sotto

It's one of my favourite organ pieces, a masterpiece, but very obviously orchestral and symphonic in conception, and this puts it beyond the technique of many classical organists. I think you need to have lived and breathed Elgar to appreciate his music completely. I was playing violin and viola in performances of Gerontius, Apostles, Kingdom and Music Makers through my teens and the combination of music and words spoke to and entered my soul. The man was a genious and the organ sonata reflects many aspects of his brilliance, not least his ability to create great tunes.

That's a pretty good list. Can I be provacative and suggest that if we want to inspire children about both classical music and the organ as an instrument we should be prepared to include transcriptions? How about (in alphabetical order):- Bach: Toccata and fugue in D minor Frank: Piece Heroique Holzmann: Blaze away Lefebure-Wely: Sortie in E flat Messiaen: Transport de joie Mulet: Tu es Petrus Rheinberger: Introduction and passacalia, sonata no. 8 Souza: Liberty bell march Vierne: Finale from Symphony no.1 Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries

I tend to agree with this. In my experience the organists that support the local association days are those that would never otherwise get to play away from home, ie. the less capable. I'm not sure that's the best experience for a promising student.

I know where it is, of course, and how to switch it to operate as a + stepper piston, but as a very occasional visiting organist my foot just doesn't quite find it to be where I expect, I'm sure I'd soon get used to it with more familiarity. I'd like to stress again that my question above is in the context of my overall appreciation of the instrument which I regard as very fine indeed and a great success.

I learnt, initially from my local church organist who was a pupil of Sumsion at Gloucester Cathedral. Then subsequently from Paul Trepte who was a pupil of Donald Hunt who had been articled clerk to Sumsion at Gloucester Cathedral. So I've always felt an influence back to Sumsion. Not as good as JSB, but then we must make do...

Some members will remember that I was a fairly vocal critic of the decision to scrap the old Worcester organ, well that's water under the bridge now. The new quire organ sounds fabulous, I'm a particular fan of the solo Cor Anglais. I played for weekend services when my own choir sang a couple of years ago and enjoyed it thoroughly, although I found the Gt-Ped (+) toe piston hard to locate which caused me some problems. More recently I played for a visiting choir last Saturday and again found the Gt-Ped toe piston hard to locate, in fact I gave up on it, but I really felt disconnected between the keyboards and the pipes in a way that I don't think I've ever felt with any other action. I'm no tracker action purist, far from, nor am I the sort of organist that sits there hitting the same key repeatedly to test the repitition. I wonder if anyone else has felt this, or is it just me?

I have a degree of fondness for the Harrison organ in the Lady Chapel, does it ever get used?

As far as I can see from a quick search this topic hasn't been raised since 2008 so I hope it's OK to bring it up again. I played for a wedding yesterday at which the service started exactly 42 minutes late. Now I accept that sometimes there are roadworks or whatever that build in a margin of error but not that much. As it happens I had no subsequent engagements that day but they had no way of knowing that. To me it's completely unacceptable. If you make an appointment with me, which a wedding is, for a certain time, then I expect you to be there at that time. The same as any other professional person would do. If you do not show up at the appointed time then the deal should be off, your fault, your problem. I'm interested to know if anyone has policies in place to deal with this, such as refundable deposits for lateness or contractual agreements as to when the organist is entitled to shut up shop and go home. I don't want to ruin anyone's "big day" but neither do I want my good will to be taken advantage of and for anyone to be able to ruin my day by their lateness!

Flattening the pitch of the magnificent Hill organ in Lichfield Cathedral was ruled out, I believe, on the grounds that it would alter the character of the instrument. Either they or Peterborough must have got it wrong, surely? My sympathy tends towards Lichfield. It may be anathema on this board to make this suggestion, but if the concern at Peterborough is to have an instrument at orchestral pitch for concert use they could install a top of the range digital solution for a fraction of the cost which would me more than adequate to serve within the context of an orchestral accompaniment without compromising the integrity of the Hill organ.

I would recommend the Kalmus, which is excellent. To confuse matters over Ricordi, there is now a newer Ricordi edition, which outwardly looks identical to the old one, but which is a perfectly good edition which does not repeat the mistakes from the earlier edition. The "bad" edition is the one edited by Alfredo Casella, the "good" Ricordi is edited by Gian Francesco Malipiero.

I hope I'm not breaching any rules with this, or if I am that I will be dealt with kindly. I urgently need to find a tenor soloist for a concert including Bach's Magnificat in D and Sleepers Wake on 10th December near to Gloucester. Reasonable professional fees and expenses would not be an issue. I would be delighted to hear from anyone able to sing themself or with a recommendation and contact details.

Well we processed to "Christians lift up your hearts" in the morning, as discussed recently in the "Hail the festival day" thread. What a wonderful tune it is for processions, very uplifting. The choir is not so strong at the moment, so we used "O holy spirit, Lord of grace" (Tye) as our introit and "If ye love me" (Tallis) as the communion motet. At evensong we had the Stanford hymn-anthem "Purest and Highest" which is simple but I regard as something of a gem.

Having played for evensong in Hereford yesterday so many of the details in this thread seem strikingly relevant. I have said before, and stand by the fact, that I find the Willis III console in Hereford very comfortable and always feel at home there very quickly. Having said that I do agree that the plethora of rocker tab couplers in a single horizontal row beneath the music desk is not the most user friendly feature. I can never find the coupler that I want (despite the fact that the more usual ones are coloured red) and tend to use the reversible thumb pistons rather than trying to track down the rocker tabs. I've also been caught out by the general crescendo pedal on this instrument before now, but it does have an on/off switch which I now know always to check on arrival. In the past I've been dubious as to the value of the 0 pistons but yesterday I found the 0 piston on the great quite useful as at times it was easier to press this piston and keep playing on the great clavier rather than switching to the swell clavier and knocking off great-pedal. Stepper systems I love for service accompaniment. Yes we managed without them in the past, but that doesnt change the fact that we can manage better with them now. I tend to mix and match, and use individual departmental thumb pistons where appropriate and use the stepper toe piston for multi-division changes, or for special registrations not available on the departmentals, or for those occasions when both hands are busy but the right foot is free.

It can be frustrating as a visitor when, even on a multi channel leviathon, no instructions are left as to which channels may be altered. Most cathedrals and major churches have the sense to leave clear instructions on this subject but not all do, with one of the large 4-manuals near to home being a prime example. (In case anyone links this to my earlier post this morning I should make clear that I'm not talking about Worcester here, where the instructions are clear and generous!) On those occasions when I alter pistons on a single-channel system I always note the original settings and restore them before leaving. I assumed everyone did this, it seems only polite.

My church choir sang weekend services in Worcester over the Low Sunday weekend with myself at the organ and a friend guest conducting the choir. This was the first time that I had actually played the new organ and I very much enjoyed it. It was a pleasure for choral accompaniment although I did find it difficult to judge the balance with the choir with the swell organ sounding a little subdued at the console. I received no comments or complaints so assume it was about right! I had wondered in advance about the size of the console with so many "prepared for" stops but found it to be very comfortable and I felt at home with it very quickly. The only small niggle that I had was that for some reason I found the toe stepper + piston hard to locate, but I guess that was just me. The choir flutes were so enchanting that I had to warn my singers not to be transfixed by the sound and to keep singing. Incidentally, and slightly off topic, the welcome given to visiting choirs by the clergy and staff at Worcester is second to none and frankly puts many other cathedrals to shame.

I like it, its a wonderfully stirring tune and really its not that difficult to keep track of which verse you're on. We use Common Praise which doesnt include "Hail the festival day" but does have "Christians lift up your hearts" which makes a wonderful processional hymn for Pentecost.

I also use Capella. It does everything you have asked for except pdf output at a fraction of the price of Sibelius and is very easy to use. Software Partners will also sell you two very useful and inexpensiver priniting utilities, FinePrint and pdfFactory, the first is great for transforming any document done as A5 pages into booklets for printing and folding on A4 paper, pdfFactory will turn your document into a pdf.

Not directly relevant, but last time we had the Bishop of Gloucester with us for our Sung Eucharist I picked Elgar's "Ecce Sacerdos Magnus" as the communion motet, just my little joke. Needless to say noone noticed.

Whilst the playing on that youtube clip is clearly terrible, am I the only person that is troubled by the moral issue of making an unauthorised recording of a public performance and publishing it on the internet?

We generally use Blaenwern for Love Divine for Sunday services, although I occasionally throw in the Stainer tune just for a change. I always check which tune in wanted for weddings and funerals and would say its probably about 60/40 in favour of Stainer in my church. For Praise to the Holiest I normally use Gerontius, but, having been brought up on AMR, sometimes use Richmond. For O Jesus I have promised I stick to Wolvercote, for the simple reason that I love that tune.

Well no, much worse. The console of the grove organ is close to ground level in the north transept. The transept is completely cut off from the quire by the choir stalls themselves, wooden panneling, etc. to a considerable height. A player at the Grove console is really completely isolated and might as well be in the gift shop.

I'm not sure just how off pitch it is, but its the geography of the abbey that would make it unusable accompanying a choir. Even with CCTV the player would be completely isolated from the choir and would probably have difficulty hearing them. Assessing balance would be a nightmare. As OmegaConsort has said, similar considerations would apply in orchestral concerts even if the instrument were at pitch. Well maybe Paul will comment. I've played the Bristol organ quite a bit over the last 8 years or so and my experience is that there are always faults in the action. This has been discussed on these forums before and I believe it has been stated by people with much more technical knowledge of it than myself that the action is inherently difficult and in need of constant adjustment.

What a marvellous way of putting it ! mhm, having just suffered another weekend, complete with cyphers, in Bristol Cathedral I have a different take on that. (And dont get me wrong, I love the organ, just not its action and reliability.) I wasnt questioning its function for organ recitals, but the overwhelming majority of concerts in the abbey are choral and orchestral concerts for which the Grove is completely unusable.

Well that's ignoring the issues that I raised earlier. If the Grove was going to replace the Milton as the only organ (ignoring the tiny Elliot instrument) then in my opinion, to make it usable, it would need:- moving from its buried location in the transept a case a new console adjustment to concert pitch This would probably fundamentally alter the character of the instrument. Put differently, if the Milton were to fall silent the abbey would effectively be left without a usuable instrument for its liturgy and for concert use apart from the odd organ recital. Whereas if the Grove were to fall silent it would not affect the life and worship of the abbey one jot.

I believe I have commented previously in other threads on my admiration of the Milton organ in its present form, its a very fine instrument indeed and sounds wonderful in the building. There are some issues with workmanship in the console to my mind, where some of the thumb pistons are already problematic. The talk about 2 romantic instruments in the building seems to me to be giving little or no consideration to the job that these organs are called upon to do. Tewkesbury Abbey is above all a parish church, its main requirements are for an organ to lead the liturgy and accompany its choirs. The Abbey is also in very regular use as a venue for choral and orchestral concerts and it needs the organ to be able to play its part such concerts when required. It would be nigh impossible to accompany a choir (in the quire) from the Grove console, certainly not a comfortable or sensible solution for the daily services. The Grove is also famously not at concert pitch rendering it unable with an orchestra. For all its historic interest and musical worth the Grove remains a large, ugly and expensive red herring of little or no liturgical or concert use.