Nick Bennett
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Posts posted by Nick Bennett
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Depends if you think it's worth paying a small fortune to enable you to play the Thalben-Ball variations. Or has anything else ever been written that demands top G?
Priere du Christ from l'Ascension, Messiaen
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Slight tangent, but what about other countries - e.g. Germany, France, Netherlands, USA? What pedalboard layout would you expect to find on new instruments in these countries? Do they have national standards?
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Well the so-called Royal College of Organists was about to do the same thing not so long ago.
I can't imagine why British organs and organ builders are simply by-passed all the time.
Add me to the list of those wondering why on earth a jolly good English Romantic organ couldn't be rescued and rebuilt....
Seems to me that the world is going mad!
All the time? Haven't British builders been involved in major works at Worcester, St Albans, Peterborough, Blackburn, St Paul's, Bridlington, the RAH - to name but a few - in recent years? Or did I imagine that?
The British organ builders displaying their wares at the International Organ Festival in July were boasting that their order books were full for several years in advance. There hardly seems to be a crisis. In fact, is it possible that people are going abroad because they want their organ delivering quickly?
Which particular jolly good English Romantic organ did you have in mind as being available to rescue and suitable as a teaching instrument at the RAM?
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Anybody got a copy of de Klerk's "Ten Organworks"? Or possibly just the Aria and Toccata (which I think are in this collection). My Dutch contacts tell me it is out of print.
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I have the 1881 Breitkopf edition to hand here, edited by Clara Schumann, no less. There are no suggestions at all as to registration. In fugue I, the pedal doesn't enter until bar 12 - so no attempt to move the manual parts to the pedals. Lovely clear layout, too.
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On some instruments another "unintended consequence" of having the great reeds available on the choir is the opportunity (an opportunity which, I hasten to add, I would never take ...) to use the choir octave and sub-octave couplers with the great reeds and then couple the result back to the great ...
(OK, I admit it - I did do it - once - just once ...)
Do any Harrison's of this period have octave and/or sub-octave couplers on the Choir? AH was very keen not to "over couple" the Halifax organ, and none of the couplers the organist wanted got into the scheme.
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This web site lists lots recitals in the Netherlands. Click on "search" to get beyond the current week.
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I suppose that making the tuba available on the pedal is the sole raison d'etre of the Solo to Pedal coupler on a 1920's Harrison. I can't imagine any other of the solo stops at Halifax being much use on the pedal - I've tried them and they are too quiet in the bass.
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I agree with Handsoff regarding Carlo Curley. He makes organ music entertaining and you can see that he enjoys himself when he is playing unlike some recitalists who appear to want to be somewhere else.
Carlo brought thousands to Ally Pally in the 1980's most of who probably didn't even know that they were not listening to a real pipe organ, but his light classical programme and personality suited the audience who returned again and again wanting more. .
Personally I don't like the heavy stuff, but I wonder whether recitalists study their audience or do they play what they want to play?. A request programme might be an idea for some concerts. would that work ?
Colin Richell.
Not if you are trying to bring in people who don't know any organ music yet!
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To be honest, I wonder whether all this is symptomatic of the organ crying out for an identity in a world that has scant interest in it.
In my view, the organ will find its identity by taking its repertoire seriously, being itself and not trying to be something else. Especially it should not try to be an orchestra - competing with the orchestra on the orchestra's own ground is just asking for defeat.
Is it the world or just the UK that has scant interest in the organ? There is plenty of interest in the organ in Germany - the weekly recitals in Cologne Cathedral are full and standing.
Taking Nick's second point above, pianists, orchestral instrumentalists and the like know where they stand. To them the word "recital" has no negative connotations. It denotes "proper" classical music played by "proper" classical musicians for those with a serious interest in it. Entertainment is through edification, not cheap amusement.Of course it does! That's because pianists play proper classical music in their recitals. Isn't there a lesson for us here?
The organ, on the other hand, has an honourable foot in both camps. However, in terms of solo entertainment it probably has more of a pedigree in the field of light entertainment. After all, as has been pointed out many times on this forum (including above, I think) before the days of mass media, it was one of the chief means of bringing music to the public. In those days people went to organ recitals for fun, much as they might an end-of-the-pier show. Around the middle of the last century determined efforts began to be made to try to raise the status of the organ so that people would regard it on the same footing as any other serious classical instrument. So we were all encouraged to restrict ourselves to genuine organ repertoire and then only pieces that could stand shoulder to shoulder with mainstream music. Transcriptions, being "impure", were decidedly infra dig. For better or worse, that movement seems to have been abandoned as a lost cause and many have inclined again to the days of the town hall recital type of entertainment where transcriptions are again all the rage. I suspect that the general punter actually prefers this - but the general punter doesn't seem to include many serious classical musicans who by and large continue to regard the organ as a curiosity.The piano has an even greater pedigree in light entertainment, does it not? That cannot be the root cause of the organ's image problem. Where the organ is taken seriously, serious classical musicians turn up to hear it. I am thinking for example of St Albans a couple of weeks ago.
Why do many serious classical musicians continue to regard the organ as a curiosity? Because we present it as such! As evidence of this I quote post #287:
Although not a recital, on Saturday 12 September Andrew Fletcher is demonstrating the the organ in Birmingham Town Hall as part of the Artsfest Weekend. The time for this is 4.30pm to 5.15pm and is preceded from 3pm by Ex Cathedra singing early choral music.Isn't this treating the organ as a curiosity? By contrast, Ex Cathedra will be performing some proper repertoire - and possibly some quite recondite stuff, too, by the sound of it. They will not be "demonstrating the human voice"; nor did I notice the Britten-Pears Ensemble demonstrating a variety of stringed and woodwind instruments.
Then again, how many organists have been of equal stature to the finest performers in mainstream classical music? Some there certainly have been - and still are - but what of the general level? Do we do ourselves justice?Exactly the same could be said of pianists or violinists. Possibly the difference is that, whereas almost all piano recitals are given by professionals, a good proportion of organ recitals are given by amateurs. Don't get me wrong: I think it is wonderful that amateur organists have such opportunities to perform. I just worry about how we come over to the audience, especially where in the same recital series rank amateurs such as myself may give one recital, to be followed the next week by the likes of Paul Derrett or Tom Winpenny. An amateur may give an excellent recital, of course - or they may be barely adequate.
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If it's illegal to play from a photocopy, how can it be proper to take a fee for work not done?
It isn't actually - it's making the copy that may (or may not) be illegal. However ...
The reason you can't make photocopies willy-nilly is that the law of the land says you can't, and it has to be complied with.
The reason an organist gets paid for a wedding he doesn't play for is that he (presumably) has a contract saying he will play for it and be paid, and that, too, has to be complied with.
The situation is really no different from arriving at work and finding the boss's son doing your job for the day: they can't dock you a day's pay.
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I am inclined to agree with Justadad that anyone with much organ-playing experience would be well aware of the pitfalls of turning up to play without first talking to the organist - not least the possibility of finding the organ locked and no-one knowing where to find a key.
An acquaintance of mine played at Norwich cathedral for his son's wedding a couple of years ago. He had to go for an audition, and was required to play through his pieces for one of the resident organists. They had him play the Widor toccata on the flutes until a voice from the bottom of the stairs shouted "tell him to give it some welly"!
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If calling a recital a concert brings in a few more, possibly younger, punters I can't see any harm.
And is there any firm evidence that it does?
The harm done includes:
1. It impoverishes the language by making two words which previously had two slightly different shades of meaning mean the same thing.
2. It serves to distinguish organists from "proper musicians", who don't seem to have this hang-up about the word "recital".
3. It makes the speaker or writer appear to be unable to use his own language properly, which diminishes his authority in the eyes of his listeners or readers.
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It just goes to show that art transcends war.
Indeed. Did you see the web site where someone has listed concert programmes by various UK orchestras, including some of them through the war? Lots of German/Austrian music was being played throughout the hostilities, and German artists started appearing very soon thereafter.
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I must confess to preferring the term 'concert'. I think the words 'organ' and 'recital' in one sentence can summon up the picture of a dusty old organist playing obscure, atonal music in the punters' minds.
Nevertheless, if your child said it, you would feel obliged to correct him or her, in the same way you would if they had said "tennis bat" or referred to eating a cup of tea.
Obscure atonal music? I wish!! Mind you, there was plenty of that at St Albans last week, in among, and cracking pieces they were too. Very few dusty old organists though - except in the audience, where there were lots
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One could argue that by using the word 'concert' to describe an organ recital, the promoter or performer is demonstrating that s/he considers the organ to be an 'orchestra in a box'.
One could argue lots of things - e.g. that they don't know the difference between a recital and a concert; or that they are deliberately using the wrong word in order to disguise the nature of the event and bring punters in under false pretences; or that their use of the word "concert" is a form of self-aggrandisement.
The phrase "orchestra in a box" sounds like the slippery slope to playing arrangements of orchestral music instead of the organ's proper repertoire. Arrangements generally disappoint: one hears the original orchestration in ones mind's ear and wishes one's actual ear were hearing it, too. One might marvel at the skill of the performer and the transcriber - but I do feel that is something only other organists will appreciate. Sorry, I'm on my transcriptions hobby horse again - but I do feel passionately about it!
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I fail to see how one person can give a concert, which the OED defines to be "a musical performance in which several performers take part".
Pianists and singers don't shy away from the word "recital" - why should organists?
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Let's not turn this into another "I am not interested in the music of X and I don't see why anybody else is" discussion. Nobody likes every composer's music. And the Pope is a Catholic. Fancy that.
The suggestion that Howells's music is fit only for teenagers I find rather insulting. I am afraid I have not had Mr M's good fortune in moving beyond juvenile tastes and developing a liking for a good tune - the sure sign of the fully developed musical taste, if ever there was one.
Anyway, I am off to St Albans for the week. I am hoping I will be able to find somebody there who can tell one piece from another.
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I am more interested in the Recitalist, venue and the condition of the said organ.
But not the works being played, apparently
Mind you, it has to be said that promoters of recitals - unlike the promoters of operas, orchestral concerts, et. al. - seem to think the works being performed are of little consequence, as they rarely give much (if any) advance notice of them. Imagine turning up at Covent Garden not knowing whether one was going to hear Handel, Wagner, Mozart or Birtwistle!
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Am I alone in thinking that this is an awful name?
Nope. It is toe-curlingly patronising. Evelyn Waugh simply didn't go far enough!
I thought the demise of the London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Company was a great pity, if only because of the loss of such a splendid name. Had its own railway, too, at one time.
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Darius Battiwalla is playing the organ with the BBC Phil at proms 9, 12, and 29.
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Mr and Mrs Vre d'Orgue and their son, Lee.
Mr and Mrs Gegrusset and their son, Si.
The rather common Mr and Mrs Entispartibus and their son 'arry.
From the Valleys, please welcome Mr and Mrs Alog Sur Les Grands Jeux and their son, Dai.
And Mrs and Mrs See de Tierce en Taille and their son, Ray.
Two chaps both called Harry, with their sons from up north - yes, it's Harry's son and Harry's son of Durham.
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With regards to Tony's comments on this thread, I consider them to be sensitive and well-considered. Clearly, some contributors disagree strongly with his views, but I would respectfully suggest that those who have expressed their disagreement in a similarly thoughtful and sensitive manner have contributed more to this discussion than those who have rushed to take offence - not least because offence-taking kills any hope of robust but respectful debate.
Hear, hear!
It is pretty clear from the context that Tony was referring specifically to Christian faith. I suppose we must ourselves be charitable and allow that it may honestly not have occurred to some readers to construe his comment in that way. I hope this is the case.
Let him who has never written (or uttered) a sentence that might be misconstrued cast the first stone.
Teaching Styles And Instruments At Music Colleges
in General discussion
Posted
Gosh, what an instrument! Did I detect Justason among the participants?
Any advice on making a Grands Jeux on this sort of thing - or is it more a case of "I wouldn't start from here if I were you"?