to persuade me to play the louder Bach pieces "with the volume down." (I think in the end I suggested that they might try sitting somewhere other than directly in front of the pipework, where they were clearly getting blasted to pieces by the full force of the instrument!) I'm about to move to a new post next term, so it will be interesting to see what will go down well and what won't; I have a fair idea from old music lists of the sort of thing that my immediate forebear used to play, but I've also met with folks there who say that they've often asked to hear a bit more Lefebure-Wely and been turned down... so perhaps I can reunite them with their "old friends" whilst introducing them to new ones...